An Economic History of Rome to the End of the Republic

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ECONOMIC HISTORY OF ROME

TO THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

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AN ECONOMIC HISTORY OF ROME

TO THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

By TENNEY frank

Aofeaor of LAiia is the JohM HopUat Univcralty

BALTIMORE

Tbb Jobns Hopkins Prbss

1920

HO F7

Copyright, xpao By Thb Johns Hopkins Pi

THC new CMA ^KiN-nNO coitf amy

LANCASTU PA.

PREFACE

The reasons why no economic history of Rome has hitherto been available may perhaps not be apparent to those who have not attempted to write one. (The lack of easily interpreted data has indeed made the task almost impossibl^ Roman history which received little atten- tion until Rome had become a world power was there- after for two centuries written chiefly by public men who had devoted their lives to politics and diplomacy. These men naturally had no personal interest in commerce and manufacture; indeed they were members of a class that held traders and manufacturers in slight esteem. As a consequence their books, from which of course Livy drew his account, contained only casual remarks regard- ing the economic conditions of their nation. Archaeology has recently provided important material, especially for the study of the early period, but it is material that can- not always be precisely interpreted. The inscriptions dating from the Republican period are brief, and unfor- tunately temple accounts, which have provided many facts for the reconstruction of Greek economic history, were at Rome kept on perishable material. The papyri that have recently been found in large quantities in Eg3rpt provide data in the main only for that kingdom, the eco- nomic mechanism of which was so peculiar that the his- torian cannot apply the inferences drawn from them to conditions prevailing elsewhere. It is for such reasons

vii

Vlll PREFACE

as these that students of antiquity have hesitated to at- tempt an account of Rome's economic development, and that the reader cannot now be supplied with adequate tables of prices, wages, exports, imports, and the like. Iff the definite facts recorded in the present volume seem ^ot to be commensurate with the space required for the record, the cause lies to some extent at least in the fre- quent necessity of interpreting the ambiguous material available before using it for historical purposes)

It was my intention to continue this history through the Empire, but new work that cannot be avoided has made this impossible. The book is, however, not a frag- ment. (Jhe Republic shaped most of the ideas and insti- tutions which we associate with the word Rome; the Empire was largely a conglomeration of non-Italic peo- ples that never quite coalesced and that were directed more or less mechanically by a government which tried with only partial success to impose upon them the insti- tutions created by the Republic. The new ideas that originated in the Empire were in general not of Latin origin nor in accord with the spirit of the old Republic. It is desirable, therefore, to consider the Republic as a unit, and not to confuse its practices with those of the Empire. Where, however, light could be thrown upon the earlier histor)' by reference to methods that demon- strably continued into the Empire I have not hesitated to draw illustrative material from the later period, and have in fact let the story of several chapters run far into the second century of our era for the purpose of reaching the logical sequel of conditions originating in the Republic.

PREFACE

I wish to thank the editors of the Amcncan iusioncal Review, the American Economic Review, Classical Phi- lology, The Military Historian and Economist, and the Classical Journal for permitting me to use certain para- graphs and summaries of studies which have been printed in their journals, and especially to express my gratitude to my colleague, Professor Wilfred Pirt Mustard, for his kindness in reading and bettering the manuscript.

T.F. February 29, 192a

V-

CONTENTS

CXArrn Tttm

^ I. Agriculture in Early Latium I

II. The Early Trade of Latium and Etruria 13

III. The Rise of the Peasantry.. 36

-^ IV. New Lands for Old. 51

V. Roman Coinage 64

f "• VI. The Establishment of the Plantation. 84

^ _yil. Industry and Commerce L2J •/

-^"^'^VnLJ The Gracchan Revolution.. nj /

IX. Public Finances 131 •^

X. The Plebs Urbana ^

O " XI. Industry at the End of the Republic 105

^ XII. Industry, continued ^ 190

XIII. Capital...U19 /

* XIV. Commerce 241 \

-K ^- XV. The Laborer 'J^^^

XVI. The Exhaustion of the Soil..., ^'^^^^^^

]

CHAPTER I

Agriculture in Early Latium

Italy's wealth in ancient times as in modem lay in her food-producing soil. Gold was never found in the penin- sula, and but little silver. Iron and copper were mined only in a narrow strip of Etruria, too circumscribed to entice many Romans into industries. The commerce of the seas was developed and held by people U dowed with productive land, races compelled to trade if they werejo mip^^^ Agriculture was therefore Ital/t industos >n particular the ailtivation o! the Western littoral composed of the ejecta of the many volcanoes between central Etruria and Naples, and of the deep alluvial deposits of the Po valley. The hardy farmers of the Roman Campagna'it was who organized the irre- sistible legions that united Italy and through the united strength of Italy the Mediterranean world, and it was the submersion of this stock of farmers that hastened the end of ancient civilization.

The Latin plain in its present conformation is very recent, so recent that the last masses of volcanic ash probably post-date the pyramids of Egypt. The process of formation continued from long before the glacial periods and all through them.* More than fifty craters, from which the ash and lava poured, can still be found

^A. Verri, OriguH # Trarformasion^ delta Campogna, 191 1. For an ana^s of the toil sec BolL Soc, Ceol Jtai. 1918, 29 ff.

I

2 AGRICULTURE IN EARLY LATIUM

within twenty-five miles of the imperial city. Long periods of tranquility intervened when jungles grew up over the temporary surface, only to be buried under a new mass of ashes. The deep cuttings of the railways that run out of the eastern gates of Rome expose repeated layers of black and yellow soil lying between thick strata of tufa and ash; they mark the jungles of former intervals of rest. The present surface is not old. The mouth of the Tiber has apparently silted in as much alluvium since Ostia lay upon the seashore in Sulla's day as the river carried down between the last great eruptions and Ostia's foundation. Though the Sabine hills immediately be- hind this plain show numerous sites of habitation several millennia old — some being the homes of savages of the palaeolithic age — and though there are traces throughout the peninsula of the earliest Indo-European peoples of the Terramara civilization^ (the men who in the third millennium introduced the use of copper), the oldest g^ves of the Forum,* the Palatine, and of Grottaferrata cannot with certainty be placed earlier than the iron age, perhaps not more than a thousand years before Cicero. Archaeologists have doubted the accuracy of the reports* published by the excavators who a century ago claimed that the burial urns uncovered below Castel Gandolfo were found under undisturbed layers of volcanic ash, but Pinza has proved the reports accurate, and his own theory that Alba Longa was buried in the debris of an Alban eruption does not entirely lack plausibility.

* Pcct, The Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy.

* Pinza, Monumenti Antichi, XV.

* Pinza, Etnologia Antica Toscano-LactaJe, pp. 33-74.

AGRICULTURE IN EARLY LATIUM 3

J The Latin plain is then of very recent date, and human; cultivation of it of still more recent. It is well knownj that the volcanic ash that falls from Vesuvius is rich in( phosphates and potash and that a moderate admixture ofj it^in the soil acts as an excellent fertilizer. In fact, theCampanian farmer living in the shadow of Vesuvius isnot averse to an occasional eruption if only the volcanobehaves with moderation. The later ash-strata of theAlban volcanoes had an abundance of these same con-stituents, though a large percentage of the original ele-ments has leached out with time. Needless to say, how-ever, the ash alone did not lend itself to cultivation atonce, since grain needs an abundance of nitrogenousmatter, and a solider soil than the ash at first provided.Before men could inhabit the Latin plain we must posita period of wild growth and the invasion of jujigle plantsand forests which could create a sufficiently thick humusfor agricultural purposes. Such forests did invade theplain. Not only do all the authors preserve the traditionsof forests and sacred groves that are mentioned in thetales of early kings, but Theophrastus" still knew ofLatium as a source of timber as late as the third century:" The land of the Latins is well watered, and the plainsbear the laurel and myrtle and remarkable beech trees.Trunks are found that singly suffice for the keel beamsof the great Tyrrhenian ships. Fir and pine grow uponthe hills. The Circaean promontory is thickly overgrownwith oaks, laurels, and myrtle." It is' interesting to find

" Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. V, 8; cf. Pais, Storia Critica diRoma, I, 6z;.

4 AGRICULTURE IN EARLY LATIUM

that the beech then grew in the Latin plains, for now thatthe Campagna is parched and treeless it has withdrawnto the hills, if not to the mountains.

With this growth of timber from a subsoil which hadmany excellent qualities, a very rich soil was beingformed for farming when once the Alban volcanoesshould cease pouring out the flames that kept the hill-peoples back in fear. There can be little doubt that theregion was far from being semi-arid then as it is now.To-day the grass parches brown in June, not to reviveagain till near October, and the wheat is hurried to apremature harvest in the middle of June. But Varrosets July down as the month of harvest in his day, andsummer rains are frequently mentioned in the classicalauthors. It would be hazardous to assume a theory of"climatic pulses" by way of explanation of this differ-ence, and it is doubtful whether a mere two thousandyears in the long recession of the glacial area could causea perceptible change in temperature. The explanation ofthe change is perhaps to be found in the almost completedeforestation of Latium and the mountain behind. Therecap be little doubt that when the Sabine ridge fromPraeneste to Monte Gennaro and the whole Volscianrange were a thick forest instead of the parched whiterocks that now stand out, the cool mountains when struckby the humid sirocco caused condensation and precipita-tion over the plain. In those days moreover, the areas offorests still standing on the mountain sides and plainsretained the water long and afforded a lasting subsoilsupply and an abundance of nightly dewfalls which do

AGRICULTintB IN EARLY LATIUM 5

not now exist when the last rains of tpring leap off the bare rocks and flow away at once in torrents.

When, therefore, the early settlers pushed down into the Campagna and burned out " clearings " for farming (indeed the Terramara folk had then practiced systematic agriculture in the Po valley for many centuries), they found a soil remarkably fertile, ^h^^^yh not vet very deep, and a warmthand humidity that mp^f^ tf*» }|yrw»«» riA% A^wAS to be "expected from such conditions, the popula- tion in time grew dense. There is nothing improbable in the tradition of the fifty villages that Pliny has preserved, The treasures now being gathered into the nmseitni of the Villa Giulia from the ruins of sixth century Ardea, Satricum, Lanuvium, Gabii, Praeneste, Nemi, Velitrae, Norba, and Signia, speak of an era of prosperity that no one dared imagine a few years ago. The ancient lords of these cities, which became malarial wastes before Cicero's day, decked themselves and their homes in the gold and precious stones of all the lands from the Baltic Sea to the Mesopotamian valley. Yet the wealth which made possible all this display did not spring from Latin industry or from commerce directed by Latins, if we may trust the archaeological evidence available. It was

t!— 'nce_pf a rich soil cultivated with unusual intco-

s vh paid for jt, and kept alive a_ thick population

such as^yould probably conapare with the swarmi^ tenantry of theTo valley of to-day.

There are numerous relics from that remarkable agri- cultural period still to be found in Latium, traces of drains, tunnels, and dams that are all too Uttle known.

6 AGRICULTURE IN EARLY LATIUM

The modern Italian farmer who hardly finds his land worth the merest labor of planting and harvesting fails to sec how in a former day the owners could have secured returns for such enormous expenditure of labor. A con- venient place to study the intricate draining system of that time is the district below Velitrae. Here as De La Blanchere* discovered some forty years ago the ground is honeycombed with an elaborate system of tunnels running down the slopes of the hills toward the Pontine marshes, cuniculi as he calls them, about 3 by i^ feet, cut in the tufa a few feet below the surface and usually along the sides of the numerous ravines. De La Blanchere was unfortunately misled by the then prevail- ing "miasmatic" theory of malaria into believing that these tunnels were cut to drain the soil of pest waters. But they occur only on the slopes where the land drains all too readily without aid; they do not touch the stag- nant Pontine marshes below. However, he also sug- gested as a possible theory what seems indeed to be the

• De La Blanchere, in Mel. d'archeol. et d'hist. 1882, also art. Cuniculus, in Daremherg-Saglio. He has probably overempha- sized the use of these canals in draining marshes and subsoil moisture, and seems also to have included in his discussions some tunnels that arc apparently sewage drains belonging to later villas near Rome. The cuniculi of the city are sometimes erroneously brought into the discussion of drains. Many of these were doubt- less secret passage-ways dug to afford avenues of escape or retreat during the proscriptions of the civil wars and during slave uprisings. Antistius Labeo seems to have a reference to the drainage cuniculus in the words: fossa vetus — nee memorem extare quando facta est, Digest 39, 3, 2, i. Cuniculi have been found as far north as Bieda, see Rom. Mitt. 191 5, 185.

ACIICt'LTUKE IN EARLY LATIUM 7

explanation. They were apparently cut at a time of

overpopulation that every foot of arable ground

. \k saved for ailtivation. By diverting the rain

va «!n from the eroding mountain gullies into under- md channels the fanners not only checked a large of the ordinary erosion of the hitttide farms but abo

'i d tlie space usually sacrificed to the torrent-bed. It

Id be difficult to find another place where labor hat

ti so lavishly expended to preserve the arable soil

i rt. 1 A erosion. The ground must have been very vahiable, the population in ^'rcat need to jttstify such heroic sures for the insurance of the anmial harvest. Sim- systems are found in the valleys north of Veii and c probably built under similar conditioos. Indeed, remarkable cutting seventy-five yards long at Ponte o^ near the citadel rock of Veii through which the 50 di Formcllo has ever since flowed seems to have been ertakcn to save a few acres of the circling river bed

i'>. cultivation. Similarly the emissarium of the.Alban

^1, 1.300 yards long and 7 to 10 feet high, was cut High solid rock to save a few hundred acres of arable

-! on the sloping edge within the crater. Even with the

Since Roman Veii stood near this Ponte Sodo (Soltduin), it robably this tunnel that later tradition assigned to the sappers miners of Camillus' army. The stories of mining operations he siege of Veii may account for the strange tales that con- ed the emissarium of Lake Albanus with the Veian siege ^* V, 15). The Romans do not mention the tunnel that ns Lake Nemi, though it is twice as long as the Alban one. pparently was cut before the temple of Diana bccane very ortant. The Vallc Aricciana and the crater lake on the via enestina were abo drained at an early date.

8 AGRICULTURE IN EARLY LATIUM

tools of modern engineers, that task would not now be considered a paying investment. Finally let the student of intensive tillage take a morning walk from Marcellina up Monte Gennaro through the steep ravine of Scarpel- lata. It is usually dry, but after a heavy rain the water pours down in torrents, carrying off what little soil may tend to accumulate. To save small alluvial patches in the course of this ravine the ancient farmers built elaborate dams of finely trimmed polygonal masonry that still withstand the torrents. The masonry is largely made of huge blocks weighing half a ton each and is in no wise inferior to the magnificent polygonal masonry of Segni's town walls. And yet one of these dams could hardly save more than half an acre of arable soil.

It is impossible after surveying such elaborate under- takings to avoid the conclusion that Latium in the sixth century was cultivated with an intensity that has seldom been equalled anywhere. When, furthermore, we con- sider thatJheJoolsjoTth^^ and the mattock, we may be sure that each man's allotment was very small, doubtless no more than the two jugera that Varro_assures us sufficed for the support of the ancient Latin family. It follows that Latium supported a very densely settled population^ With th^e facts TrTview the historian can understand whence came the armies that overran the limits of Latium and overwhelmed all ob- struction when once they were set in motion, why Veii fell, why the burning of Rome was so quickly repaired, and why Campania called all the way to Rome for aid when threatened by the Samnites. It is very probable

►

AGtICULTURB IN BAELY LATIUM o

that when the soil began to show »igpi oC cxhaurtioo undertto severe ttram and an mc»p»r!tv *» f*-*^ the

poptila&o which is proved by the d. • hods mentioned above^ the growing r

sary to seek more rqom, a" ^ w....w

Latin tni

mnmrTT^iT

Of the social organization of thcM: early Latins of the sixth century we have of course no contemporaneous description; the inconsistent conjectures of Roman writ- ers who lived many centuries later, based as they gen- erally were upon institutions that had come into being through the intervening revolutions, provide but uncer- tain material for history. The safest course is to rely as far as possible upon archaeology, upon the fragments of the twelve tables that were written down in the middle of the fifth centur>% and upon whatever inferences can be drawn from the earliest political institutions and social practices that are vouched for by trustworthy writers.

Some deductions for instance may be made from the presence of the extensive agricultural undertakings al- ready mentioned. These could not have been organized and carried through by small land holders, for the tun- nels ran beneath hundreds of individual plots; nor could the primitive democratic communities which we some- times posit for Latium have provided the initiative and sustained efforts that they imply. It is highly probable that these drainage tunnels and dams were undertaken by landlords who owned extensive tracts and who could command and direct the labor of numerous tenants. In brief they suggest that a villa system not unlike the

10 AGRICULTURE IN EARLY LATIUM

manorial system of England of the twelfth century per- vaded Latium at the time. And this inference accords with the evidence available from other sources.

Such a system would explain the Roman institution of clientship as a survival of the personal relationship which in time established itself between the lord and his tenant or serf. The client of those early days had some duties that remind us strikingly of services imposed upon the medieval villein. He was, for instance, bound to make contributions for the dowry of his lord's daughter* and toward the ransom of his lord if the latter was captured in war, and also to go to battle with his lord. It would also explain the miserable political and social condition of the plebeians at the beginning of historical times. To be sure the earliest republican laws and the twelve tables represent_the^pTe^eian'as~ar^tizeji^ of owning property. But he had little else and occu2ied.th£ civil position ol^ne^who Ti^^ Tut recently emerged from a lower status. He had, for instance, no right to hold a magistracy in the state, he had lost the privilege of con- sulting the gods officially, a plebeian could not marry any- one of patrician blood for fear that children of such a

union might inherit patrician rights, and since the patri- cian group in the Senate jiad the power ^ veto, his vote had less than full value.

The villa furthermore was recognized in the earliest law, which indeed calls it the hortus, or the enclosure, while a manorial system with very small copyholds for the peasants seems to be recognized when the garden plot

* Dion. Halic. Antiq. II, lo, i.

AGUCULTUU IN EARLY LATXUM If

of two jugcra (one and one half acres) is caHcd an in- heritance, hcredium* Perhaps also we may find a «»• vival of the open field system in the ** strips,"" in which the land was assigned in Rome's two earliest citizen colo- nies, Ostia and Antium.

Whether the peasant of the Latin village of the sixth century ha Jactoally fallen tnto"reai bondage** as had the hclotjof Sparta, 1 hessaly, and Crete we cannot now de;^ tcrmTnc? Mit tt seems clear at letfg tfUf his condt^ion was in 1 • the viDein of tb<

of manure bclurc Uic ', ^ '• *^' • I>CaiEU ^nc

numerous villages of sih \g aboot the

lord's villas and the community temple must in many re- spects have resembled in form and in social organization the medieval manorial villas. An idea of the social con- trast between the classes may be gathered by comparing the elaborate jewelry of the princely tombs at Satricum

•Leges XII Tabutarum, VII, 3 (Bnins, Pontes); Varro, I, 10. 2. This is supported by the facr that the turvc>'ors in plotting out the land for colonics conserved a two-acre measure in the *• centuriation," and that early colonies granted freeholds of very small plots. At Tarracina (327 B.C.) only two jugcra were given; later colonists were given somewhat larger allot- ments (2J4, 3, 4 jugera) and finally in the Gracchan days thirty jugera. Two jugera (about i^ acres) could hardly have foAced for the needs of a family. Perhaps an additional portion was assigned as a leasehold from the municipal land. See Korac- mann. Pauly-Wissowa, IV, 575.

^•Lacineis adsignatus. Liber colon, (Ed. Rud.) 239^ iS^ for Antium; 236, 7, for Ostia.

>^ This is the view of Neumann, Bauembefremng; cf. E. Meyer, art. PUbs, Conrads Haniwdrterbuch; Hots ford, Rofmom Atttm- blies, pp. 16-65.

12 AGRICULTURE IN EARLY LATIUM

with the meager furniture of the peasant dugout found near by."

It would be useless to raise once more the old questions regarding a possible anterior "community ownership" ^d the beginnings of property rights at Rome; nor is there any reason to expect conclusive evidence on these points. The supposed traces of communism" at Rome are few. The community pastures and wastes near the Latin cities may or may not be survivals of more ex- tended communism: a study of medieval institutions has revealed that township-meadows have frequently been acquired in a late day. Mommsen indeed found it sig- nificant that according to the oldest code a man's prop- erty reverted to his fellow clansmen if he died intestate and without heirs," but this again may be a relatively late invention of the lawmakers. However that may be, the laws of private property had developed long and far before the fifth century when the twelve tables" were drawn up. Since the Terremare" settlements of the Po valley reveal that the ancestors of the Romans were or- derly agriculturists more than a millennium before these laws were written, it is highly probable that the Latin people respected property rights before they settled the plains about Rome.

** See Monuftuttti Antichi, XV, p. 83, and Delia Seta, Museo di Villa Giulia, I.

"Mommsen, Rom. Staatsr. Ill, p. 23: Pohlmann, Gcsch. des antik. Kommunismus, 11,443; Vinogradoff, Growth of the Manor.

^*UgesXIITab.V,z.

^^ Ibid. V, 3, Uti legassit super pecunia tutelavc suae rei, ita jus esto.

*• Pcet, The Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy.

CHAPTER II

The Eably Trade op Latium and Etruria

A FULL millennium at least before Rome's foundjUion» as the Egyptian records of the twelfth dynutf^ show, men traded and thieved on the high-seas of thy ^tJitXt' ranean. Later the Amama tablets reveal Lycian pirates prying upon Egyptian and Cypriote merchants; and Phoenician traders resorted to Spain for British tin be- fore the days of Hiram. It was probably in the eighth century that the Tyrscnian immigrants — who mingling with the Umbrians of Italy fathered the great Etruscan race* — came overseas from the Asia Minor coast. North of the Tiber the adventurers seized several towns from Caere to Vulci. The old cemetery at Tarquinii with its almost complete change from Villanovan urn-burial* to a new type of trench grave is a striking proof of how sudden was the invasion in southern Etruria. In the eighth and seventh centuries the new people, now gen-

» Breasted, History of Egypt, p. i88; Knadtzon, Dit El Amama Taftln, no. 38. In a forthcoming diueitation, which has in {wrt been at my disposal. Miss L. E. W. Adams will discou the early commerce of Latium.

»K6rtc, art. Etrusker, Pauly-Wissowa. Schulxe, LaL Eigen- namen has called attention to the great number of £tru»can names that consist of Italic roots and Etrujcui tnfixes. The explanation lies of course in a thoroughgoing nce-intxture.

•Karo. Bull PaUtn. ItaL 1898, 14S(^'» NotisU dfgU Scavi, 1907.350.

13

14 EARLY TRADE OF » ^tum AND ETRURIA

erously mingled with Italian subjects, as their personal names and the religious cults show, spread quickly, first over the iron and copper-bearing region of northern Tuscany, then beyond to the Po valley and also south through the Trerus valley into Campania. Latium in- deed escaped for a long time — too thickly settled, it would seem, for easy conquest — but Praeneste, the Latin fort- town on the Sabine slope, was seized to guard the land route between Etruria and the Campanian outposts of the south.

Not long after the arrival of these first Orientals, be- gan the westward flow of Greek* colonists. From Epinis and the western Peloponnese came numberless shiploads of landseekers who established the prosperous cities of SouthJ[laly.~~Spaffa^olIowed with a colony at Tarentum. About the middle of the eighth century Chalcis of Eubo^ settled-far-uff^CtnTTaForTthe bay of Naples, a city that soon became the schoolmistress of central Italy, and then both sides of the Sicilian straits, founding cities at Naxos, Zancle, and Rhegium. Chalcis, herself situated on a narrow strait, had naturally acquired an instinctive appreciation of the commercial value of such a position. Further north the Greeks discovered that the Latin and Etruscan tribes were already in complete possession, as the Etruscans in their turn encountered the Greeks blocking their progress coastwards when they presently arrived in Campania. Then Corinth, already a trading and manufacturing town that had planted trading posts

* Beloch, Griechische Gesch^. I, i, 237 ff.; A. Reinach, Uhel- Unisation du monde antique.

EARLY TtAOE OF LATIUM AKD tTtUUA I5

on the Adriatic ifUnds, sent, about 735 RC. a flourithtnf colony to Syracuse.

Although the Ionian Greeks of A^ia miipt, and c^\>c- cially the progressive city of Miletus, had rc:ii>cd large profits in Thracian and Pontic trade, the Rhodians turned to the southern coast of Sidly — GeU and Acraga*— « century later, and about 600 B.C. the Phocaeans founded Marseille^! near the Rhone to which their hardy ships had long resorted. Even though the Latins did not for a long time come into direct contact with these ▼arious Greek colonies, their civilization soon felt the influences of the Aegean arts and crafts which these fi^wilttf brought westward from their former homes.

The Etruscan neighbors of Latium failed at first to keep in touch with the Asiatic coast from which they had come. Perhaps the whole nation had migrated, leaving no kinsfolk behind with whom to communicate. To be sure, Mesopotamian ideas are plentiful in the religioas cults and astrological lore of the Etruscans, but material proofs of an Eastern commerce, except in such meager trifles as the Phoenicians had brought to the West even before the Etruscan migration, are rare for the earliest period. It was not long however before some of the Etruscan princes grew wealthy on the serf-tilled planta- tions of a soil still very productive, and then the Eastern sea-farers sought them out. The Phoenician* merdiants in particular who were losing to the Ionian Greeks the

•Pottlscn, Dtr Orient und die FfUkgriechisckt Kunst, ii6ff.; Kahrstcdt, Pkoenikischer Handel, KUo, 1912. 461 ff.; Cortil, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, vol IIL

l6 EARLY TRADE OF LATIUM AND ETRURIA

profitable Ac^^can markets held since Homeric days now sought compensation in the west, in Spain, Tuscany, and Libya. The tombs of Caere and Praeneste— only twenty miles from Rome — that have disclosed the richest prod- ucts of this Phoenician trade are now generally dated somewhat after yoo B.C. For the story of early com- merce the most significant objects discovered in them are the silver and gilded bowls wrought apparently by Phoenician craftsmen with designs drawn from Hittite, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian patterns; the carved ivory plates such as Tyrian artisans are said to have made for the intarsia work of Solomon's temple; the painted ostrich eggs that appear wherever Phoenician traders resorted, and the ubiquitous Egyptian glass beads and scarab-amulets, with plentiful Phoenician imitations of both.

That moreover Greek traders also came up the coast before the end of the eighth century is shown by the presence of proto-Corinthian vases in these same tombs.* The first example of this Greek ware may have come by way of Cumae from Chalcis, but before long the importa- tions were augmented by Corinthian sea-farers who carried the wares of their own city to their colony of Syracuse, whence they quickly found their way north- ward. Corinth indeed, borrowing ideas and apparently also artisans from Tyre, and taking advantage of the dis- favor into which Phoenician traders were falling in

•Lorimer, The Fabrics called Proto-Corinthian, Jour. Hell. Stud. 1912, 326 ff.; Perrot and Chipiez, IX, 574 flP.; Gabriel, Cuma, Monumcnti Antichi, XXII, 343 ff.; Helbig, Die Italiker in d. Po- ebene, 14; Prinz, Klio, Beihcft VII.

BAtLY TtAOB OF LATIUM AlTD BTBUKIA i;

Greek lands, now undertook to capture the Greek tn Tyrian fabrics, perfumes and ointments, and made as containers for the latter those delicate earthenware hot* tJcs that have become the archaeok)gists' criteria of seventh century chronokigy. Corinth's posstioa oo the gulf gave her a great advantage in the new western trade, and excavations on the sites of Syracuse, Cumae and the Etruscan cities of Caere and Tarqutnii prove that she knew how to profit by it.

^uring all this time Rome r^nained a group of farm villages. The Latian soil was indeed rich and breeding a dense population^a tribe so strong that the Etruscans could not make their way across the Tiber southward except by a road that hugged the rocky sk)pes of the Sabine mountains. The busy farmers of the phun seem all the while to have cut themselves off from contact with the Phoenician traders who so constantly bartered with the neighboring cities of Etruria. The very name "Poeni" the Romans got from Syracusan traders who succeeded the Phoenicians, and the Latin words for things of commerce and parts of ships they learned from sea-farers of Syracuse and Cumae. Even the earliest Cumaean trade, so well attested by the imported ware of Cometo, seems to have found no favor whatever in Latium.* On the site of Rome nothing has yet been dis-

^Gmbrid, op. cit, points out that Cumaean ware went to the Etruscan cities north of the Tiber in great quantities for a loof time without entering Latium. It would, therefore, seem that Latian culture did not keep pace with Etruria in the century. Satricum, however, seems to have been touched bgr

1 8 EARLY TRADE OP LATIUM AND ETRURIA

covered corresponding to the rich stores of gold, silver, amber and ivory, so abundant in neighboring sites above the river. A few fragments of early proto-Corinthian ware have indeed been unearthed, but this pottery was far from costly, and such trifles may well have been bought by the villagers of the seven hills from traders who used the directest road from Caere to Praenestc and Campania.

With the passing of the seventh century many impor- tant events changed the course of Italian commerce. Phoenician" trade diminished rapidly, partly because of Assyrian pressure in Syria, partly because of the growth of Greek trade stimulated and supported by the widely scattered colonies, partly, it may be, because Syracuse, now engaged in commerce, could use her commanding position below the Sicilian straits to hinder her rivals — and the enmity between the Syracusans and the Phoeni- cians had deep roots. At any rate the Latin language shows clearly the influence of contact with the Syracusans between the periods of Phoenician and Etruscan ascend- ency, that is, apparently, near the close of the seventh cehtury; and the excavations of Cumae have revealed the existence of close communications between that city and Syracuse at this same period.

It was also about the end of the seventh century that the Etruscan armies succeeded at last in overwhelming Latium and thus decisively connecting Campania with Etruria. Here and there princes took possession of the

Greek traders, probably because Satricum was the port of entry for goods consigned to Praenestc, already in Etruscan hands. * Beloch, GriecK Gesch^, I, it, 249.

BAELY TBAOC OF LATIUM AND ITtUBlA I9

Tillages and. it wouM aeetn, attumcd ownenhip oC the land. At Rome the aqwirafi* HBH'*^ ^^ ***^ P»u»;«.^ Eaquiline, and Quirinid hilU were orpnif^ jatfl Mlt *^ about which a strong stone wall was bqiH* T»*^ -•"• came in time to be the seat of an Etruscan s* ruled^ over all the lords of Latiiyii. Pklaces were buih

for the Icings, and temples to the vague tpifits that were now identified with gods which the Etruscans had shaped out of Italic, Greek, and Oriental syncretisms. Labor was imported to adorn the rapidly growing city, and a harbor** was built at the mouth of the Tiber in order to invite Etruscan and Greek sea-farers.

Still it is doubtful whether even then Rome actually became an important center for maritime trade. The sea-going craft of that day" relied largely upon sails and were too poorly manned to pull cargoes against a stiff river current such as the Tiber carried; the skippers moreover needed to beach their ships and carry their wares to the market place, and bargain in person. Far more desirable for that kind of trade was a convenient sand-bar such as lay below Caere and Tarquinii or a small and peaceful river-mouth stich as Satricum" pos- sessed in the Astura river or Ardea in the Incastro and the Numicus. Rome's early growth probably owed lets to her position with reference to sea-trade than to her command of the Tiber barrier at the point where

* Notes on the Servian WaU, Am. Jour. Arch. 1918, 175 flF. >• Rotne's First Coinage, Gass. PhiL 1919. 3I4- " Huvclin. Mercatura, Darembcrg-Saglio. *' Strabo, V, 2. somewhat to otir tarprtse calls the mouth of the Astnra a useful roadstead even in his day.

20 EARLY TRADE OF LATIUM AND ETRURIA

Etruscan land-roads from Tarquinii, Caere and Veii most conveniently crossed for Tibur, Praeneste, the Campanian road of the Trerus valley, and for the Latin cities of Tusculum, Lanuvium, Velitrae, Norba, Ardea, Satricum and Tarracina.

Nevertheless Rome and the whole of Latium were kept in close touch with Mediterranean commerce throughout the century of Etruscan occupation. Al- though the Latins succeeded in preserving their language and the essentials of their democratic ideals against the day of liberation, this period was one of profound cul- tural significance. Everywhere farm villages were trans- formed into cities where Punic and Sicilian and Massiliot traders hawked their wares in the market-places and where Phocaean and Corinthian artists and craftsmen found employment in the adornment of temples, palaces, and tombs.**

It was also about 600 B.C. that the Phocaeans of Asia Minor, outclassed in the Pontic trade by Milesians, settled Marseilles in order to profit from trade with the western Celts and Iberians. This was an event of prime importance for Italy since it assured in the passing Phocaean commerce a steady communication with the progressive and art-loving lonians of Asia. It was doubtless the tales that these skippers brought home re- garding opportunities in the luxurious cities of the West that induced artists and craftsmen in large numbers to

*■ Delia Seta, Museo di Villa Giulia, 1918. Mrs. Arthur Strong, Jour. Rom. Stud. 1914, 160 ff. The immigration of lonians was doubtless strongest in the middle of the sixth century when the Persians subdued the Ionian cities; Herod. I, 164.

EARLY TSADI OP LATIUM AND BTIUEU J1

try their fortunes in Italy. But this colony brought new resources to Italy. Entering tnto competition with the Phoenician sea-traders the Massiliots opened up a new route through Gaul for the acquisition of British tin which the bronze industry of the Italian cities must have. They also brought down iron from German and Spanish mines, and raw products, like wool and hides, for the in- dustrial cities. Finally, the increased use of amber orna- ments in Etruscan cities at this time is a proof of how extensively the new colony quickened the trade of the West as far off as the Baltic sea.

There is also noticeable toward the beginning of the sixth century a striking increase at Etruscan sites in the amount of Corinthian ware and of native ware made on Corinthian models.** It has been plausibly suggested that the reason for this lay in the political upheavals at Cor- inth which (about 583) drove many prominent men with their clients into exile. Some of these exiles seem to have found a refuge in Tuscany, where they engaged in their former pursuits or taught others the arts they knew. The Roman legend of Demaratus, the Corinthian whose son by an Etruscan mother became the powerful King Tarquin of Rome, is by no means improbable. The Emperor Gaudius who later referred to the story vouched for its existence in very old Etruscan records.**

Finally, the student of early Italian commerce will find in Naucratis** at the Nile-mouth an interesdog indi-

«« Perrol. IX, 6a8.

*• Korte, Jahrb. Arch, J tut. 1897, 57.

^^Prinx, Fundi atu NotikraHs, Klso, Bctncii \ ii; Hcroiotut. 11. 17a

22 EARLY TRADE OF LATIUM AND ETRURIA

cator of the trade passing between the East and the West. This "ancient Shanghai," as it has aptly been called, was an industrial and trading post which the usually exclusive Egyptians permitted the Ionian trading cities to found in their land. Here there grew up vigorous factories that sent out not only wares made in the latest Ionian fashions but also articles of Egyptian cults and personal adorn- ment. The products of this peculiar art, found in abund- ance in Italy, are therefore proof of communication with such cities as Rhodes, Miletus, Clazomcnae and Phocaea which shared in the industries of Naukratis, especially since they are found in conjunction with artistic objects that closely resemble the works of art discovered near these very cities of Asia.

There is then abundant evidence of the extensive for- eign influence which reached western Italy. To deter- mine however who in each case carried the trade and what part the Etruscans and Latins took in the industry and commerce of the period is more difficult.

During the sixth century when Latium was in their power, the Etruscans were at the height of their successes, controlling western Italy from the Alps to Campania and commanding the trade of the Tyrrhenian sea if they so chose. Their wealth doubtless depended largely upon the exploitation of the natives who as serfs were made to till the soil for them. Large and rich cities like Caere, Tarquinii, and Vulci did not lie in the metalliferous zone nor did they hold peculiarly advantageous positions for commerce though they doubtless profited by bringing goods of the interior to sea-farers. As a race, however,

EARLY TtADE OF LATIUM AND tTlUEU 9$

the Etruscans »ccm everywhere to have taken a keen In- terest in industry. Their peculiarly Oriental foodneta for color, ornament, and luxurious dress and their deep religious sense that demanded the precise use of articles ' '* md of the tomb gave rise to extensive native tn- Thus even towns like Praeneste" whkh had no raw materials became industrial centers from which we have recovered finely wrought jewelry in gold and precious stones, an abundance of engraved bronze mir- rors and many elaborate articles of household use. In all this work, despite an apparent lack of originality of design, the technique was so skillfully developed that it often becomes impossible to say whether a given piece of work was of native or imported craftsmanship. And so, niany of the products of the period are classed by archaeologists, according to design, as Phoenician- I'truscan, Ionic-Etruscan or Corinthian-Etruscan. At this time, too, vast quantities of vases were made in the Ionian and Corinthian styles and presently in the famous Attic black-figure which betray, if at all, their western origin only in an Etruscan legend or in some slight aber- ration in the interpretation of the myths which they undertook to represent. In the architecture of their tem- ples the Etruscans generally adopted Ionic and Sicilian designs. It would seem in fact that Greek architects were usually imported to build them. Since, moreover, Etruria lacked good building stone they adopted from Ionia and Sicily a free use of timber. The beam ends, architraves, and pediments of wood, were accordingly ^^ Mattfaiet, Pratnest, Spiegel, 34.

24 EARLY TRADE OF LATIUM AND ETRURIA

adorned with terracotta relief-slabs. The moulds for the requisite processions of charioteers, hunters, maenads and satyrs and all the rest may at first have been imported from Ionia, or Ionian artists themselves may have been called in to design them, but native craftsmen continued to design others with such meticulous precision that it is difficult to say where native work begins. The ruins of Veii and Falerii, Satricum and Velitrae, and even of Rome have supplied cult-statues and temple figures in terracotta that can hardly be matched in beauty by the contemporary work in Greece or Asia Minor.*'

On the sea also the Etruscans apparently played a part during the sixth century. The Greeks — who doubtless lost some of their profits because of this new competition — were wont to call the Etruscan sea-farers pirates. To what extent the name was deserved cannot be established. The methods of a business rival, especially if he be of a different race and successful, are usually impugned, whatever they may be. The objects of art found in sixth- century Etruscan tombs would indicate in any case that Ionian, Attic, Corinthian, Chalcidian, Syracusan, Cu- maean and Carthaginian ware all reached Etruria with little hindrance. Nor is it probable that Etruscan traders carried the Aegean ware all the way, since Greek writers show little explicit knowledge of the Etruscans. Ac- cordingly it would seem that the Etruscan piracy or com- petition did not extend to the point of closing the Tyrr- henian sea to foreign merchants.

*• Mrs. Arthur Strong, loc. dt; Mrs. A. W. Van Buren, Jour, Rom. Stud. 1914, 183 flF.

BASLY TRADE OF LATIUM AND CTRUIU ^5

The Etruscan policy on the sea was doubtless influenced hy Carthaginian precedents. Early in the sixth century Carthafi^e had been much strengthened by the accretkm of powerful Phoenician families that the Assyrian in- vaders had driven from Tyre.** Carthage henceforth began to close the African and Spanish waten to Greek traders** and accordingly made a treaty of dote co- operation with the Etruscans. About 537 the two com- bined to destroy the Fhocaean colony in Corsica and later niade an attempt to take Cumae, a raid that failed only because of the interference of Syracuse. We may sup- pose, therefore, that a line was being drawn between the Greeks on the one hand and Carthage and the Etruscans on the other, and that both sides made difficulties for their opponents whenever possible. Greek skippers prob- ably abstained from going singly into the Tyrrhenian sea as Etruscans and Carthaginians seem not to have ven- tured frequently into Greek waters. Perhaps that is why Greek trade increased at Adriatic ports whence the wares of Greece spread through Italy,** why in the same cen- tury a land-route up from Apulia to Cumac" was well travelled, and again why Cumaean products tended to take the land-route from Capua to Falerii. There is even some evidence that sharp rivalry existed between

»• Myers, Handbook of the Cesnota Collection, p. xxxiv.

*^The Rhodians attempted to plant colonies in western Sidly about 580 but were prevented by the Carthaginians. See also the Romano-Punic treaty of 509 B.C.. PoL III, 22, and Arist PoL III. 5. 10.

'* Dair OtSO, Guida Wustrata del \fuseo di Aneoua,

** Gabrid, Cmwta, 4J0.

26 BARLY TRADE OF LATIUM AND ETRURIA

the various Greek trading cities themselves, for Croton's destruction of Sybaris" in 510 seems in part to have been due to the fact that Sybaris commanded the valuable portage over the lower ridge of Italy whereby she had escaped from whatever restrictions the Syracusans, Zancleans, or Etruscans imposed below or above the Sicilian straits. It is at least significant that the great trading city of Miletus, which had long been on un- friendly terms with Chalcis and therefore with the colo- nies of the straits, showed particular distress at the fall of Sybaris. Apparently the Milesians had needed the portage road for their wares destined for the northwest. However, we have no right to assume that absolute trade restrictions had as yet been anywhere imposed ex- cept by Carthage. Lack of friendly relations might re- sult in raids upon unwelcome traders venturing abroad unescorted, but the fact remains that the importations of the sixth century into Etruscan territory were so varied and extensive that a relatively free trade must have ex- isted.** Obviously the whole of Etruria could not be made to accept any theory of mare clausum for the benefit of a few coast towns that participated in the carrying- trade when such a policy would greatly reduce the com- merce of cities not on the coast. Furthermore any at- tempt to close the seas on a long and open coast like

2> Herodotus, VI, 21.

2* Caere had the reputation later of having pursued a liberal trade policy. After Rome became independent Caere was of course compelled to keep an open port if she wished to retain her trade.

BABLY TIADB OF LATIUM AND mUEIA ^7

Italy's when the towns of the interior held the advan- tage of numerous land-routes would be quite futile. ^

Judging from the objects of foreign trade found in Etruria on sixth century sites we may tentatively picture the commercial situation as follows. Carthaginian ship- pers probably had free access to Etruscan ports in accord- ance with treaties resembling the first Punic-Roman treaty quoted by Poly bins III, 22. This trade, however, con- nected Italy only with Africa, Spain, Britain (chiefly through Spain) and to some slight extent with Syria and Egypt. The Etruscans themselves carried on a vigorous coast-wise trade, resorting, it would seem, to Marseilles, to Cumae, and to the Silician straits. Since they seem not to have passed frequently into Greek waters" they must have procured their cargoes of Greek wares at the western end of portage routes, for instance, at Laos, Temesa and Medma, and to some extent from Sicilian ports and Cumae. The Greek traders, in turn, from Corinth and Ionia could therefore unload cargoes at south-Italian and Sicilian ports for further transhipment, though there can be little doubt that Phocaeans on the way to Marseilles stopped at Etruscan ports and that

>* The lack of Athenian coins in Etruscan hoards and of inti- mate references to the Etruscans in Athenian records seem to prove that Etruscan shippers did not often reach the Piraeus during the sixth century. The exchange of such wares doubtless took place near the Sicilian straiU. Cf. De SancTis. Storia dH Rom. I. 442; Pais. Storia CriHca, I, 357; Helbig. Rendiconti Ltncei. 1889; Gott. Gel. Anz. 191 2. Hackl, MtrkanHU Injchrifttn, p. 94, has pointed out that on the early Athenian vases the trade- marks are generally in the Ionic lettering. From this he infers that the ware was ordered and distributed by Ionic merchants.

28 EARLY TRADE OF LAT1UM AND ETRURIA

Syracuse carried an important part of the coastal trade throughout the century. Her powers on the sea and her position near the straits were such that she could not readily be thwarted. It was doubtless Syracuse** that spread the rapidly increasing products of Athens north- ward during the century before Athens became a carry- ing nation.

Latium was, of course, though not an aggressive par- ticipant, a sharer in all this activity during the sixth cen- tury. Rome had grown so populous that sea-farers must have resorted to her market-place whenever possible, and the land-routes from Etruria, Campania, Latium and the Sabine interior crossed at Rome's bridge. Furthermore ships put in below Ardea, some twenty miles south of Rome, to trade with the Rutuli and the towns of the Alban hills, and especially at the mouth of the Astura river to trade at Satricum, the terminal of the important roads that led inland between Velitrae and Norba to Praeneste on the North-South road and to the Italic tribes in the Hemican, Volscian, and Aequian hills.

Since bartering required a fair balance of trade Latium must have paid for the foreign wares with products in her possession, but we have some difficulty in ascertain- ing what these could have been.*^ Rome may have had

2« Syracuse was one of the earliest cities in the West to adopt the Attic standard in her coinage, Gardner, History of Ancient Coinage, 214.

»^On early Roman industry see Pinza, Bull. Com. 1912, 50. The article on Industrie in Pauly-Wissowa, by Gummerus, the erudite economist of Helsingfors, though published in 1916, is not yti available here.

BABIA' TkADE OP LATIUM AKD mUlIA 7q

some share in tlic metal iiulii>ir> which u io well at- tested for Praeneste. Plutarch, who max have had access to reliable information on the point, mentioiu gilds of gold- and copper-smiths as existmg in the regal ;)eriod, and the Vicus Tuscus of Rome may have derived Its name from a colony of Etruscan artizans. Indeed the famous Capitoline wolf,'* treasured by modem Rome as . inc of its most precious relics, seems to be a sixth century masterpiece of Ionian-Etruscan art which, if made at Rome, would be a product of that industry. There could liave been little exportation of grain, Latium's chief i)roduct, in the light ships of that day, but the Latins could supply the mountain tribes of the interior with grain in exchange for wool and hides which might then l)c conveniently exported. Furthermore their grain may also have been used in procuring copper from the indus- trial cities beyond the Tiber which in turn could serve as payment for imports. At any rate Latium must have exported copper since the Latin word nummus came to be current in Sicily for money. Similarly the Sictlian word for pork, which seems to come from Latin arvina, indicates that the early Latins raised swine enough for purposes of exchange.

From the very end of the period, immediately after the expulsion of the Etruscan tyrants and the establishment of the Republic, we have a commercial treaty between Carthage and Rome — fortunately preserved by Polybius — which throws more light on the commercial methods of that day than do the confused heaps of broken

** Petersen, KKo, 1909, 34.

30 BARLY TRADE OP LATIUM AND ETRURIA

This document, one of the most valuable records of ancient history reads as follows:••

"There shall be friendship between the Romans and their allies, and the Carthaginians and their allies, on these conditions:

(a) " Neither the Romans nor their allies are to sail beyond (west of)** the Fair Promontory, unless driven by stress of weather or the fear of enemies. If any one

»» Polybius, III, 22. Polybius places this treaty " in the first consulship of the republic, the year in which the Capitoline temple was dedicated, twenty-eight years before Xerxes' invasion of Greece," that is, in 509-8 B.C. Despite this explicit dating of a treaty then still available in the Capitoline temple, Mommsen, Taubler (Imperium Romanum, p. 269) and many others have dated it in 348 B.C. However, a careful study of Rome's terri- torial growth leads to the conclusion that the political provisions of this treaty accord with the date given by Polybius and no other. Carthage assumes in the third clause that Rome was sovereign over all the coast towns as far as Tarracina. Imme- diately after the revolution, Rome supposed that she would inherit and exercise the sovereignty over Latium as the Etruscan king had done. A few years after the revolution when hard pressed by the Etruscans she had to win the good will and sup- port of the Latins by surrendering this claim and acknowledging the autonomy of the sister cities of Latium in a league. Never again till after 341 could the Latin cities be called "subjects" of Rome, and no one would claim that this treaty is later than 341. We must, therefore, admit that Polybius is approximately correct in his date.

•<>In commenting upon this treaty in III, 23, Polybius appar- ently thought i-r^Keira meant South, that is the region generally called Libya in his day. However, the next treaty quoted by Polybius (III, 24) which is more explicit proves that the north coast of Africa west of the promontory is meant.

BAILY TEADI OF LATIUM AKD ETtUKlA 3I

..( tu,.^ t^ driven ashore there he shall not bay or take for himself save what is needful for the repair of his ship and the service of the gods, and he shall de- part within five days.

(b) " Men landing for traffic in Libya or Sardinia shall strike no bargain save in the presence of a herald or town-clerk. Whatever is sold in the presence of these, let th»- nritv* be secured to the seller on the credit of the state

(c) "If any Roman comes to the Carthaginian prov- ince in Sicily he shall enjoy all rights enjoyed by others.

(a') "The Carthaginians shall do no injury to the people of Ardea, Antium, Laurentum, Circeii, Tarractna, nor any other people of the Latins that are subject to Rome.

(6') " From those townships of Latium which are not subject to Rome they shall hold their hands; and if they take one shall deliver it unharmed to the Romans.

(c*) "They shall build no fort in Latium; and if they enter the district in arms, they shall not stay a night therein."

This, our earliest existing commercial treaty of the West, is so precise and carefully constructed that it per- mits us to posit a long development of international diplomacy in the Tyrrhenian sea before the close of the >ixth century. It is apparent that the day had long pasted when, as in Homer's day, men generally assumed tfiat all sea-farers were on occasion sea-rovers.

It also reveab Carthage as a far more important com-

32 EARLY TRADE OF LATIUM AND ETRURIA

mercial and political state than Rome,'* for Carthage obviously composed and imposed this treaty. The nu- merous restrictions mentioned first are all in favor of Carthage. Indeed it is difficult to see how any state that had the least interest in commerce and the power to pro- tect it would acquiesce in such terms. Nor must it be inferred that the clause excluding Roman ships from Numidia implies an extensive Roman commerce. These prohibitions which accord with customary Punic policy were probably inserted in view of a possible future de- velopment of Roman trade, or possibly in memory of what Etruscan Rome had done before the revolution. The treaty does not prove anything for the trade of Rome after the expulsion of the kings, an event that must have involved a marked emigration of the commercial and in- dustrial classes. Certain it is that the liberated Latin people, true to old instincts, presently turned landward and that in the fifth century Latium was less frequently visited by foreign traders. In fact we shall find that Carthage did not consider it worth while to oflfer a new commercial treaty until the democracy of the fourth cen- tury showed some interest in foreign trade by colonizing

•* Frank, Mercantilism and Rome's foreign policy, Am. Hist Rev. 1913, 234. Taubler, Imperium Romanum (1913), 264, has demonstrated that the clauses concerning the surrender of the site of a captured city and the submission of trade-disputes to public settlement follow Punic and not Roman ideas. Kahrstedt, Klio, loc. cit., has quite missed the political significance of this treaty.

^ EAELY TRADE OP LATIUM AND ETltURIA %^

Ostia, and even that i: ' i:i-

capablc of asking for c'iuit.ii:*- t« tm

The document also shows that Carthage had already advanced far in the enforcement of a practice of «Mr# clausum. She reserved the Numidian and Moorish coast, and probably therefore the straits of Gibraltar, com- pletely for her own traders. This was, of course, prac- ticable since the desert protected her from competttioo from the rear. Sardinia and Libya are not yet wholly closed, as by the next treaty, since the Punic fleet was still too small to enforce such restrictions, but their market-places are supervised by state officials who pro- tect the Punic interests. Only western Sicily, whose back gates could not be closed, was open to all comers. As for Rome, on the other hand, the treaty simply assumes the open door at her port. Obviously we are to conclude that this was the traditional policy of Italian cities and that it had been so in Etruscan Rome. Indeed the very fact that Carthage, the long-standing ally of Etruria, could make a commercial treaty with Rome immediately after the re- volt from Etruria is good evidence that the Etruscan- Punic alliance did not and had not reserved the Tyrr- henian sea to the two signatories. We have seen above why with the numerous land routes of Italy, an attempt to close this sea would have been futile.

The treaty then on the one hand reveals Carthage as a powerful commercial nation which is eager to monopolize

** Polybius. III. 24. The date is 348 B.C The political situa- tion implied in ir accords with the conditions in Latium just before the Latin war.

34 BARLY TRADE OF LATIUM AND ETRURIA

trade routes and to gain as many new ports of entry as possible; on the other hand it implies that while Rome may in the past have taken some part in shipping she was now more concerned about the territorial integrity of Latium than about commerce and was willing to keep her ports open to all law-abiding sea-farers."

•• Since opinions have varied widely regarding the reliability of early Roman historians, it is only fair that every historian of Rome should inform the reader of his attitude on this basic ques- tion. In the present volume, Polybius, Diodorus, and even Livy have been freely used in the belief that they provide an account of the Republican period which may, with some caution, *be trusted. The Romans, respectors of law and legal forms to an unusual degree, preserved copies of their treaties, laws, and sena- torial decrees, and also the high priests' brief record of events. The pontifical annals purported, to be sure, to record only events of religious significance, but since only men of political dignity became priests, their annals were apt to contain many items of political import.

The common assumption that most records were destroyed by the Gauls in 390 B.C. is far from probable. Archaeologists be- lieve that most of the temples escaped destruction and with them the records they contained. Apparently the Celts, as is often the case with primitive peoples, respected the holy places. At any rate, the treaties, which were kept on the Capitol, survived. (See Roberts' discussion of early archives in Mem. Amer. Acad. in Rome, II.)

The earlier historians of Rome, like Fabius Pictor, were states- men trained to acquire an accurate knowledge of laws and treaties. It is incorrect to ascribe to such men the loose historical methods that were followed by the rhetorical romancers who wrote for entertainment in Sulla's day. The care and knowl- edge they employed in affairs of state they doubtless used in their composition of history (Duckett, Studies in Ennius).

In using later historians who have filled in the Fabian skeleton

EARLY TRADE OP LATIUM AND ETRURIA ^^5

with legendary materi«i, we may in gcn^iU sttwne thai tne fnam •tnicturc of the chrooology is relitbh inowlnc of eottnt for « difcrepancy of three or four yean for the early period that tbt coofular litu are equally safe, and that in large part the lawi^ treaties, scnatiu contulta, colonial dates, and dates of important wart are acceptable. It must, however, be remembered that bUlt proposed but not passed and senatorial debates were not recorded, and that the pontifical records had no space for such things as military movements. Hence when such things occur in the ac- counu of the period before joo B.C they must be considered as mere oral tradition which it is safest to reject wholly. After mch pnrgatioo the account afforded by our literary sources seems to be in reasonable accord with the latest conclusions of archaeology.

CHAPTER III

The Rise of the Peasantry

The sixth century ended with a revolution' that drove the Etruscan tyrants out of Rome. That this was not entirely a nationalistic movement we may infer from the fact that many of the nobles prominent in the new gov- ernment bore Etruscan names.' Nor does it bear the marks of being a democratic stroke: the succeeding gov- emilient wa«; in every respect nliganjiiy in form. But it inaugurated a~^ittef Stmggle''of'Two centuries between the patricians who controlled the state, and the plebeians who bore many of its burdens although enjoying few of a citizen's privileges. This new revolution shows in its endless checks and counter checks, its intricate compro- mises and juristic fencing, the patient legal-mindedness of the Roman race. No nation in history except the Eng- lish has under like pressure produced a similar drama of

^ The story of the revolution is of course full of legendary ele- ments. However, in view of the persisting hatred of "kings" in historical times, and the definite provisions in early laws against the crime of adfectare regnutn it is safest to assume that the political consciousness had actually been deeply affected by a revolution which stirred the city to its foundations. Acts of very deep significance, like the exaction of the Magna Charta, for instance, are not likely to be wholly distorted by legend.

* See Schulze, Rom. Eigennamen.

36

TBI USE OF TBB PBAIANTIY 57

bloodless revolution. Recent critidim* has been proiie to call the struggle wholly political, pointing out that the tra- ditional narrative of it was produced after the Gracchan days and was therefore probably colored by ideas that emerged in a later day. However, even if there be over- much economic interpretation of the early revolution in Livy, the laws which the struggle produced are abkUnf

testimony that the battle Wf^ fnnght lary^^y wi ^rtfinmir

grounds;^and early Roman society reveals a oite fwtem largely based upon economic PffP*^*^ TTig rtory of the struggle, therefore, has a place in a Roman econocMC

Before the revolution the great bulk of the. was in the position of more or less free villeins. /We do not know that there was actual serfdom, and we are never told of a definite '* freeing of the serfs/* though recent historians^ have suggested that the creation of *' tribunes of the plebs ** in 495 may imply such an act. If some or many of the peasants had fallen into serfdom the libera- tion may of course have been a gradual movement which therefore left no trace in the laws that survived. So, for instance, it is possible that the Etruscan autocrats of Rome had pursued a policy of weakening the powerful landlords and of protecting the peasants for the sake of bolstering up their own power; or again the lords during the revolution may have resigned their rights to many customary services in order to assure the lo>-alty of their

* See Nicse, Htrm4S, 1S88, p. 41a De Sanctit, Storia iA R^ mani, II. 213,

* Neumann. Baurmbrfreiung, igofK in ^rt accepted by E. Meyer, article PUbj, in Conrads HomdwdrUrbmck,*

^

38 THE RISE OP THE PEASANTRY

villeins in the struggle with the king's troops. Such things occurred everywhere in the breaking up of the medieval feudal system.* At any rate no sure trace of serfdom is found in the early republic, for the so-called Servian constitution, while based mainly upon an eco- nomic division in the electorate and in the army, giving the predominance of power to rich landholders, consti- tutes a large part of the army from peasants whom it assumes to be freeholders. Whether the peasants were serfs or free in the sixth century, however, /4hey were in a miserable economic condition.

In the first place their lots were small and of decreas- ing value. The very works of reclamation which we have noticed are proof that the land was being driven to the capacity of its production in order to feed an over- crowded population. That the soil was being exhausted and refused to respond to all the requirements is also shown by the frequent notes in Livy* recording famines and food commissions in the fifth century. If further- more the peasants had recently received their freeholds, as seems probable, they must have had all the problems of economic independence to face on their own responsi- bility and with little experience. This occurred too at a time when the penalties of an extremely severe property

* Cf. Lipson, The Economic History of England, p. 77.

«Cf. Livy, II, 9; 34; 52; III, 32; IV, 12; 25; 52. Some of these passages are doubtless based upon conjecture, but it must be remembered that the priestly annates made a point of record- ing things of religious import like quoticns annona cara, quotiens lunae aut solis lumine caligo aut quid obstxterit, Cato, Orig. frag. 77.

THE RISE or THE PEA8ANT1Y 39

kw permitted debtors to be reduced to a state of peonage or to be sold into foreign lands as slaves. If under such I en- '■•* "s the peasants called for material relief as Lhry ' S( atly contends, is his story not reasonable? And

if they also asked for a better standing in court and equal political rig^hts. this was due in no small measure to the, fact that they knew that the most direct road to a more; •mfortable existence led by way of civil and political/

r.jll.'lHty.

L( Ttain urban classes possessing inferior rights also shared in the contest. The aggressive policy of the kings who had brought Rome into the currents of Etruscan commerce and industry had invited many workmen to Rome. Doubtless Rome had some share in the produc- tion of such things as we can attribute to most of the neighboring cities/ gold jewelry, engraved and chased work in silver for ornaments and toilet articles, all kinds of utensils in copper and iron, potter>' and architectural ornaments of terracotta, clothing, armour, and much be- sides. Commerce required service at the docks,' in trans- portation and in shops. Much labor was employed in the building of temples, public works and palaces. But many

' Pinza, BuJL Com, 191 2, p. 53. Rome later t|>reMl fo rapidly over the regions where the early habitations and graves had been that very little has survived from which to judge the state of her earliest industry. The best records naturally come from the neighboring cities which dwindled away because of Romc't increase.

• There are traces of a sixth-century village near the center of Ostia. About the middle of the fourth century a small colony was planted there and the village fortified by a wall which now ro have enclosed three or four acrea of ground.

40 THE RISE OF THE PEASANTRY

of those who had been invited to the city by these indus- tries were left in difficulties on the expulsion of the kings, for Rome was not only then severed from Etruria, the home of these industries, but also apparently from the currents of commerce. \A^cry few articles dating from the fifth century have been found at Rome which indicate contact with Greece or the East, and the seaport at Ostia seems to have fallen into neglect. An idle proletariat quite ripe for revolution resulted. Was the lex Icilia de Aventino publicando* of 456, an effort to pacify this class with small plots of land, and were the first four tribunes intended as official patrons for these city poor to take the place of the king whose expulsion had left them without protection?

Ljvyio connects the first " secession " of the plebeians with the Latin wars that followed the expulsion of the kings. He had of course no contemporaneous source that provided an explanation of causes and effects, but his conjecture is wholly reasonable. This was a period of liberation for the Latins as well as for the Roman plebeians, and the one movement may well have induced the other. The first Carthaginian treaty, as we have seen, implied that the kings of Rome had made their city mas- ter of Latium as far as Tarracina and the new Republic in this treaty assumed that it would continue the same hegemony. This of course could not be, for the new gov- ernment, having incurred the hostility of the Etruscans,

•Rosenberg, Hermes, 1913, 371, thinks the lex a proof that the plebeians of the city were still non-citizens who could be kept within a " pale."

»» Livy, II, 32.

THE RISE OF TBB PIAtANTtY 4I

was too weak for such a task. The Latins naturally claimed their former potitioo of freedom in a tribal union;** when refused they fought for it, and in time

" The tribal itnioD Utcr called the ** Latin Ictfoc** went tfaroogli conttanr changci, soom phases of which wt swm able to ddnt.

(a) Before die Etntscans entered Ladttm, there mtisC have been tome common tribal cult which made for unity of sctioo even ia political matters, especially in times of danger.

(6) The Etruscan princes gaining possession of varioot hill- towns shattered this tmioa. The leadership dirongboat Lattaoi established by the Ronan khig was based npoo die kfa«^s power not upon racial unity, for it extended over Volidaa towns like Tarracina and Antium.

(c) The attempt of the Roman Republic to continue this hege- mony failed, the Latin cities forming an independent Latin league from which even Rome was excluded — if, as is osnany assumed, the ancient inscription cited by Cato (Hist. Rom. Frag, Cato, 58) gives a complete list of the members. The northern line of cities was made up of Tibor, Toscohtm, Aricta, Lanu- vium, Lavinium, the southern line by Ardca, Pometia, and G>ra. The league therefore had slightly more territory thsn Rome, bat failed to gain the adhesion of the Latin town of Pracnestc (per- haps still under Etruscan rule) and the Volsdan territory from Antium to Tarracina which Etruscan Rome had commanded. The date of this league can be fixed at about 500 -f- bf the fact that the Latin colonies of Signia and Norba had apparently not yet been founded, while G>ra is included, Rosenberg. Uemut, 1919, p. 159.

{d) After a few years of separadoo Rome made a treaty wtdi the league, not as one of nine members but as an equal half of the league. This foedus Cassianmm, plausibly dated by Livy (II. 33, 4) in 493, is given by Dion. HaL VI, 95. Daring the rest of the century this Latin league worked in fair harmony in defend- ing Rome's border against the Etruscans and the south Latin border against the Aequi and Volsd. 4

42 THE RISE OF THE PEASVVTWV

gained their point so that a Latin league was founded in which they formed an element of equal standing with Rome. iMwas in this struggle, according to Livy,_that the hard pressed government called the peasantry -"^ army service, iind thus gave the plebeian'^ >" -.>t^r.t-<,1,,;fv to bargain for representatives, called tril to protect their interestgr

The institution of tribunes** was in many respects pe- culiar, and implies in its very form something about the nature of the grievances that were to be corrected. The

(e) In the fourth century Rome began to assume leadership because of her ability to act as a unit among cities of diverse interests. After several disagreements on this score, especially after Rome was weakened by the Gallic invasion, it became neces- sary to renew the league by a new agreement in 358.

In 343 there was a general revolt of the Latins against Rome's assumption of superiority, and the Roman victory in the Latin war enabled her to form the federation into which she fitted the old league members at will. The Latin cult was continued in a perfunctory way on Rome's responsibility, and all Latin com- munities (50 or 60, Pliny, III, 69) were admitted to the festival on equal terms including many towns that had belonged to Rome (e.g., Gabii, Bovillae, etc.) or to the other former members of the league (e.g., Bola, Corioli, etc.).

Since after 493 there was commercium and conubium between all Latins of the league, and residence secured citizenship in any city, we may assume that economic changes whether at Rome or in any part of Latium quickly made themselves felt throughout the territory of the league.

»«Livy, II, 33; Diod. XI, 68. The early number and the date (495 or 471) were matters of dispute among the Romans. See especially Mommsen, Staatsr. II, 272, E. Meyer, Art. Plebs in Conrads Handwortcrbuch, and Rosenberg on sacrosanctus in Hermes, 1913, 359.

THE KI8B OF TRE riAtAlfTtY 43

tribunes* at first apparently four, were sacrosanct, which implies that the plebeians had formed a separate body in the state and had compelled the government to take an oath to respect the persons of their repfep^»*»*^^ gndfy pSafey of divine vengeance. This fact proves that tra- dition was correct in attributing the plebeian victory to a strike. Moreover the fact that the tribune's power at first wn^ if^isterial, but personal, applicable in the

aid of i: (Is and that only within the city walls,

justifies the inference that his services were those of an advocate to be exercised in cases of alleged injttstice of the court and its agents. It was the tribune's business therefore to protect the personal liberty of the poor man who was in danger of falling under the debtor's sale, and at least to see that he had his days of grace and an oppor- tunity to summon his friends to his relief. The whole institution in short points to economic grievances as the starting point of the revolution.

Once organized however, the tribunes readily extended their powers. The meetings of the plebeians for elec- tions enabled them to discuss and formulate further measures, to instnict their representatives, and when they had grown into a compact body to use pressure upon the government through threats of tribunal interference* Thus in 452 they forced the government to promise a codification and publication of customary kiw whereby V rulings might be checked and a basis Uid for .. nt reforms. A few years" Uiter they compelled

>* The traditional dates are: twelve tablet, 451: the bwt of Horatias and Valerius recognizing in some memsure the pfebisriH, 449; lex Canulcia permitting conubium, 445.

44 THE RISE OF THE PEASANTRY

the legislative assembly to recognize a plebiscite as a bill which the assembly must coosider, and presently social distinctions were removed by the permission of inter- marriage between plebeians and patricians. In 393 an old custom of the Latin league was resurrectedjind the territory recently taken from Veii ^ya§, dj§trib_ut£(i_tQ_alL 1 citizens, each -Xecidying seven jugera. To the great sig- \ nificance of this act we must recur; suffice it here to say \ that, as the distribution was a proof of democratic power \and set a precedent for the party's policyVit also in turn r strengthened the party by lifting a large number of the / proletariat into the class of property owners, thus giving / tjiem better standing in the legislative assembly and I doubtless starting many on the road to economic success. I Their increased strength enabled them finally by means I of the Licinian-Sextian law of 366 to gain entrance into the consulship," the highest magistracy in the state, and

**The Licinian-Sextian laws contained, according to Livy, a clause restricting the rental of public lands. Recent critics have with Niese, Hermes, 23, 410, placed this restriction in the second century. There seems to be no definite way to settle the dispute. In two subsequent passages, Livy indicates judicial actions on infringements of the law which, if accurate, imply that the tradi- tional account is correct In VII, 16, he reports that Licinius was himself fined for possessing a thousand acres in 357, and in X, 13 (298 B.C.) that very many persons were fined quia plus quam quod lege finiium erat agri possidereixt; cf. X, 23; X, 47 (damnatis aliquot pecuariis), seems to refer to the same law.

The law well corresponds to the economic sittiation of that time as we now know it. Land was deteriorating in value and some landlords who were consequently introducing cattle raising must have sought for extensive leases. The poor had already

THE RISE or TBI PBASANTIY 45

to Strengthen their opportunities of tharing in further land distributions by limiting to 500 jugera the amount of public land that any man might rent. Thus the plebeiaiu gained legal recognition for their claim to political and civil equality and some measure of economic relief.

W^e may conveniently anticipate, and add that in 287 the plebeians by a very peculiar method used their power to establish equal manhood suffrage in legislation. Thej compelled the legislative assembly, which voted by classes based upon property, to recognize as of equal standing the tnbal assembly which voted by wards, apparently in- viting the patricians who were of course a small minority to participation in the tribal organization. Thus this state within the state, a kind of soviet government, grew, by absorbing the patrician element, to be the very state itself; thenceforth tribunes could call the populace together under their presidency to decide the politics of the com- monwealth. This was victory more than complete, and had Rome remained a state of small size, whose problems the populace had dared to settle single handed without the advice of the senate, Rome, like the Greek city-states, would henceforth have provided an example of a pure democrac>'.

In the light of this evolution wc may recur tor a moment to the land distribution of 393 whereby all citi- zens secured an allotment of seven jugera from the cap-

learned the advantige of land distribution but had of oonrse ins- tained many losses in the Gallic invasion. We need not assume with Ntese that the law presupposed a great number of latifundia at this time, for the existence of a few might suffice to induce preventive legislatioo.

46 THE RISE OF THE PEASANTRY

tured Veian territory immediately north of the city. To the wealthy landholders, of course, the allotment brought little of value; they probably sold their portions or leased them. To the proletariat, however, it gave in those days of hand-tools and intensive culture enough for a liveli- hood. To the state it meant that through a period of gravest dangers Rome was to be provided in these work- ing landowners with a sound body of patriotic and re- liable citizens. These aided her for some time to avoid the immobility of an absentee landlord class and the list- lessness of peasant-tenants or their substitute, the farm slaves.

The Romans knew as well as we of course that the working landowner on his small farm was not always progressive. A master farmer like Cato, instructed in the agricultural lore of the Greeks and Carthaginians, could doubtless plant more wisely and secure greater re- turns by adapting his crops to the soil and to wider mar- ket needs. Like the Renaissance advocates of the en- closure system in England he knew that there was an economic advantage in concentration. Furthermore he must have found that the division of the Veian lands into small plots destroyed the possibility of operating the ex- tensive drainage tunnels which had been dug through large tracts of that territory." Individual holders of small lots would hardly take care of their segments when unable to control the current above and below, and co-

" There are still many traces of these drainage tunnels to be seen in the valleys near Veii, especially toward the north where the land is hilly; they have also been reported in the neighbor- hood of Bieda further north, Rom. Mitt. XV, pp. 185-6.

TBI ftlSI OF THt rEASANTtY 47

ordinated cflFort was probably oiit m tuc <jiicMi<m." At any rate the tunnels fell into disuse, and the total of pro- duction must have fallen also.

Howerer, maximum production was never an ideal of Roman slatescraft. The senate uttiaUy considered the value of its citizens from the point of view of military and political needs, and the deroocnitk eleinciit looked of course to social as well as eoooomk amelioratioiL Ob- viously a homogeneous citizen-army was highly desirable in a small state as poorly protected as Rome. To^mtL. tutc such an army it was necessary to hare a large pro- pbrtioo oflesponsible property owners for whom the ^ defence of the state was a matter oljMaiODaLintezest. On that idea the army had been built for centuries. It was equally important that the nation should have a large group of self-supporting citizens whose opinions and sympathies were stabilized at election time by content- ment and faith in the existing order. These were every- day doctrines at Rome, and few statesmen permitted themselves to advocate in the senate economic advantages of a landlord system over the political and social advan- tages of the system based upon the working proprietor. If the former system nevertheless emerged victorious in the end. it was not for want of comprehension and inter- est but rather because the force of economic laws with- stood the application of such remedies as were then avail- able. That Rome bore so well the shock of the Gallic invasion, that she passed without bloodshed through the

** There seems to be a reference to this difficulty in Digest,

30..1. 2. I.

48 THE RISE OF THE PEASANTRY

broils of the class struggles, survived the revolt of the Latins, and had the prudence to devise the liberal and flexible constitution which enabled her to unite Italy in an effective federation, all this seems now in no small meas- ure due to the habit of providing by land-distribution ^a solid and interested citizen-body from the ^proletariate

In the above summary the slow evolution of plebeian civil rights has for unity's sake been considered simply in connection with agrarian problems. Near the end of the crisis the economic problems were not a little com- plicated by the entrance of a new factor, the establish- ment of a state mint, which by the issue of money, not hitherto used, for some time upset the stable economic system of Rome, brought on financial upheavals, and quickened the course of the revolution.

The precise date at which Rome instituted a mint is now difficult to determine. The Romans, who were prone to credit all their institutions with great antiquity at- tributed the innovation to Servius Tullius. But the de- signs upon the earliest coins are now definitely assigned on artistic grounds to the fourth century.*^ If the prow,*' which serves as the emblem upon the first coins, has

1^ See Hill, Historical Roman Coins.

1* The arguments for the dates of Ostia I have given in Class. Phil. 1919, p. 314. The statement of Festus, who says the colony was subsequent to the first building of the village, is supported by the facts that its citizens belong to two different tribes and that its government has a double set of officials. See Taylor, Cults of Ostia. Recent excavations have revealed a city-wall which shows the workmanship and the material prevalent in the fourth century, see Am. J. Arch., 1918, 182.

THE RISC OP THE PEASANTRY 49

reference to the colonization of the icaport of Oftia, which dates from alx)ut the middle of the foarth century, we have in this first issue an explanattOD of several pe- culiar financial measures that followed immediately. In 352 a b^ruptcy commtsslon" was appointed; in 347 the legal rate of interest which haJTfor a centttry stood at 8^ pef"gBUL_ mSSlShftd. and in 343 the taking of * ' was ab>' * * Mdden. The laws look very

:ke an cxl::: un the part of a government

inexperienced in financial affairs to curb the evils which result upon a sudden " inflation " of currency. It is clear that the first issue of currency in an age that had been accustomed to barter must have acted as does a heavy over-issue to-day and upset the peaceful tenor of the market. It must have stimulated buying and invited new trade to the city, it must have facilitated borrowing for new ventures, not to speak of needless and perilous ones; and since prices tend to increase with the quantity of currency there were doubtless many miscalculations and numerous failures. How this situation quickly led to such financial crises as Livy records can readily be con- ceived. The laws that were passed to meet the stress show that the lower classes were gaining an everincreas- ing influence over the government. It was only three years after the prohibition of interest that the bold plebeian leader Publilius Philo passed the laws that can*

**The bankruptcy Uw, Livy, VII, ai; the laws on tnterett, VII. 27, and VII. 4a, to be read widi Tac Ann, VI, 16^ tad Appian n. C. I. 54.

50 THE RISE OF THE PEASANTRY

celled the privilege of the patricians in the senate to veto legislation.

[Statesmen, however, learned that in forbidding interest they had only increased the difficulty: later notices show that the old legal rate was soon accepted; and when presently conquests in Latium and Samnium opened up new lands for colonization the surplus currency was doubtless absorbed and the financial equilibrium re- established.^

CHAPTER IV

New Lands rot Old

The intensity of the effort to reclaim small bits of eroding land was a proof of overpopulation and of a^ dangerous drain upon the productive qualities of the soil.* The danger of soil exhaustion was peculiarly great in Latium for several reasons. The soil there had not had a long time for accumulation. Along the extensive ridges of lava that radiate from the Alban hills toward the Anio, along the Appian way, and down toward Ardea, the sur- face was so hard that soil-making was well-nigh impos- sible. In such places the plow cannot now be driven. A mere scratch in the thin turf exposes the lava. In other places the conditions were more favorable since the ash and tufa are fairly productive for plants of powerful roots when covered with a humus of proper physical con- sistency and containing some nitrogenous matter. The surface was, however, new and therefore thin every- where except in alluvial valleys. To add to the unfor- tunate conditions, the ash had fallen unevenly in knolls that time has not yet shaped down into a peneplain. In consequence the Campagna presents to the abrading rains of winter a very uneven surface, and when the Latin set- tlers had once stripped the turf and forest from that sur- face, the thin soil was in danger of washing away. It is

> Sec chapter I.

51

52 NEW LANDS FOR OLD

not surprising that the Latin farmer found it necessary to entice the thieving rainwater into underground channels with the utmost speed. The surface loam was very precious and must be saved. Notwithstanding his efforts, however, the exhausting harvests and the continual erosion did their work, and Latin agriculture was doomed, and with it the thick adornment of prosperous Latin vil- lages. The situation could well be illustrated by the his- tory of agriculture in the sandy districts of central Penn- sylvania, where the traveller to-day passes through large areas of country almost uninhabited though well studded with bams and farmhouses now abandoned and falling into ruin. Here the settlers of two centuries ago found a rich but thin alluvial soil lying over a subsoil of sand. A century of reckless tilling drew great wealth from the soil, but when that had been exploited the land was of little value and the farmers left it.

The situation in Latium never grew equally desperate, nor will it, since the subsoil there, even though slow to yield its wealth to the feeble roots of mere annual vege- tation, is nevertheless comparatively rich. Yet, to judge from the constant cries of distress reported by the early books of Livy, the fifth and fourth centuries before our era were years of increasing exhaustion. To add to the desperate situation, the extensive forests* which had insured rainfall well into the summer and had helped husband the moisture in the dry season were ever giving way to the axe. The pressing demand for land resulted in the clearing out of every tract that could be made

2 Nissen, Italische Landeskunde, I, 432.

NEW LANiJd rot OLD 53

arable; the abundant population laid large demands upoo the forests for lumber; and commerce, as we have seen, carried Latin timber as far as Greece, now well stripped of trees. The deforestation of the Volsctan mountains on the south of the Campagna resulted in the ruin of that whole region, for the rains washed the mountain sides clear of soil, carried down the detritus into the flat plain below, choked up the coarse of the streams and tnmed what was once the garden spot of several large cities into malarial marshes, a pest not only to its own dwindling population but also to villages as far off as Satricum and Astura. Norba, Cora. Setia, and Privcmum dwindled down to unimportant hamlets. The same process of de- forestation of the Sabine hills turned these also into bare rocks. Precipitation decreased, the dry seasons grew in len^h. the rain that fell found its quick course to the set*

iTui I^tium became gradually the semi-arid plain that it IS to-day. While this change was in process the farmers naturally

ought for remedies. There was scarcity of manure l>ecausc during the very intensive tillage when every acre was in use it had not been profitable to keep cattle, since beef was rarely served as food, and horses were not in jTcneral use. When, however, many farmers found the loam too thin for further cultivation they had no choice but to seed their fields into pasture land, since turf could at least protect whatever loam remained. A few oxen were needed as draft animals, and the wealthy lords of the city provided some market for the meat. Sheep were also in demand for wool, though this had generally come

54 NEW LANDS FOR OLD

by barter from the mountain pastures that were fit only for sheep-raising. Goats might be raised for milk and cheese.

The chief difficulty for the shepherd and herdsman was the lack of grass in August and September, which neces- sitated the laborious work of cutting leaves from trees.* However, in the fourth and third centuries, when the neighboring mountain pastures of the Volscian and the Sabine hills fell within the political sphere of Rome, a profitable combination of summer and winter pastures became possible. Whether it was the Latin landlord who sought to tide over the arid summer by resorting to the mountain pastures in dry season, or whether it was, as in the middle of the nineteenth century, the Sabine flock- owners who discovered green and warm winter pasturage for their flocks in the abandoned farms of the Campagna, we do not now know. But when once the discovery was made the Latin landlords were quick to seize the oppor- tunity to find a now profitable use for the land that would no longer yield a reasonable harvest of grain. The earliest record we have of Roman slaves in great num- bers shepherding on the mountains near Rome dates from the Second Punic War* but since such notices are inci- dental and rare we need not assume that the custom was then of recent date. He who has had the misfortune of tr}'ing to make his way from Tivoli to Rome against the endless procession of sheep going mountainward during

» Pliny, H, N. XVIII, 314. * Livy, XXXII, 26.

NEW LANDS POt OLD 55

the first week of July knows well what Horace* meant when he wrote:

Jim pastor umbras cum grcgc ttngvklo... quacrit

This change, however, had serious consequences. Prof- itable sheep- and cattle-raising required capital, if indeed pastures were to be provided in two regions; and ob- viously, since the shepherding of a hundred sheep re- quired little more labor than the care of.half a dozen, the poor farmer with his small plot fell quite behind in the com{>etition. Thus the small farmers gradually yielded ground to the master who could command the capital of large-scale ranching; and a general "enclosure" move- ment began at the expense of the grain fields. Again^ since little skill was required, slaves were bought to care for the herds, and henceforth an area of a thousand acres, which in the days of profitable tillage had sup- ported a hundred peasant families, now fell to the charge^ of a few foreign slaves living at random. The depopu- lation of the Campagna proceeded apace.

Another industry presently hurried the process of crowding agriculture out of the Alban region. Here the ahrasion of the soil had been most rapid because the slopes were steeper, but it was discovered that while the weak roots of annual plants like wheat and barley could no longer cope with the soil, grape vines and olive' trees

• Horace, Carm. III. ap, 21; cf. Varro. /?. R. 11, 1, 16; II, a. ^n; 5. II: L, L. V. 36: Pliny, E^t. II. 17, aS.

* The festival of the Vinalia was recogntied in the calen<lar of the regal period, but wine was not much used in the oldest cults.

56 NEW LANDS FOR OLD

could readily nourish themselves even in the tufa and ash that remained. All that is necessary is to hack out and crush the tufa and plant the roots deep with a handful of loam for the plant to feed upon when young. When the plant grows strong it finds its own nourishment where grain fails in the struggle. From that time to this the vineyards and olive groves have never disappeared from the hills and valleys about the Alban lake. Obviously this industry also was developed by the men of wealth who could afTord to wait five years for the first vintage and fifteen years for the first returns on their investment in the olive groves.

It is customary to say that when Rome gained posses- sion of Sicily in the first Punic war and thus inherited from Carthage the grain tithes of that island she de- stroyed agriculture in Latium by flooding the market of the Latin farmer with cheap grain. But is it probable that the Roman landlords, who after all controlled the State, would have adopted a policy so ruinous to their

At the time of Pyrrhus the vineyards of the Alban hills are men- tioned, Pliny, N. H. XIV, 12. In classical times the vine was cultivated farther down into the plains than it is today, for it is mentioned as a product even of Ardea (Colum. Ill, 9), Gabii (Galen, 6, p. 334), and other places now used solely for grain or pasture land.

The olive was imported later, its culture being connected with Castor and Pollux. Pliny quotes the price at Rome for 249 B.C. as being 10 asses for 12 lbs. — a very high price (XV, 2). Plautus' (Capt. 489) joke about the " combine " of oil merchants in the Forum implies that olive oil had become a staple of the market before the second century. Latium, however, did not raise a sur- plus for export until Cicero's day.

NhW LANDS FOR OLD

57

own interests? Or is it likely that they were so stupid as not to see that this would be the result of bringing the Sicilian tithes to Rome? Is it not far more reasonable to suppose that the process we have sketched had actually progressed far by the middle of the third century, that Latium had already become a failure as a grainland, that the landlords had already turned to other industries, and that Sicilian grain filled a need already keenly felt?

The momentous changes here sketched in brief com- pass were the work of a long period from the fifth to the second century. (They necessitated of course a constant reshifting of a population which we have fqund reason to believe was very dense in the sixth centur^ A similar exhaustion of the soil in Greece somewhat earlier had driven large hordes to colonize foreign lands and had turned many into commercial and industrial enterprises which revolutionized such cities as Athens and Corinth. Rome sought neither remedy directly. Her citizens did not abandon Rome for foreign lands, nor did Rome turn to manufacturing and commerce, although there seem to be signs in the building of Ostia and in the legislation of Appius Gaudius^ that there was for a while a tendency in that direction. The surplusage of Roman population

^ Meyer, art. Plebs in Conrad's Handworterbiuh, expresses the belief that when Appius (about 312) built the aqueduct into the lower sections of the city, paved the Apptan Way, and permitted the liberti to register their vote in whatever ward they chose, he intended to encourage and to give political power to an industrial proletariat. In view of the present stare of our archacotogicil knowledge of the period the theory teems somewhat to the evidence.

58 NEW LANDS FOR OLD

found an outlet instead in the territorial expansion w-^ set in under the vigorous democratic leaders that can the fore in the middle of the fourth century, soon £ the plebeians had won their contest for the consulshi 366. In 343 the Romans aided the Campanians in c ing back the Samnite mountaineers. The war resu' after two years in an allied victory through which R< received some territory north of Campania for colon tion. The year after this war the Latin peoples revolted from Rome's hegemony and, being defeated, were incor- porated into the Roman state, part as full citizens, part for a probationary period as non-voting citizens. There were of course losses of men on both sides, and some land was confiscated and settled by Romans. In 328 a new Samnite war broke out which gradually spread through the whole of central Italy including the Etrus- cans, Umbrians, and Sabine peoples. For forty years there was almost constant warfare. This was finally fol- lowed by the war with Pyrrhus whose defeat left Rome the recognized leader of a federation extending from the Amo throughout the whole of Italy.

fThis era of territorial expansion followed as we have seen a period of over-population and land hunger which had expressed itself constantly in a clamor for economic and social amelioration. Historians who have written of ** the period have always been disposed to conclude that land hunger was the driving force which led to the ex- pansion. Possibly this conclusion is correct. There can be no 35ubt of the desire for more land. An agricultural people when hard pressed economically thinks in term*;

mw uAtiuA rot OLD 59

of territoml expansion, and the Romans thoogh very legalistic were as quick as many other peoples have been to take mortal offense at a neighbor's behavior when they need their neighbor's food. However, we have no right t 'iduccd to this conclusion cither by the short-

i argument of post hoc ergo, nor by an a priori faith in the economic interpretation of history. It is only t > I to point out first that the Roman people who had for i( nturies to defend their titles to desirable plain-lands a^inst the inroads of hungry mountaineers had thereby <! to a maximum the lowlander's sense of prop- : „!its and justice.* It is not by mere chance that Rome's civil code has been adopted by all the world as the basis of law. Moreover a careful study of Rome's method of utilizing her victories reveals the behavior not of a land-hungry bandit but of a far-seeing political nri^anizer. A parcel of land was often appropriated by way of indemnity, and it was frequently a fertile plot which would invite and retain its colonists, bat the indi- vidual porfions were generally very small, just snfBcient for a military post, and among the settlers was always included a fair proportion of the allied peoples. The new settlements of the fourth century show unmistakably that the government kept needs of the state foremost, not the cr)' of citizens for new allotments. The first settlements were made at the seaport towns of Antium and Tarracina which had exposed Latium to the raids of sea rovers, and of Greek and Etruscan fleets. But only three htmdred

•In Roman ImpertdKsm, chapters III and IV, I have tried to explain Rome's foreign policy for this period.

60 NEW LANDS FOR OLD

men were sent to each, enough presumably to take polit- ical control and command the ports; and the allotments consisted of a few acres per man. Colonists were next settled on some land of Privernum to control the pass over the Volscian mountains behind Tarracina, land which was too exposed to the malaria of the Pontine marshes to be chosen as highly desirable for economic reasons. Above Capua in the territory taken from the Sidicini, allies of the Samnites, the Latin colony of Cales was planted. It contained 2,500 settlers, partly Romans who gave up their citizenship for the Latin status, and partly Latin and Campanian allies. Cales in fact is an instance of the typical border colony that Rome favored. Good enough land was chosen to induce the settlers to remain and guard a perilous spot, Romans and allies were mingled in recognition of mutual rights and to serve as a cohesive group in the federation, and the situation was selected chiefly for its strategic value: Cales guarded the inner road between Rome and Capua, and it separated the Samnites from the newly subjected Aurunci. Similar military colonies were planted at Luceria, Suessa, In- teramna and Alba. Finally the Falernian fields above Cumae where the coast road debouches into Campania was taken and settled by Roman citizens. The reason for the appropriation was partly strategic, partly punitive, for the inhabitants, apparently an old enclave of Etrus- cans,* had aided the Samnites against Rome. The land

•Vergil, Aen. VIII, 724, makes Halaesus, a Faliscan, the leader of the troops of the ager Falernus; see Deecke, Rosch. Lex. sub voc. Halofsus.

inw LAifM roi ou> 6i

was indeed excellent, but had good land been the chief concern, Rome need not have sent her cttiicns one hun- dred miles away.

These are the settlements made in the period of ex- pansion during the fourth century and they are fairly representative of Rome's policy for the next century as well. The only difference is that in the third century the !it of Romans alone is of infrequent occurrence, t:i military colony becones the standard type, and

some lands, such as the Ager Gallicus, fail for a long time to find takers. These are all indications that by the third century Rome suffered not from land hunger but from a scarcity of men needed for her task.

An adequate statement of how far Rome's expansion was conditioned by economic pressure it would be hazard- ous to attempt without a complete review of the whole history of Rome's foreign policy.! The close connection between the economic revolution aiuHtie political expan- sion cannot be denied. We may at least say that the over-population of Latium apparent in the early period and the distress of the people due to a gradual deteriora- tion of the soil played an important part in setting into activity the instincts and impulses which led the govern- ment into an aggressive foreign policy in 343; subsequent ventures, and the possession of a dense population of farmers enabled the government to build up an irresist- ible army which made conquest relatively easy. The wastage of the wars however and the requirements for military colonies at strategic points soon absorbed the surphisage to such an extent that the third century dia-

62 NEW LANDS FOR OLD

closes an insufficiency rather than a congestion of popu- lation. Furthermore the evidence shows clearly that the government from the beginning was controlled by a well- ordered policy which considered political and military needs paramount and that it never betrayed these to the exigencies of the economic pressure exerted through in- dividual citizens.

It is equally manifest however that the political ex- pansion of Rome reacted permanently upon the economic life of the people. The constant availability of good lands which the state desired to have occupied against possible encroachment always attracted men and capital not otherwise occupied. Thus the Romans now felt no incentive to try new enterprises, to develop industries or to enter commerce on land or sea. During this period of expansion Rome almost isolated herself from transmarine influences. The contact with the outer world that Etrus- can agencies had formerly encouraged was weakened. Temples built at Rome in the sixth century had been al- most Ionic in style but the art of the fourth century shows few traces of contemporaneous Aegean influence.^** The rude masonry of yellow tufa that remains from this period shows that Rome had ceased to follow the prog- ress of Greek art; not till the second century did Roman architecture become aware of how far it had been out- distanced.K/tn industrial arts the story is the same. Praeneste, the inland hill-city only twenty miles away, developed in the third century a group of silversmiths whose skill and artistry are still a source of pleasure.*^

»o Pinza, Bull. Com. 1912, 53.

11 See Matthies, Praen. Spiegel, on Praenestine metal work.

NSW lanhs pr^ft OLD 63

It 1! at Koouui crafts of the

pcru^ L. tiiice both cttks were

equally Latin. The explanation of Praeneste's new de- velopment probably lies in the fact that the city had limited its territorial bounds by a treaty of "equality" with Rome which tied it for all time to the pottcnion of some fifty square miles and compelled its surplus ener- gies to find expression in industr)'. It might have been well for Rome had she to some measure been forced bade upon her inventive skill in the same way. But by the re- sults of Rome's expansionistic ventures her citizens, al- ways invited to settle new lands and to invest their eicoeta capital in real property, became for all time farmers and real estate capitalists. Necessity, the mother of crafts as well as of arts, never forced them into apprenticeship in those occupations that develop the love for artificial beauty and train the instincts for commercial enterprise.

CHAPTER V

Roman Coinage

The history of Roman coinage* reveals one of the most interesting attempts in financial experimentation that can be found, an attempt to provide with but little use of gold — which was far too scarce in early Italy for purposes of coinage — an adequate currency for a state growing by leaps and bounds, to establish for foreign trade an ac- ceptable medium of exchange that might compete with the issue of hundreds of neighboring states, and to keep coins of the two metals, silver and bronze, of a bimetallic system near their intrinsic values when their market prices were violently fluctuating.

Our first surprise is that Rome managed to do with- out coins till the middle of the fourth century,^ though neighboring Etruscan cities had been minting money for more than a century, and the Greek cities of Southern Italy and Sicily for more than two centuries. This dila- tory behavior cannot be explained on the assumption that

* Head, Historia Numorum^; Hill, Historical Roman Coins; Grueber, Coins of the Roman Republic. The standard works of Babelon and Mommsen serve as good introductions. Haeberlin's Systematik der dltesten rom. Miinswescns, iHS-7. is an •rigimal contribution to the history of Roman coinage, but is faulty espe- cially in its treatment of historical facts. My arguments for the view that the Roman system was bimetallic are presented in Classical Philology, 1919, 314.

2 See end of chapter III.

64

MOUAS COINAGE 6S

coins of other states may have flowed in mffickntly to supply the want, since the early trcasare-trovet of Lattttm disclose very few foreign coins. The only explanation is that Rome — as indeed the extant fragments of her early art imply — had quite fallen out of the currents of world- trade after the Etruscan princes had been banished, and that the sluggish agricultural economy fared satisfac- torily with ordinar)' bartering supplemented by the use of copper weighed in the balance. It was only after the new democratic element, which gained its first decisive victory over the aristocracy in 366, demonstrated its in- terest in commerce by founding a maritime colony at Ostia that the state undertook to coin money; and then only bronze was issued, and in bulky one-pound pieces (called assvs), in uncial fractions of the pound, and in multiples of the pound.

Bronze was indeed the only metal cuiiicd at Rome for the next eighty years, during the whole period of rapid expansion that made her supreme in Italy. However a few years after this first issue, when Rome sent her armies into Campania to aid in checking Samnite in- vasions, her generals found themselves in contact with Greek and Oscan peoples who used silver currency. In order to buy army equipment from them it was necessary to have an abundance of silver money; and the soldiers must also have desired their pay in a currency that would be respected in the cities where they were billeted. Silver was accordingly provided for use in Campania, though there is now some question as to how it was issued. Since these silver didrachms bear the name Romatw,

66 ROMAN COINAGE

though their workmanship proves them the product of theCapuan mint, Mommsen held that Capua as a depend- ency of Rome struck the coins at Rome's orders and for Rome's convenience, and he therefore considered them of Roman mintage issued from a subsidiary mint. It is now generally thought however that Capua was still sovereign at that time. Capua therefore seems to have lent her mint to the Roman generals* who issued military currency — as Flamininus did later in Greece — or she accepted a contract from Rome to issue silver for Rome's southern trade, just as certain Campanian mints afterwards coined money for Cora, Cales, and Suessa.

The pieces in question were double drachms of the size which was then generally current in Campania. They weighed about 7.58 grams, so that the single drachm was considered to be %2 oi the Oscan pound of 273 grams. On what basis it exchanged with the Roman bronze as we are not told. If bronze then exchanged with silver at the ratio normal later of i: 120, exchange must have been a cumbersome process since the silver piece would then be worth 3% bronze asses. But it is possible that bronze was then worth a trifle more and that three asses bought a didrachm.

Why the government did not bring this silver coinage to Rome during the fourth century it is difficult to under- stand. The scarcity of these coins on Latian soil, while Capuan copper coins came in abundance, would indicate

• See Roman Imperialism, p. 41, which favors a theory that the coins were issued on a contract. Haeberlin follows Mommsen in thinking Capua a dependency; Babelon, I, p. xxix, calls it a military coinage.

ftOMAN COINACI 67

that Rome did not encouni|^ their circuhition northward. Could it be that Rome, taught by the financial troubles that followed her first coinage of copper, decided for the present not to introduce silver at home? That seemt not unlikely, for we can hardly ascribe great financial experi- ence to the simple legislators who forbad the charging of interest on money.

About 312 B.C. — if the wheel on the Komano-Cam- panian coin refers to the construction of the Appian Way — the size of the silver didrachm minted at Capoa was reduced from 7.58 grams to about 6.82 grams, an act that must have displeased the Campanians among whom the coin was meant to circulate. Rome could hardly have done this unless her position in Campania had been strong both politically and financially. It is plausibly as- sumed that Rome could have ventured upon such a move only after Capua had committed acts of disloyalty to the league as she did in 312, and had in consequence been relegated to a somewhat inferior position. Rome's rea- son for reducing the coin was apparently to establish a convenient rate of exchange with the bronze as her standard coin, at a ratio between silver and bronze of 120: 1.

This slight change is interesting because its effects soon proved to Rome the force of " Gresham's law " that, other things being equal, an inferior coin tends to drive out one of superior value. What happened was that Rome pres- ently came, in the conduct of the protracted Samnite War, into direct trade relations with Lucania and Apulia where the currency of the South-Italian Greeks had

68 ROMAN COINAGE

hitherto dominated, and where her new didrachm, which was about 15 per cent, lighter than the Tarcntine coin generally used, threatened to drive the latter out of circu- lation. Tarentum* retorted with a similar reduction of her own coin. The incident demonstrates how powerful Rome was becoming in the South.

In the decade following 312 the bronze as which was still the standard coin at Rome was gradually reduced to half a pound, and the fractional coins proportionally. This act is explained by Mommsen as an effort to relegate bronze to the position of token money.' His theory how- ever involves several difficulties. Bronze was still the trading metal in the Roman market and there is little evi- dence that enough silver had come to Rome to take a dominating place. Throughout the Republic moreover Rome shows a great dislike for fiat money, making time and again a desperate effort to keep bimetallism® intact and her coins in both metals at par value. Finally the bronze as, being a crudely molded piece, could very readily have been counterfeited and would doubtless have been if the metal in it had represented only half of its market value, for it must be remembered that the as was

*Haeberlin, op. cit. p. 24; Evans, Horsemen of Tarentum, p. 138; Regling, Klio, VI, p. 519.

* Haeberlin, op. cit., p. 44, interprets it as an attempt to relieve debtors and therefore ascribes it to the year 286 B.C. when the plebeians seceded to the Janiculan hill. This seems to me wholly unacceptable. In view of the rise of commodity prices at the end of the fourth century, the date should not be placed later than 300 B.C.

« Especially in the most important currency reforms of 312, 269 and 217 B.C.

■OMAN COINAGE 69

still a rather valuable coin, worth a third of a double drachm or a tenth the price of a sheep. A far more reaioaable explanation teems to be that bronze like all other commodities was rapidly rising in value through- out the Mediterranean world because of the enormous treasures of silver and gold that Alexander the Great had recently found in the Orient and set into circulation. The price lists that can be made from the temple records of Delos' for the fourth and third centuries B.C. demon- strate the fact that during the half century that followed A1(^xander's conquests practically all commodities more than doubled in price. And while we have no record of the price of raw copper, there is no reason to suppose that it was an exception. The reduction in the size of the bronze as seems therefore due solely to a rise in the price of copper.'

However this new coinage of half-pound asses, brought out about 300 B.C., was by no means permanent. The

^ Reinach, L'kistoire par Us momnaUi; Glots. Le pris (Us dtn- rhs d DHos in Jour, des Savants, 1913, an article based upon the mass of material published in InscripHomts Gra4ca€, XI, 3, in 1912.

* The effort to preserve bimetallism by changing the weight of one of the coins had been tried repeatedly in Greece. The coin- age of Agathocles of Syracuse furnishes a good example of about the same date. In order to meet the fall of price in gold from 15: 1 to 13: 1, he reduced his silver coins from ten to eight Utrae. Modem states have acted similarly. In 1864 France reduced her fractional coins because of the influx of gold from Califomtan mines; three years later she reduced the two-franc piece to the l>osttion of token-money, and presently abandoned bimetallism completely. Had France waited a few years till silver was dis- covered in Nevada the process might have been reversed.

70 ROMAN COINAGE

successive issues of the first thirty years of the third cen- tury provided coins of constantly diminishing weight until the as fell to two ounces, i.e., a sixth of a pound. Again the arguments just given preclude the assumption that the bronze coin was giving way to silver mono- metallism. It may seem drastic to posit a threefold rise in the value of copper in the first thirty years of the third century, but we have recently seen an equally startlin*,' rise* in the price of copper produced in two years by causes not wholly unlike those then prevailing. The con- dition of the copper market was indeed peculiar. The steady demand for the metals during the long Samnite War was doubtless draining the market, since copper was then more extensively used in wagons, ships, war-engines, harnesses, shields, etc., than later. But the real crisis came in 296 when the Samnites secured the support of the Gauls and Etruscans. Then Rome's supply which had come almost entirely from Northern Etruria must have been completely cut off. During the next year Rome cleared the North of enemies, but the source of supply again fell into the enemies' hands between 285 and 280, while Rome's needs for the metal were increasing by the extension of the war north and south. Under such conditions a threefold rise in the price is less strange than what happened to the metal in 1914-1916 A.D.

Pliny*® has by chance preserved the odd item of infor- mation that the Romans in 280 B.C. when they captured

" Copper in the American market rose from 12 cents per lb. in 1914, to 36 cents in 1916. In 1919 it bears about the same ratio to silver as it did in 1914.

"//w^ATa/., XXXIV, 34.

■OMAN COIKAOII 71

the Etruscmn city of Volsinii carried away as booty two thousand bronxe statues and he cites a Greek author who joked about Rome's making wars for k>ve of art Hut there may have been more than mere humor in the remark. Doubtless many of those portrait busts went into the furnace to compensate for the deprivations of years. When in 269 Rome reformed her coinage 00 a new system she was able to restore the old ratio of 120: i which had for some years fallen to 20: i. This was of course made possible by the re>establishment of peace- prices throughout Italy and by the acquisition of large quantities of metal in her capture of Volsinii and Vulci in 380. And the process was doubtless aided by the fact

liat Greek trade and industry had now so far assimilated ihe extra currency of the last century that the prices of commodities had now generally fallen back to those pre-

liling before Alexander's conquest After the wars with the Samnites and Pyrrhus had cnrlrf! in complete victory in 2'J2 Rome found herself the (i power of a confederation that included the

whuic ut Italy, and yet her currency consisted of a Greek silver coin minted for her by a dependency and a crudely in issued at home. Obviously the time iud arrived for a more adequate and dignified system. In 369 a tlionmi'lu'olim rrform wn«i iindfTtnt-pti the old coinage v and ^hr i was,

instituted at iv 1 at several branch mints through-

out Italy. Ti....^.. currency was conceived on sound.' kleas, adequately managed, and soon gained respect' throughout the Mediterranean basin. In the first place

72

ROMAN COINAGE

/ttit new Roman pound (the Attic pound of 327 grams) ! which had gained favor in Central Italy was now substi- / tuted as a standard of weight for the Oscan pound which / was about one sixth lighter. It was regularly divided j into 12 ounces, or 288 scruples. The two-ounce bronze I ojl(48 scruples) which had been found a convenient size I was adopted permanently into the new system. How- ' ever since peace-prices had restored to i: 120 the ratio between bronze and silver this new piece was worth only i about one sixth of the war-time as of two ounces. For a standard silver coin a four-scruple piece, the denarius, was adopted. This was the size of the Athenian drachm and therefore somewhat heavier than the Romano- Campanian drachm (4.55 grams instead of 3.80 -). The adoption of so large a coin would obviously entail a loss to Rome in South-Italian trade if merchants began to exchange the Greek and the Roman silver at par, for the cheaper money of the South might threaten to drive the larger pieces into the melting pot. But Rome apparently decided to take the risk for the sake of a sound and re- spected currency. At best Rome might be strong enough financially to win in the competition;" at worst she might use political pressure to suppress the mints of the south. Whether she used this power we are not told; at any rate

»* To tide over the season of confusion, and doubtless to c^U attention to the superior value of the denarius, Rome continued to issue from the Capuan and some other southern branch-mints silver coins of the old weight (3 and 6 scruples) which were called victoriati. They probably exchanged with the denarius on the basis of 4 to 3, but they bore no mark of value and were treated as Pliny says mercis loco.

BOMAN COINAGE 73

the southern silver mints closed one by one during the ( rntiiry probably from financial incapacity to compete. Since the ratio of exchange between the metals was now I: I20, the four-scrupic silver coin was worth ten of the ;H-scruple bronze asses and the silver coin was aooord- Kigly called the dtnasius which in time emerged as denarius, A one-scruple piece of silver was also issued hich was of course worth two and one half asses and ilicrcfore called a sestertius. Various fractions of the bronze as were also struck.

Strange to say. later Roman writers who lived when the

Emperors were alloying and debasing the coinage of their

day so misunderstood this great reform as to suppose that

the adoption of the two-ounce as was an act of audacious

debasement. Pliny" indeed goes so far as to say: " Thus

a profit of five-sixths was made and debts were cancelled

i.) that I xtent." Nothing of course could be farther from

ruth. In the new system the government issued both

and bronze at market value, and, jf_aiQ!ttmgi.h_

a loss by adopting a denarius which was heavier

'-s with which it was likely to com-

jse were probably calculated in silver

and would naturally be computed in the intrinsic values of

* he respective issues. The fact that the new bronze as was

rtly one sixth of a pound could therefore do no harm.

i he word ^u singly, meant a " unit/' and the Roman law

"Pliny, XXXIII, 44-45; cf. F»taf (UndJiy), 470, 87, 468. The last reference in particular which aicribes the change to the Second Punic War shows that Festus was capable of serious blunders. Apparently there was no U ustwui thjf history of age available in the days of Pliny and Fettnt. 6

74 ROMAN COINAGE

courts were too respectful of property rights to be mis- led by a mere word into permitting the repudiation of debts. Those who had fallen into debt in terms of the old drachm and asses could readily be made to compute it in terms of the new denarii and asses; the process could hardly have been more difficult than when after our Rev- olution old contracts stipulated in pounds sterling had to be settled in terms of dollars and cents.

The charge of debasement came so natural to histor- ians who had endured the evils of imperial currency that they employed it to account for almost every change in the Republican coinage. As a matter of fact while many autocrats both Greek and Roman debased their coins for the sake of profit, Greek and Latin republics never did except under very strong pressure. The Roman people at this time had little to gain from such an attempt. The neighboring states would at once have discovered the deception and have refused to accept the coins at face value; while at home the people who received the cur- rency from the state as pay for army service — a large proportion of the citizens — for war materials, and for public contracts, were also members of the assembly that had to authorize such an act. They obviously were not likely to favor it. The situation in the Empire when alloying became prevalent was wholly different. Then the largest debtor, the one who had to pay the vast sums of the state budget, was an autocrat and could profit tem- porarily by paying those sums in cheapened money. Furthermore since the Empire extended over most of the world of commerce, almost all the trade was " domestic,"

lOMAN COINAGI 75

and it mattered little whether or not the rest of the world refused to accept the imperial coin. The tituatioa re- :>cmbled that of fourteenth century England whose ktngt could gradually reduce the so-called pound to one fourth its size because it had a monopoly in trade, then largely domestic. With the growth of foreign trade in Eliza- beth's time the coin came into competition with foreign issues and then arbitrary reductions ceased. It is well therefore to scnitinize all statements charging a reduc- tion for fraudulent purposes during the Republic. Most of them are due to misattribution of a later evil. Only one or at most two early instances of such an attempt seem now to be probable.

The most interesting of all of Rome's experiments in finance is perhaps the act of 217 B.C. by which the as was reduced to one ounce,** the silver denarius pro- nounced worth sixteen asset instead of ten, and goM is- sued in pieces worth ao, 40, and 60 sesterces. PlinyV*

^ Pliny, XXXIII, 45; Festus (Lindsay), 470- It jeems tikel;:^ Aat PHny <f| rtfnrriog t**^ ^^^ to the dictalorihtp of Fabius is to "Se^prefcrred to Fcsttis who ascribes the law to Flaminius. The Utter was ilain at the battle of Trasimene lake which brought on Tbit crisii. Later authors who assumed that the law had a popa- f^^tic pcrpo*^ TTOBM mt^""Y hit upon Flaminius as the proposer. res. VIII. 26, seems also Bo bclicYC that the law was is- ' '-^ —''^-e debtors.

ttcen issued once by the Romano-Campanian mint bet ore the dcnarial system. That was also at a critical moment, p^rhap? when the treaty was made with Carthage in the Pyrrhic H.C. The coin represents the act of striking a treaty. i s usually assume that this coin was issued about 300-

390, since its value (4 scruples of gold = 30 asses) seems to coin-

76 ROMAN COINAGE

statement reads characteristically: " When Hannibal was pressing the Romans hard in the dictatorship of Fabius Maximus, the as was reduced to one ounce and it was decided that the denarius should exchange for i6 asses, the quinarius for eight, the sestertius for four. Thus the state made a gain of a half, but in paying military wages one denarius was still to be given for ten asses." This measure is surprising if it was meant, as Pliny says, to repudiate state debts by one-half, since Fabius Maximus was of all men a sound aristocrat. Festus attributes the law to the democratic.leader Flaminius, implying that the measure was of a revolutionary nature and meant to help individual debtors. Apparently authorities were at odds for an explanation, and well they might be.

Let us consider what Jhe law effected. It was passed in 217 after the Roman armies had been almost com- pletely annihilated by Hannibal. Huge armies had to be raised at once, Rome had to be fortified, fleets had to be built, there was need for very large issues of currency, and Hannibal held Etruria, the source of copper, while currency as always happens in times of invasion was disappearing into hiding places. It does not seem likely that the law was meant to relieve private debtors^ for the state had recently allotted the Ager Gallicus. Nor is it easy to believe that the state passed that law for the sake of repudiating its obligations, since the state had no debts at that time, i^xplicity raised the soldier's pay to cover

cidc with the libral as. But if we are right in holding that copper rose in value so that the new semilibral as was worth as much as the old libral as this argument falls, and the gold coin may readily be assigned to the time of the Pyrrhic war.

BOICAN COINAOB 77

th^lfference between the old and the new coin, and on all the contracts necessitated by the defeat it would in j^...,.....^ I..V*. t,^ fv.^. If market prices. We must con- ( stus are again projecting late

tic Mr \\ us was attempting to do was clearly

to i!u r( I < I • ^f currency by every means pos-

siilc ( 'I I two small coins instead of one

large one could not materially aid, but the new coinage (V ' ' -.- than that. It recognized the war-time apprecia- t V opper and thus saved the amount of this appre-

c liiion for the treasory. The ratio of exchange was now 112:1, hence an ounce of bronze was worth about one- sixtecnth of a four-gram silver coin, the denaritis there- fore was slightly redoced in size and proootmced, as indeed it was, worth 16 of the asses. There was no de- ct 1 1 ion in either issue; both were meant to pasf at FPari^t* id as the state raised the pay of soldiers to con- nei^coin, the courts doubtless saw to it that racts were equitably srftUd by the proper i The advantages to e were numer-

ous. In ' place, now that Rome had to buy war

-'" '^'' - ^he had a silver coin nearer the size of

and the more prevalent Greek drachm^ aiil this cHfccted a saving; then as noted above, the act ti • k advantage of the appreciation in the price of copper. Inially by issoing smaJler coins the state enticed back to the mint the old currency which was disappearing into hiding. The sole disadvantage, beyond the labor entailed, was thatJ)cnccforth the denarius was not equated with ten asses as^itsiiame implied but with sixteen, thus de-

78 ROMAN COINAGE

strqying the convenient decimal system of the earlier coinage. It is probably for this reason that business men b^;an to calculate their accounts in sesterces, now worth four asses.

The gold coins issued at this same time were the first real Roman issues in that metal. Since the one-scruple piece was marked xx (sesterces) and the new silver sesterces weighed about five-sixths of a scruple the rate of exchange must have been about i: i6%. This rate seems high, for in Greece during this same period gold generally passed at the rate of i: 12. When we consider however that Italy was poor in gold, that the purpose of the issue was to provide as much currency as possible at a time of severest stress, we cannot but conclude that the rate was moderate.

It is of course unfortunate that the decimal system was thus abandoned, but it is difficult to see how in such a crisis the state without the aid of a well developed credit system could have proceeded more wisely to keep its metal in circulation, to expand its currency to meet enormous demands, and still to hold its issues in three metals at market rates when the exigencies of the war had raised the commodity price of copper.

The system adopted in 217 remained in vogue into the Empire except that the gold coins were soon withdrawn from circulation and the issue of bronze asses was sus- pended from time to time, and the weight of the as was during the Social war reduced to half an ounce. What purpose governed this last reduction cannot be deter-

tOMAN COINAGE 79

mined, since we do not know the market value of cof>- j>cr** at the time.

Rome's currency Sjrftem was of coarse not wholly sat- isf actor)'. The necessity of frequently changing the size of the as because of the fluctuations in the market price of copper must have caused trouble in biutnets; but gold was too scarce at least in the earlier day to trust as a rir! ir!. and its adoption might have led to worse evils. a silver monometallism would have been better, but it is doubtful whether the hard-beaded Roman pop- ulace could have been made to accept bronze coins of fictitious value any sooner than they did. A second de- ficiency was the iijegubr way in which money was put into circulation, ^^ince a free and unlimited coinage of silver and copper was out of the question, the size of the issues was determined by the consuls and senate, and these could hardly have had any good criterion for judg- ing when more currency was needed. Doubtless many a financial crisis was due to the irregularity of the issues, especially as the banking and credit system developed very slowly. Yet there was perhaps a flexibility which there might not have been if Rome, like modem states, had permitted the chance output of gold mines to deter- mine her per capita circulation.

At any rate the history of three centuries of efforts in \ oking together two such unmanageable metals as bronze and silver, in adapting the currency to the needs of a rap- iJly expanding empire, and in keeping it withal sound

** See Grenfell and Hunt, Tehtumis papyri, I, Append. 2, ind Mitteis-Wilcken, Ckreitowiatu, I, bciv, for conflicting theories.

8o ROMAN COINAGE

and respected is very creditable to the Republican states- men. The three centuries of selfish manipulation by the autocratic emperors that followed brought the coins down to less than one fiftieth of their one-time value.

Desirable as it would be, it seems impracticable to esti- mate the value of Roman money in terms of modem standards. To be sure if we might attempt a purely sta- tistical calculation without raising the question of what ought to enter into the cost of living, we might draw up a brief though wholly inadequate comparative list of Roman and modem commodity prices, and this would show that gold bought considerably more of the poor man's necessities then than it has in recent years. The gold in Cicero's day bought" twice as much wheat, rye, and cheese, about the same amount of salt-fish, three to five times as much of the common vegetables, and six times as much dried beans — these were the poor man's staples — as it did in 1910 — to adopt a year of normal prices. Cheap wine and oil, both necessities of his diet, could be had at about one-third the amount that the mod- em laborer at Rome had to pay before the war; shoes and coarse wool were about one-fourth the price.

In the case of metals, gold bought somewhat less silver — the rate of exchange varying from 12: i to 16: i — 25 per cent, more copper, but only about one-fifth as much iron. The rich man had his ordinary labor at about one- tenth the modem price, but he had to have much more of it. Beef, pork, ham, mutton, and fowl, which the poor *• For prices see chapter xv, and Schulz, Sokrates, 1914, 75.

lOMAN COINAOi Sl

Mian could not afford, were sold at about one-half of the } irrent in 1910. The better gnules of wine and

imported table delicaciet of all kindi do not leem to have been cheap. House rents, for which we have few statistics, varied then as now according to other consid- erations than capital coat. Cicero's house in the exclusive section of Rome was far from new, but it cost 3,500,000 sesterces (about $150,000); Sulla when a poor but re- <pectab1e youth had rented a flat for $150 a year, and

here were apparently miserable rooms to be had for workmen at a dollar per month. This enumeration of course does not lead us far, but

t sums up the material on which historians arrive at the convenient and statistically true, though woefully mis- leading, generalization that gold in Cicero's day had about three times the purchasing value that it had at the beginning of our century. This statement should not be made without immediate modification. In the first place Rome's was not a gold standard; if the small amount of gold then available had also been called upon to serve as the basis of currency its price would certainly have risen very much. Hence a comparison is at once vitiated for any estimate of the currency. Moreover given com- modities do not hold the same relative position in an ancient as in a modem list of utilities. Iron for instance was ordinarily of far less consequence in ancient life than it is to-day, and it was very costly. Labor which was a larger item to those who could employ it was shockingly

heap. Finally prices were less stable and varied more than now according to the distance of the pbce of pro-

82 ROMAN COINAGE

duction from centers of trade, while wars and famines interfered with prices more frequently, and relief in times of stress was apt to be dilatory. For instance, some ex- tremely low prices are quoted by Polybius as prevailing in Spain and Cisalpine Gaul. These however by no means represent normal rates, but rather conditions in frontier agricultural lands where a primitive self-sufficing economy still persisted, where commerce had not yet reg- ularly entered to take the surplus product, and where currency was seldom seen.

It is also well to keep in mind that slavery placed so wide a chasm between the upper and lower classes of Rome that hardly a single necessity of a workman's budget would recur in the list of the wealthy man's necessities. Even bread, which must have taken fifty per cent, of a laborer's salary if he had a family of four to provide for, could hardly have constituted a half of one per cent, of Cicero's annual expenses. And this leads to the greatest difficulty in attempting a comparison of values. While it is true that the laborer's denarius bought two or three times as many bare necessities as in 1910, it is true largely because he had to confine himself to a few of the cheap- est articles that must be had if he were to keep alive. It would not have been true if he had attempted to enjoy the variety of food, clothing, and the amenities that the modem man must have, for then he would quickly have included a grade of articles that were as expensive as now. In the case of the wealthy man it is by no means accurate to say that gold bought two or three times as much as now, for he needed many articles and much serv-

SOMAN OOUSAGB 85

ice for efficient existence that because of cumbersome transportation and lack of machinery were very costly. Cicero's journeys on official business by private carriage, yachts, and hand-borne litters, his mail which had to be sent by private couriers, his skilled stenographers and copyists, his private attendants who were needed in the lack of street guards, were necessities and very expensive ones. His ground rent in the section of Rome where he must live does not seem cheap to the modem Roman. His furniture, plate and house decorations were doubtless as heavy an item as they would be to-day because the application of slow hand-labor, even though the labor was cheap, made them expensive. The sum of 100,000 sesterces (about $4,000) which he had to expend annually for his son's education at Athens does not really repre- sent modem amenities, conveniences and luxuries amounting to three times $4,000. The need of having individual teachers in a day when there were no organ- ized universities, of employing personal attendants, the necessity of food, clothing, and apartments befitting his position, the cost of travel, of manuscript books, etc., removed him from the market where cheap necessities could be had. For Cicero a pound of Roman gold prob- ably bought little if any more than its present day equivalent.

CHAPTER VI

The Establishment of the Plantation

In 264 B.C. Rome came to the parting of the ways, and with characteristic enterprise chose the way that led into deep forests without signposts. For the first time she acquired non-ItaHan territory in contesting the possession of Sicily with Carthage. The real si^ificance of the step rests in the fact that she found and adopted in Sicily an Oriental theory of sovereignty^ which in time completely changed her political ideals, and, permeating her code, survived in still recognizable forms into modern times to justify those crude types of imperialism that have lately brought the world into one vast battlefield. In the past Rome had built up a federation of autonomous states which had surrendered their political hegemony without the payment of a tribute. In Sicily, she found that the overlord, Carthage, claimed to be owner of the soil, and that the holders were tenants who paid rent to and held possession at the good will of the sovereign power which exercised dominium in solo provinciali. This profitable theory, which permitted the conqueror to exact heavy tribute, Carthage and the Syracusan tyrant, Hiero, had learned from the kings of Egypt and Syria who had in-

^ Rostowzew, Studien zur Gesch. des Rom. Kolonates, 229-49, explains brilliantly the intricacies of the oriental method as applied in Sicily. I have attempted to sketch the political aspects of Rome's conquest of Sicily in Roman Imperialism, pp. tS ff.

84

'4

B8TABLISIIMENT OP THE PLANTATION 85

heritcd it from Alexander, as he in his day had adopted it together with his theory of divine rights from the Per- sian r^me. By virtue of it the drthaginians had im- ix>sed in Sicily tithes on grain and fifths on varioos other products of the soil, while the lands of which they had taken complete possession they rented out to the highest bidder or cultivated as state's domain. Thus a large part of Sicily had been treated as public land to be exploited to the advantage of the conqueror.

How far thoughts of transferring this profitable pos- session to themselves counted with the Romans in induc- ing them to enter the dangerous hazards of a war with Carthage, we can hardly decide. Polybius states that when the senate hesitated to act, the chauvinists urged the impular assembly to consider the material advantages that would follow, and perhaps it was the tribute which they had in mind. The senate, it must be added, however, icted with reluctance and for two years sent such small forces to the front, that there was apparently on their part no immediate intention of conquering a new prov- ince: to them it seemed enough if Messana were protected so that the straits might be kept out of Carthaginian control.

Those who looked for material advantages from a war were never more deluded. A constant struggle of twenty-four years ensued in which Rome drained her resources to the last drop. Every available man was used •n land or sea through interminable cam - -^ till her ticids went to waste and debts outstripped ims of

scanty~crbps. 1 o keep up a fair qaota for her army

86 ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PLANTATION

Rome at the end of the war admitted into citizenship all the Sabine and Picentine people, nmning the imaginary walls of her city-state across Italy to the Adriatic.

Rome won in the end, and took over Carthaginian Sicily with most of the lucrative dispositions of the for- mer owner, but she did not for the present evict any of the landholders nor send any colony to the island. The reasons are patent. The drain upon her population had been so severe that it would have been no easy matter to find volunteers for a colony so far distant. Nor could the state have made use of a military colony of the usual type. Nothing but a legion of professional soldiers would serve the purpose since here the conquered were to be kept in subjection as tributaries whether or not they wished it.

The annual tribute that Rome collected amounted to about one million bushels of wheat, which was brought to Rome and sold on the market for the account of the treasury. Since this amount was probably enough to supply at least half the needs of the city it would be in- teresting to know what the farmers of the vicinity thought of this competition of the state with their market. Un- fortunately our meager sources have left no apposite comment. It is impossible to believe that if the land- owners had seriously objected the urban tribes, being only four, could have out-voted the rural tribes in favor of cheap grain. Since the exaction of tribute in kind con- tinued and so far as we know no effort was made to divert the produce to other markets we may conclude that much grain was actually needed. If so, conditions in Latium

1

I8TABLISUMENT OF THE PLANTATION 87

had already shifted toward the position they held in Cato's day when grain culture had given way largely to pasturage* wine and olive-growing. The process, in so far as it was not complete, must of course have been ac- ited by the deluge of Sicilian wheat. From that :... one province after another was exploited to feed the growing population of the city, and central Italy could •rvcr again win the position of a cereal-producing region. In 232 Flaminius, a bold precursor of the Gracchi, re- ssertcd the doctrine, adopted after the fall of Veii, that iiblic lands should be employed for purposes of social ind economic amelioration rather than rented, as the c-natc desired, to endow the governmental treasury. The land in question was the Ager Gallicus which Rome took from the Senones when in 285 they attempted to repeat I he memorable raid of a century earlier. At that time the land had been left undivided for want of takers, and had probably been leased in large lots to grazers^ As the city grew, however, senators who were in general the lass that could carry such investments had naturally found the leases profitable. But their arguments against Flaminius were not wholly based upon personal consid- erations. As experienced administrators they saw of course the advantages to the state of having a steady and reliable source of income for the treasury in addition to he real-estate tax. and they could question with sincerity the wisdom of a doctrine whose implications would in- evitably phrase themselves in the theorj' that the state owed all its citizens a means of livelihood. How severe he demands for new distributions may have been we

88 ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PLANTATION

cannot conjecture, but it is quite possible that in the years of casting up of accounts after the long Punic war, many peasants lost their properties in the mortgages incurred while they had been in foreign service. At any rate the contest was a bitter one before Flaminius finally secured a majority vote in the tribal assembly for his proposal. Polybius,* writing later when the city was drifting toward the Gracchan maelstrom, and adopting the interpretation of the law as he found it in the aristocratic writer, Fabius, cynically remarks that this was the beginning of Rome's down-fall, and he adds, what seems to be an echo of sena- torial invective, that it was the cause of the Gallic wars of the Po valley that followed. Later writers generally adopted this verdict, for the effective historians of the republic who have put the stamp of their own bias upon republican history were nearly all members of the aris- tocracy. And this is the reason why the whole career of this original though over-impetuous leader* is everywhere

2 Polybius, II, 21, 7; the sentence probably belongs to a late revision of his work by the author. See also Cicero, Cato Maj. II, and Brut. 57. The tract is sometimes called Agcr GalHcus et Picenus because the Picentines seem to have possessed it before the Gallic invasion. On the law of Flaminius, see Cardinali, Studi Graccani, and Miinzer art. Flaminius in Pauly-Wissowa.

'It was Flaminius who built the via Flaminia, which served both as a military road towards Gaul, and a highway of the colonists to Rome. The man's interest in industrial questions is revealed in his support of the lex Metilia de fullonibus regulating the fullers' gilds (Pliny, XXXV, 197) and in his approval of the Claudian law which prevented senators from engaging actively in foreign commerce. The second great playground of Rome, the Circus Flaminius, built by him, attests his interest in the urban populace.

nTABUSBMBNT OF THB PLANTATION 89

Stained with whimsical accusations. An important imme- diate result of this law was that Rome again turned her surphis energies to land development, although the open- tig of a rich province outside of Italy should have at- tracted attention to the profits of commerce and industry.* The Second Punic War which was fought on Italian soil wrought terrible havoc upon the chief industry of the I>coplc and thereby accelerated the processes that we have already noticed. For more than twelve years the battle lines swept back and forth over the villages and fields of central and southern Italy. Cities surrendered to the seemingly stronger contestant for self-protection, only to be sacked in vengeance when captured by the other. Whatever contestant retreated, grainfields were burned for military reasons, vineyards and orchards cut, and the cattle driven off. The inhabitants who escaped scat- tered to the four winds, many abandoning Italy perma- nently for Greece. Many of the famous cities of Magna Graecia came out of the war with a few hundred famine- ridden weaklings huddling together along the ruins of the city walls."

* Since Gaudiusand Flaminius saw fit to prevent senators from engaging in maritime commerce, we may infer that some at least were entering this field at the time.

» The vigorous part played in tlie Second Punic War by Mar- seilles suggests the inference that economic causes were far more important in bringing on the conflict than Liry supposed. Marseilles had had many trading-posts on the coast of Spain whither her merchants had attracted the products of the whole peninsula. Obviously, when Hamilcar and Hannibal marched northward from New Carthage cross-atttiiig all the old trade routes llarteilles found that Sptnish products began to flow 7

90 ESTABLISUMENT OF THE PLANTATION

After the war, came problems of reconstruction which were of course far beyond the resources of the enfeebled and debt-burdened state. The few men who could be induced to consider colonies were gathered together and sent to frontiers demanding immediate protection. Thus Cremona and Placentia were repeopled as a bulwark against the Gauls, and a few hundred citizens were found for each of several ruined harbors of the southern coast, now exposed to raids and invasions.* Even for these southern points the requisite three hundred citizens could not always be suppHed, so that Thurii and Vibo were settled as Latin colonies, and non-Romans were also in- cluded in some of the others.

Vast areas of devastated lands at less vital points could obviously not be cared for at present. These the state took possession of, partly because they were without claimants, partly, in accordance with the new theory of sovereignty recently adopted in Sicily, because they were

southward toward the Punic ports rather than eastward. And since Carthage whenever possible monopolized the commerce of her possessions the success of Carthage in Spain would obviously result in the complete exclusion of Marseilles. It is therefore very likely that it was.Marseilles that first tried to check the Carthaginians, and failing this, did her utmost to excite the Ro- man Senate to activity in her favor by exaggerating the reports of Punic designs against Rome. The Ebro treaty and the Sagun- tine alliance may well be the results of Massiliot diplomacy. Cf. Frank, Roman Imperialism, 121 ff.

• The maritime colonies, planted apparently in view of a pos- sible invasion of Antiochus in conjunction with Hannibal, were Sipontum, Croton, Tempsa, Buxentum, Salernum, Puteoli, Liter- num, Volturnum, Thurii and Vibo. Citizens of Fregellae arc known to have shared in the colonization.

BSTABLISBMEKT OF TBB PLANTATION 9I

forfeited in title to the conqueror. What was to be done with these vast areas, aggregating a total of perhaps two million acres/ at least half of which was arable? Ob- viously the state pursued what seemed to be a reasonable policy in offering it in large lease-holds to Romans who had the capital requisite to make use of it. By this method at least there was some hope of redeeming the land, fqr with the scarcity of settlers and the lack of capital available for buying it outright, the only other alternative would have been continued desolation and consequent lawlessness and brigandage. Under the law public lands could be thus leased in blocks of five hundred jugera per holder, or a thousand jugera for citizens hav- ing two children. Intensive cuhivation to be sure was out of the question in such blocks, for labor was scarce and with the means of transportation then available grain could not profitably find good markets. But the land could at least be turned into ranches since cattle raising might be conducted with the aid of a few slaves and the product be brought to market with little difficulty. Even on these terms much land found no renters, and the cen- sor's bureau seems, pardonably if not wisely, to have per- mitted enterprising renters to exceed their allotments of the legal five hundred jugera if they so desired, and in many cases also to have connived when such renters let their cattle graze on less desirable lands IWng unleased in the vicinity. Thus large tracts of public lands which for the time being were not otherwise of any service, came in time to be enclosed in the original holdings without ^ Beloch. BevolketMng der GrUck Romt, WeU,

92 ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PLANTATION

good and legal title. It was a procedure which has found many parallels in the land-record offices of our own Western states. Here as there the practice was not only excused but even encouraged by public opinion, since those nearby saw nothing but advantage accruing from what is popularly called the " development of natural re- sources." Later after the population had grown and prospective settlers were clamoring for new allotments, a reaction set in demanding the "conservation of natural resources," and some of the officials were thrown into prison for permitting what public opinion had heartily approved of.

Needless to say, when Rome recovered from the dire effects of the war, when the population began once more to increase and fill up the interstices, though this required more than one generation, it was found that the state's hasty liberality had been imprudent in its failure to im- pose due restrictions. Ranches had spread over lands fit for agriculture; slaves imported from the East were thriving where citizen-soldiers should be growing up for service in time of need;' territory that might have been available for colonization by Rome's overflow of children was found occupied, and capitalistic farming, which even under normal conditions outstrips small-lot culture, had been entrenched by a state act. After such leaseholders had established a further equity on unreclaimed posses- sions by many investments and improvements, a demand

* Appian, Bell. Civ. 1, 7, states that the squatters preferred slave to free labor both because slaves could not be levied for the wars, and because there was profit in their offspring.

ISTABLISBMSirr OP THE PLANTATIOH 93

on the part of the tribal aisembly for a return to the theory of Flamintus migfat well precipitate a rery danger- ous revolution* The germs of the Gracchan tedttloo were inherent in the inadequate reconstruction policy adopted after the Pimic war.

A brief account of the agricuhura! methods in useopoo a moderate-sized plantation may serve not only to de- scribe Rome's chief industry but to illustrate an ordinary Roman's methods of dealing with practical problems. We arc fairly well informed about agricultural practices !)y the instructive, if garbled, treatise written by Cato in the second century B.C., the somewhat longer work writ- ten by Varro a century later, and the full and charming treatise of Columella composed in the first century A.D. Valuable data are also found in Vergil's Georgics and in Pliny's encyclopaedia. Since the orthodox system was already in vogue in Cato's day, and the later works reveal merely an extension of the system with a few changes adapted to new needs we may, if some caution is used, supplement Cato's account by use of the two later authors.

In speaking of the plantation system in Italy we do not mean to imply an approach to the capitalistic methods found in the " bonanza " wheat-farming of our Western states, where success has depended upon the extensive use of labor-saving machinery capable of being employed upon level areas of rockless loam. Italian agriculture, ' '-n specializing in ccr- ^!cd for obvious

> u<r the methods or ■...,: arming. In the efore Cato's day the need for fertilii- iiig Iiad becu -tral Italy, and manure

94 ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PLANTATION

was not to be secured m unlimited quantities nor applied without mucn labor. Secondly central Italy has little land suited to the use of machinery. When the landed pro- prietors of Latium to-day employ large gangs of laboring men, women, and children to spade, hoe, and cradle the grain by hand it is not wholly due to lack of intelligence and capital. The wooden plow, the exact counterpart of the one described by Vergil is still used in various parts of the Campagna, where there is need of a modest imple- ment that is willing to dodge stones and slip harmlessly along the surface if the soil is thin. Such plows cannot turn the soil; hence cross-plowing, hand work with the mattock, and reharrowing are necessary. All this means that in the several processes of soil-preparation an abun- dance of laborers was required, and since they were at hand they were also used for the harvest and the thresh- ing, where machinery might have been invented to do the work more quickly. In a word the methods employed on the grain plantations were quite the same as those of the small plot; the difference between the two lay largely in the consequences to society in that latifundia.substituted a herd of slaves for citizen farmers.

The typical villa was a large rambling structure con- taining granaries, wine presses, and vats in one part, the working quarters of the slaves in the other, and a second story comfortably fitted out to receive the master when he had time enough from affairs of state to take his brief vacations in the country. The management of the estate, which probably consisted of a compact farm of from 200 to 300 acres, was entrusted to a reliable slave " vilicus "

nTABLISHMENT OP TOX PLANTATIOIf 95

and his wife. I f ordinary fanning was attempted, a troup of forty or fifty slaves was not too large. The farmer usually specialized on one crop, the purpose being to pro- duce a handsome clear profit for the owner's from a large bulk of one product, besides devoting portion of the ground to various side products which would keep the slaves alive and meet the simpler needs of the villa.

A typical wheat plantation would engage a large band of slaves. In the autumn there woaM be plowing* and cross plowing, a slow process, for oxen walk very leisurely and insist upon resting frequently; but the ancient thought as did Walter of Henley, that the ox was prefer- able to the horse, being ** mannes meat when dead while the horse was carrion." Indeed cattle-raising produced milk and cheese and beef besides draft animals for the plow, and if the beast plodded slowly, slaves' time was after all not expensive. A second or even a third plow- ing was necessary with the poor instrument used, and if the soil was a meadow just broken the turf had to be crushed with a mattock wielded by hand. Then the land was contoured**^ as it still is to-day, with gullies about twelve feet apart in order to keep the roots out of stand- ing water during the long rainy season of winter, which threatened to rot the grain. All this required slow hand labor. In the spring when the rains ceased and the

* Plowing: Columella. II, 4, 3; Fairfax Harriion, The Crooked Plow, Class. Jowr. XI. 323.

** Contours: Varro, R. R. I, 29 (qao plovia aqua delabatur); CoLII,4.8:8.3.

96 ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PLANTATION

scorching Italian sun began to bake the ground, bands of slaves came out to weed and to hack" the ground be- tween the plants so as to break up the capillarity near the surface and prevent the subsoil moisture needed for the roots during the dry month before harvest from evapor- ating. At harvest, as is often done to-day, the tops were cradled and hauled to the granary first, and then the rest of the stalk at a second cutting. The straw served as thatch for the slaves' huts, as litter for the cattle (with an arriere pensee on the compost heap) and also to some extent as fodder. Finally the threshing was done by means of flail and winnow. The slaves had to live, and might as well be kept busy.

The labor of fertilizing" the field could of course not be neglected. So important was this item that the keep- ing of cattle was largely justified on the score of the manure; one head provided for half an acre of ground. In the Republic no chemical fertilizers were known, but in the Empire the use of chalk and lime was introduced from Gaul.

To provide the running expenses of the villa, to keep the slaves occupied between regular tasks, and to make use of waste products, some subsidiary crops might be

** The hoeing was done two or three times: Cato, R. R. 37, 5; Pliny, XVIII, 184; Col. II, 11, 2. The Italians continue the prac- tice, but I have never seen it done in America in the case of wheat.

*2 Fertilizing. See art. Diingung in Pauly-Wissowa; The Greeks and Romans were skilful in the use of nitrogen-fixing legumes and clovers; Cato, 37, 2; Columella, II, 15; XI, 2, 44; Pliny, XVIII, 134; Varro, I, 23, 3; Alfalfa came to be thoroughly appreciated in the early Empire: Columella, II, X, 25.

ItTABLUIRIIENT OF THE PLANTATION 97

cultivated. A row of wiUowi" in the manh nipplied twigs from which slaves wove baskets dttrinf rainy weather; a grove of elm and poplars furnished wood for the kitchen fire, for the villa's pottery where wine and wheat jars were made (volcanic alluvium makes fair rcdware), for the lime kiln, and provided leaves for the cattle. The slaves had of course a garden plot for cab- bages, turnips, and other cheap vegetables. Pigs might be kept if oaks were near; they grew rather thin on mere kitchen leavings, weeds, and roots, and to bring a good price they needed a modicum of acorns. Sheep cropped the rough land and the olive orchard, and produced work at the loom for the slave women who were too old for heavier work. If the master was enterprising be migfat raise fowl also. Varro'* knew a farmer who sold home- grown poultry and fish for $25,000 a year, and another who raised thrushes by the thousand which brought him fifty cents a piece. Pea-hens were worth several dollars each and brought good profits. In general, however, the

>* Cato, I, 7, gives his preferences of products on the f&rm ia the following order: (l) vinem (if the quality is good), (a) hortus (if one can irrigate), (3) salictum — apparently for bas- ketry in fruit-bearing countries, (4) oletum, (5) pratum, appar* enlly for fodder, (6) grain, (7) timber for fire wood, (8) arbua- tum — probably a combination of orchard and garden, (9) oak forest for timber and swine-raising. Pliny however (18, 29) quotes Cato as advocating cattle raising above aU. Since tht work of Cato which we have refers especially to agriculture near Campania, the passage quoted by Pliny may have occurred ta some lost volume which had reference to farming in Latium or the Sabine hills.

>*Varro, ^. /?. Ill, a. 14-17.

98 ESTABLISHMENT OF TTIF PLANTATION

landlord insisted upon the use of his land for the particu- lar purpose to which it was adapted. A self-sufficing **home economy" did not satisfy the capitalist, who looked upon his farm not as a home but a source of in- come. If it suited his ledger best he was even willing to send the slaves' food and clothing" out from the city to his farm.

Wheat-raising could of course not be continued for several successive years without exhausting the soil; hence when it was the staple product, rotation of crops relieved the strain. The portion used for wheat one year would be sown with rye, barley, or oats the next," and every third or fourth year beans, peas, alfalfa or some other leguminous crop that brought back nitrogen to the soil was substituted. Sometimes green crops of this kind were plowed under to enrich the soil, or instead the ground might be allowed to stand fallow for a year as rough pasture (seeding was too expensive), and the sheep turned in to graze.

It must not be supposed that any large portion of the western Italian slopes continued cereal culture regularly into the first century. Obviously even with cheap slave labor, when provincial dues came into Rome in the form of sea-borne grain, expenses often threatened to over- balance receipts. When in Augustus' day Dionysius came to Rome he says he found the whole country a

*" Cato, 135. Many of the things that slaves could make at the villa, such as rakes, mattocks, wine jars, baskets (Varro, I, 22) and even slaves' clothing, Cato apparently bought in the city.

i« Pliny, H. N. XVIII, 187; Columella, II, 9, 4, and II, 12, 7-9-

BSTABU8HMBNT OP THE PLANTATION 99

garden; but he was a Greek accuftomed to a land of lime> stone rocks. What Dionysius probably saw was an un- usual number of vineyards and orchards of olires, figt, apples, peaches, plums, cherries, and almoods, many of which, as in Campania to-day, admitted tome cereals and vegetables between the rows. These conibiiiatioo or- chards and gardens are possible in the bright sunlight of Italy where lighter crops actually benefit from shade. The elms,*^ poplars or fig trees were set out in rows about forty feet apart and on these the vines were trained. The fig trees justified themselves in their fruit as well as in propping the vine. Poplars and elms were liked because they did not shade too heavily and their leaves were pruned for fodder. Thus by planting grain and vege- tables between the rows of elm-propped vines, the fanner found that the smaller plants thrived better, he enjoyed the advantages of a diversified crop, he did not have to wait for a return on his capital until the vines were full grown nor suffer a complete annual loss when hail ruined his crop of grapes.

Often sheepraising was combined with olive production since sheep could pasture on the grass that grew between the trees, but it proved possible also to raise cereals in the olive groves. Where land was rich and irrigation was feasible, as in Campania,*' a constant succession of grains, legumes, and vegetables, three crops per year, could be produced between the rows of vines. There

" See art. Artmstitm in Pamly-Wissawa; Vmto, I. 7, 2; Pliny, XVII, 302; ColumcUa, II, 9; V, ft n. " Strtbo, IV. 3.

100 ESTABLISHMENT OF TIIF PLANTATION

however Vesuvius had fertilized the soil with a benefi- cent rain of rich volcanic detritus and the streams of the Apennines supplied an abundance of water to the very level plain; but Latium and Tuscany were not similarly blessed. On the whole the Roman farmer seems to have been very skilful in the use of manures, nitrogen-pro- ducing legumes, and in the proper rotation of his crops; he also proved through the centuries versatile enough in shifting the emphasis between cereal culture, grazing, and fruit raising so as to permit his tired land periods of re- covery. Although as we shall see later, Italian agricul- ture ultimately failed to meet the demands of Rome, it is very doubtful whether it was the native farmer who de- serves the blame for the failure.

n? APTER VII ^

Industry ahx> Com mbkcb

DiRiNr. the fifth century when Rome's political was slipping out of hand it was hardly to be expected that she could retain her hold upon the commerce and industry developed under Etruscan princes. Indeed during that time the industrial class probably diminished rather than increased, for the slow-moving revolution which ended in the plebeian victories of 339 does not in any real way resemble the socialistic out-bursts of an urban industrial proletariat. ] The inference is sometinMs drawn from the yast space cinctured by the Servian wall that the city was very populous and, by implication, that large numbers of its citizens were engaged in productive occupations. The wall, however, took its long course partly because it could thus avail itself of certain convenient escarpments, partly becattse various sacred shrines upon the outlying hills laid claim to protection. What uninhabited spaces it thus included, we ca iv. At any rate it would be very

hazardous to t its population from the area en-

closed by the walls.

Later, in the fourth century, there are political meas- ures of a new color that imply, at least temporarily, the influence of an urban democracy. The famous Appius ^^liudius," whose sympathies for the urban poor are rc-

^ Reforms of Appius Oiudius: Diod. XX, 36; Lhry, IX« 46k See also E. Meyer, Art. FUbs in Connd's Hamiwdrttfbuch.

101

102 INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

vealed by his construction of an aqueduct to the working- men's quarters and his support of a frecdman, Flavius, for a curule chair, seemed to aim at universal individual suffrage in his attempt to remove property qualifications for voting by allowing the city proletariat to register in any ward of the city, a measure which, since voting took place in the city, would have made the industrial class dominant in many of the wards. The proposal was re- jected by the next censor, but the attempt of Claudius would seem to prove that at the end of the fourth century there existed a considerable class of men engaged in other than agricultural pursuits.

When, however, we look about for the products of this putative industry, they are difficult to find. There are no chance references in Greek authors pointing to the pur- chase of Roman goods, and there are very few articles found outside of Latium that permit the assumption of Roman origin. In pottery, for instance, the native ware* that appears in the Esquiline graves of that period is in- ordinately poor, certainly it could not have found a mar- ket abroad. The better ware is generally Campanian and Etruscan. A single exception to the rule, if it be one, is the pair of vases found at Falerii' with a Latin inscrip- tion. The work is good but the archaeologist insists that if it was made at Rome, it was by no native, a sufficient comment upon the state of Rome's industry. There ex- ists to be sure a very finely engraved silver box, the well known Ficoronian cista, which bears the explicit testi-

2 Pinza, Bull Com. 1912, p. 24. •Hdbig, Fuhrer^, II, 1799 b.

IlfDUSTBY AND COMMBftCI IO3

mony: ** Novios Plautios made me at Rome."* Appar- ently artistf were working at Rome and in tome inttancct creating ware of good quality, but here as in the caie of the Yaaes the theme and workmanship are un-Roman. Such industries, however, did not spring out of Roman needs, they were transplanted and apparently died with the generation that happened to bring them to Rome. Aside from these two instances we can point to only a few coarse vases of Latin manufacture which somehow got into Etruscan trade; and this occurred at a somewhat later time than the fourth century.' After so meager a harvest of evidence, we seem forced to the conclusion that the industrial class, such as it was, could hardly have supplied a vast market. Probably there were only the men needed to make cloths, shoes, and armor for Rome's expanding armies, wagons, plows and hoes for the farms, pots and pans for the kitchen.

Indeed the fourth century was not one of industrial progress anywhere. Greek cities were only marking time after the disastrous Peloponnesian war, and the new commercial activity that sprang up with Alexander's re- lease of Asiatic resources was not yet in evidence. Etruria dulled by the loss of Campania and Latium on the south and of the whole of north Italy was no longer providing a rich market for the Greeks, and suffered in addition through the financial weakness of the Greek

* Novios Plautios med Romai fecid, Helbtg i ugsuts that the name is apparently Campanian, and that the k)cality would prob- ably not have been mentioned had it been the artist's customary abiding place, Helbig*. II, 1752.

* Helbig*, I, 565: cl. Mihmgis d'arck it J'kist. 1910, p. 99.

104 INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

cities that had at least purchased her ores and metal-work.

The quickening of commerce that followed Alexander's conquest brought little of permanent value to the central Mediterranean. It was largely a feverish activity stim- ulated by an inflated circulation which did not last, since the source of the new wealth was not a permanently pro- ducing industry. During the century that the new-found hoards dribbled out of the commercial currents again, the full temple accounts of Delos,' which note so meticu- lously every obol of receipt and expense, mark with a melancholy monotony the dulling of life through the cheapening of wages and the product of labor. As for Rome it is significant that Claudius* reform did not suc- ceed and that it was not soon proposed again. At the end of the century and at the beginning of the next the heavy demand for men for the army and the colonies^ removed all need for a communistic political program at Rome.

In the two succeeding centuries we do not find evidence of any marked change in the nature of production at Rome. Doubtless the amount of ordinary ware produced at home increased with the growth of the city — ancient transportation was too costly to make commerce in cheap wares profitable — -but of goods worthy of export we do QOtJhear. The only diflference now is that work pre- viously performed by free labor began in the third cen- tury to fall into the hands of slaves, which of course tainted manual work to such an extent that the poor citizen, if he could not secure a plot of land, must per-

• Glotz in Jour, des Savants, 1913, p. 206. T See chapter IV.

UIDUSTtY AND COM If BKB IO5

force to uve his self-respect stand idle at the state crib. Thr slave who became the new num of industry had no choice but to work in silence, and so the voice that had s|x>kcn for the urban industrial class in political gather- ings was henceforth silent.

For a long period Roman commerce fared no better than industry. In the West, Marseilles, Carthage, and such Italiotc-Greek cities as were not "protected" to ' *' '. Greek and Syracusan tyrants held the field of c commerce, while minor cities like Caere and Antium, deprived of strong political authority, fell back upon privateering. Roman trade, not having the stimulus of an aggressive production seeking an outlet and dis- couraged by the neglect of an agricultural nobility which scorned it and in treaties with commercial states even l)etrayed it for political advantage, made no permanent progress. By the treaty of 348 a Punic trader had free access to the markets of Latium,' but a Roman, should he care to compete, was excluded from three- fourths of the Carthaginian domain; and the senate had, in return for what privileges we do not know, signed away the Roman trader*s right to sail along the Italian coast east of Tarentum. It was at about the time of this treaty that a colony was planted at the mouth of the Tiber.* Hith- erto the sea craft that succeeded in crossing the bar at the mouth had to pull up against the vigorous Tiber cur- rent for fifteen miles, but sailing boats were seldom manned with oarsmen enough for that task. A harbor

• Polybius. III. 24.

* See chipter III, end. 8

I06 INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

provided a transfer station at the river mouth where ves- sels of deep draft could either unload into storehouses by means of barges, or transfer a part of their loads to lighters,*" take on oarsmen, and proceed to Rome. This first colony was indeed very small, apparently not over four acres. But it seems to have sufficed for a long time. Not till Gracchan days are there signs of expansion. Then it is likely that the tribune, who was not afraid of paternalistic experiments, put in state granaries here, though he seems not to have deepened the harbor.

[During the Hannibalic war itVas necessary for the state to have goods transported to the armies in Spain, Sardinia, and Sicily." To draw out sufficient Roman shipping for this purpose the government offered to in- sure the ships and cargoes, making bargains with three corporations on those terms.^ The venture was not en- tirely successful, howeverTTor the companies tricked the state by collecting insurance upon rotten hulks. After the war Rome continued to need grain transports for the armies that were operating in Greece and Asia, and we may assume that these engagements aided in introducing Roman merchants into the eastern field of commerce. That field, however, was already occupied by clever Greek and Syrian traders who knew the language, the whims and the needs of the eastern customers, as no Roman

10 Dion. Halic. Ill, 44; Strabo, III, 5- Ships of 3000 talents (less than 100 tons) could not enter the Tiber in their day, whereas ordinary merchant ships of the Mediterranean were from three to five times that size.

"Livy. XXIII, 48, 49; XXV. 3, 4; Polyb. I, 83, 7.

INDUSTIY AND COMMESCB IO7

could. Apart from state contracts therefore the Roman merchants made little progress.

Nor did the state seem willing to patronize or ad- vance the interests of the Roman merchant except in so far as the immediate needs of the commissary depart- ment rc<]uircd. Before the Punic war a democratic as- sembly forbade senators" to own vessels of sea-going capacity. The reasons for this measure have been widely discussed. Were the people afraid that the senators might waste public funds in harbor improvements? A few years later a censor was accused of contracting for docks at Tarracina because he owned estates nearby.** Or could it be that the commercial corporations were already strong enough to demand and secure monopolistic privileges? Such an hypothesis is supported by no other evidence. Livy's explanation that the Romans consid- ered gainful occupations below the dignity of a senator is (! ' ' the true one, and CaesarV* re-enactment of the i \vs that time did not alter the sentiment. Be-

neath this sentiment there probably also lay the practical consideration that senators were needed at home in the service of the state: indeed a senator always required formal permission from his government before he could travel beyond the call of a summons to the curia.

*' Livy, XXI, 63, explains that it was pasted because it was unseemly for senators to engage in gainful occupation. The maximum specified was JOG amphora s = about 225 bushels of wheat The Claudian law was strongly supported by the radical democrat, Flaminius. which seems to imply that the restriction was not imposed wholly out of respect for old Roman mores,

»» Livy, XI, 51, a.

>• Digest, 50, 5. 3.

I08 INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

When we review the second century, therefore, a period in which Rome's commercial interests are popu- larly supposed to have gained such influence in politics as to have caused the destruction of Carthage and Corinth," we find upon examination of our sources practically no Roman trade of importance, and certainly no evidence except in the Gracchan days that the state cared to en- courage Roman traders. After Hannibal met defeat Rome still permitted Carthage to close its seas," a fact that reveals an unconcern quite incredible; and when Carthage finally fell in 146 Rome provided no harbor in Africa for her own province, permitting Utica, a free city, to inherit the trade and even to handle the produce of such Romans as settled in the new province. In the province of Sicily Rome established no port-exemptions or preferences for herself.^^ In the allied city of Am- bracia" by the treaty of 189 Rome asked indeed for cus- toms immunities but explicitly provided that these should also be extended to all the allies, including in the pro- vision the Greek trading cities of Magna Graecia which were Rome's real commercial rivals, if indeed Rome had

" Mommsen, Rom. Hist. Ill, 238; Heitland, The Roman Re- public, II, 156; Ferrero, The Greatness and Decline of Rqme, I, pp. 20 and 38. I have discussed the matter more fully in Roman Imperialism, chapter XIV. See also chapter XIV below.

»« Peter, Hist. Rom. Frag. p. 273, f r. 9.

i^Thc request of Rhodes for permission to buy grain in Sicily in 169 is sometimes taken to imply a general control of the trade in Sicily, Polyb. 28, 2. However this request was made when Rome was at war and needed the grain. Cicero (Verr. V, 145 and 157) shows that commerce in Sicily was generally free.

" Livy, XXXVIII, 44.

iNfii'<sTuv AK'D rnsiMt.^CW 109

any commerce at ilic tunc. Similarly though Rome had hdped her ally Marseilles** to sulxlue the hill-tribct of Savoy in 135. and by her joint signature to the treaty aided Marseilles in establishing her wine trade in the subdued country, she nevertheless refrained throughout her career from imposing similar provisions in favor of her own commerce, whether in Spain, Africa, Asia, or her own Gallic provinces. Again, upon giving Delos to Athens after the third Macedonian war, Rome stipulated that it should be a free port for all nations. Rome's ad- vantage doubtless lay in securing a place where her armies and navies when engaged in the East might pro- cure supplies at reasonable prices. But the commercial profits fell to the numerous traders of Greece, Syria, and Egypt who soon made Dclos an important trading center. It is merchants from these places that occupy the most space on the numerous Delian inscriptions of the second century. To be sure the names of not a few Occidentab also occur but upon examination these prove to belong to south-Italian Greeks and Gimpanian traders,** until some

**See Roman ImperialUm, p. 280. In consequence of this treaty Italian as well as Massilian wine found a sale within the area: Athen. II, 36. But Ronne never extended the prohibition to the parts of Gaul which she alone subjecTed, for in the large Gallic Vrovinccs wine was raised everywhere: Strabo, IV, 178, 179; Colum. III. 2. 16; XII. 23: Martial, XIII, 107; Pliny. XIV, 37; C I. I., XIII, 1954 et aL The passages that mention a pro- hibition (Cic De Rep. III. 9. and Hist. Aug. Prob. 18. 8) have reference therefore to the small district in lower Savoy which Marseilles annexed in 154 B.C.; see Polyb. XXXIII. 11.

••Hatzfcld. Bull Corr. Hell, 1912, The sacred island was a Mecca for pilgrims from all Greek cities, and as such had a just claim to a free port.

no INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

years after the province of Asia was acquired. Very few Roman merchants had any share in the great prosperity of the island before that time. Finally we may recall that during the Republic commercial interests at Rome were not powerful enough to procure the slight appropriation necessary to make a road-stead at Ostia capable of ac- commodating sea-going vessels.

Until Gaudius improved the harbor of Ostia all the larger vessels put in at Puteoli,** a hundred and fifty miles from Rome. Indeed the ancient world has no rec- ord of any state of importance so unconcerned about its commerce as was the Roman Republic.

In the preceding pages the inference has continually been drawn that Rome's constant acquisition of new lands turned men and capital away from commerce and industry into fields more congenial, and that herein lies the chief reason for Rome's circumscribed economic in- terests. It may be well to consider more fully how this restriction reacted upon society in such a way as to create peculiar moral inhibitions and even social groupings by the aid of which the natural economic evolution that we have traced justified itself to the Roman consciousness. Such a consideration may reveal the reasons why the a priori methods of interpreting historical development by means of generally accepted economic and psychological maxims must be applied to Roman history only with great

2> For Puteoli as a harbor in Cicero's day see Cic. Verr. V, 154; In Vat. 12; Rab. Post. 40; de Fin. II, 84, and Strabo, IV, 6. It will be recalled that even St. Paul on his way to Rome disem- barked here and made the rest of the journey by the Appian Way.

INDU8TBY AKD COMMBKCI HI

reserve. It will be noticed f)articularly that those forces which in modem societies find effective expression through universal suffrage and a ready hearing through facile means of communication then failed frequently to reach even the organs of government. In the Roman Republic it is not safe to infer that a great need or a strong desire felt by a certain class or group eventually manifested itself in a governmental act or law.

For instance, the laboring classes which are now strong ' 'to modify to their advantage practically every i I, industrial, or commerdal bill passed by a mod-

em law-making Ixxly. could in Cicero's day exert but slight pressure upon the government. There the laboring man was either a slave whose voice was never heard, or a client who, considering his own advantage, voted as his patron told him. Even if he chose to vote independently his ballot was usually cast in one of the four city wards with those of ex-slave offspring. He could not organize to elevate his economic position, though a free man, for slave wages and slave conditions of life determined his own. In a thousand years of Rome's history there is not one labor strike recorded. He got only what the ruling powers saw fit to give him. and that usually was charity at most. In a word he had great needs but he had no way of exerting effective pressure upon the government to procure what he needed.

rWhen we turn from the employee to the employer, we* agam find a similar difference between Roman and mod- em conditions. Whereas in a modem industrial state the business man has come to be the controlling power not

I

112 INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

only in society but in the government, he was at Rome so far from being a leading citizen that even Cicero, who needed him for his concordia ordinum, found it possible to discuss whether he was quite respectable.** Cicero concluded that he was! But Cicero was equally sure that any man who went to the provinces on a business tour lacked the instincts of a true Roman: a worthy citizen could hardly leave the center of civilization for mere financial reasons. If wealth had been able to gain for men social and political prestige at Rome, the nobility could not have excluded capitalists from the Senate as they did till Caesar's d^£j The novus homo seldom made his way to the consulship, and, when the miracle was per- formed, it was not through financial power but through forensic ability or military prowess. [The Roman Repub- lican government was in fact blind to the political value of a soundly based industry and commerce, and failed to appreciate the relatively few Romans of ability who en- gaged in these pursuits. It might have devised tariffs and subsidies in aid of those who were facing foreign compe- tition, but it did not^ A lobby of manufacturers and shippers in the Roman Senate is quite inconceivable to one who knows Roman society and manners intimately. There was economic conflict enough, but the pressure was seldom exerted through political channels: apparently in this case it was the social caste-system that acted as a barrier.

To be sure the man of wealth gained some recognition in a limited field, that is, where the civil service needed

"Cic ad Quint. I, i, 15; de Off. I, 151; Pro Flacco, 91.

INDUSTIY AKD COliyCltCC II3

him. [since the Roman RepuMic with its ir * changes

of executives could not build up permanc lus and

boards for revenue>collecting and public works, it needed the capitalist to carry the contracts, and for this service it was willing to grant him a title, a ring, and a seat in the theater. Consequently the equites became a well or- ganized political influence in the last century of the Re- public, and lattcrday expansion was in some measure at- tributable to this class. But it is interesting to note that in this particular instance social position was gained through semipolitical service to the state, and that this position was definitely conceived of as quite inferior to that of the ruling nobiUtO

The agricultural class on the other hand was very powerful during most of the Republic. The farmers and land-owners were probably in control of all the rural tribes, and their interests often coincided with those of the senators, who usually owned large tracts of land. It is rather surprising therefore that we never hear of laws to protect Roman farm produce. However, even if we cannot find in Roman legislation any traces of positive measures in favor of the farmers, we may perhaps at- tribute to their predominance the apathy of the govern- ment to industrial and commercial needs, an unenlightened revenue system, a cumbersome financial policy, and the >n of the intricate problems that generally arise onomic conflicts.

However, it was difficult to secure common action on the part of the farmers. Being without ready means of transDortation thcv had to consider the advantages of

-«

114 INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

the market nearest at hand, and thus this group readily spht into various diverse factions, each moved by differ- ent interests. Perhaps this is why we can point to so little

sitive legislation that clearly bears the granger stamp. he influence of the landed class showed itself early in a desire for safety on the border and consequently well ordered relations between tribes. As has often been said, the prospering farmer in the open plains had all to lose and nothing to gain from a state of border-brigandage, so that he became a convert to faith in the sacredness of vested interests. Then he organized his military ma- chine and struck back at the raiders till he converted them to his views — not forgetting to exact an indemnity, and, in special cases, applying the doctrine of dread fulness. The economic factor was therefore of great importance in shaping the Latin federation, but that does not imply that it was or could be organized to secure immediate economic ends.

The nobility which directed Rome^s policies could of course usually express their desires in action, and their economic interests, which were fairly uniform, were probably not neglected. We have seen that they paid far too little heed to the needs of industry and commerce on the one hand, and of the laboring classes on the other. To their own desires they were naturally not so heedless, though we need not assume that these desires were al- ways of a material nature. The average Roman noble was rather hard and practical, prudently calculating, not very sentimental, but on the whole fairly just. Material interests were very important to him, for he must con-

IKOU«Ti»v Avn COMMBtCE!! i;

serve his property (iii ch: aiions or fall below his class. For this purpose he iicl* 1 to have his lands well man- aged and to receive 1« / u k ^ from his dieott. But the motives that might: a senator were many and

various. Now it is {.......,.> said that, since man is en- gaged in acquiring proi)erty most of his waking hours, he naturally employs to the same end what political power he may have. If we are to apply this test to the Roman senator, however, we need to keep in mind that most of the influences about him were not of an economic nature. He was not a business man. and he spent very little of his time with his own material concerns. Prob- lems of state and judicial or legal service usually engaged hiv attention, so that his daily concerns naturally kept him Ir-s i.r( iipied with the economic viewpoint than is true of nun in j^'cncral.

Since the economist takes cognizance of environment, wf may consider how this affected the Roman senator. From boyhood he lived in the presence of the imagints of his ancestors. Some of them had died on the battle field, some had triumphed, some bore names that were inscribed upon laws, and treaties, and dedicated temples. There were among them consuls, judges, orators, gover- nors of provinces — ^there were no captains of industry. They had won the memoria semfntema that Roman his- tor)' held before man as his highest goal. Could the sons of a noble pass daily before those statues and not be kindled with a yearning for gloriaf Nullam cn'im virtus aiiam mcrcedcm laborum periculorumque dcsiderat praeter hanc laudis et gloriae — a sentence that had not

Il6 INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

yet lost its meaning even in the days of civil strife that made the best of men cynical. No people has ever more treasured the glories and the virtues of ancestors. The nobles themselves wrote the nation's history: Fabius, Cincius, Postumius, Cato, Piso, Fannius, Sempronius, and a score of others. They embodied their deep respect for brave deeds in their institutions: the laudatio funebris, the triumphal arch, the honorary dedications, the heroic burial, the pomp of triumph, and all the rest. To catch the spirit that entered these men one must read Vergil's " masque of heroes " or Livy's epic of seven centuries. The irresistible determination, the power of self-control, the stolid puritanism, as well as the hardness and self- i^ sufficiency of the native old Roman were racial qualities,

y/^ a part of the blood inheritance transmitted after centuries of hard-handed struggle had weeded out the unfit. In the old Roman noble that inheritance was not so diluted that his virtus did not quickly respond to the appeal of ancestral memories. It was not till the civil wars cut down the old race, emancipation and immigration mixed the blood, and overmuch prosperity induced parasitism, that time-honored ideals went for nought.

As we have said, daily occupation with the political

yand diplomatic problems of state somewhat blinded the Roman noble to the economic point of view. He dealt with the intricacies of a hundred treaties made with free, allied, and tributary states; he must consider the state's relations with scores of tribes in every degree of civiliza- tion or barbarism all along the border; there were al- ways provinces to keep satisfied, governors to appoint and

IKDUSTRY AND COMMIICB II7

supervise, armies to levy, shift, and direct. All these matters involved niceties of legal interpretation, of eti- quette, position and honors. Engaged in these problems he grew legal-minded and pompous, but he was hardly likely to become obsessed with the ideal of a "business

• ■"- * ration." That the Roman Senate never devoted ugh attention to economic questions is largely due to this preoccupation with diplomatic, political, and cere- monial concerns.

Finally, the desire to conserve their own position and power, the auctoritas senatus, both for the sake of per- sonal prestige and for the pecuniary advantages which the position entailed, taught the nobility to maintain a conservative regime. If, for instance, some individual 111 advocated a war of expansion the Senate was ) to oppose him. The aristocracy had in fact learned early that when a small city-state extended its boundaries too far, a large army was needed to hold the empire, and a popular leader of the army was a menace to aristocratic control.

It would seem, therefore, that Rome was one of the states where the normal economic pressure generally met with strong counteracting forces. The laboring man could not reach the attention of the governing class, the industrial interests were weak and their value underrated. The farmers were so separated geographically that their interests failed to coincide, and the nobility were so pre- (K-rupicd with purely administrative problems and so jealous of their own prestige that they gave little thought to economic measures. In general it must be said that

.-A

Il8 INDUSTRY AM) COMMERCE

the Roman economic problems were unusually simple. The gradual conquest of Italy and the provinces more than occupied the surplusage of capital and population so that there was no crying need for industry and commerce. The retunis from the simple investments in land and in capitalistic enterprise sufficed to keep the people in pros- perity, and presently in flabby desuetude. The intricacies of our economic system, therefore, never threw their in- ordinate strain upon the government of Rome; and the charge that Livy and Tacitus wrote political history be- cause they were ** economic-blind " misstates the case: they wrote as they did because they grasped clearly the essential facts of Roman society.

]

CHAPTER VIII

The Gracchan Revolutiom

The middle of the second century B.C. found Rome in .1 fcmicnt of discontent. Under the leadership of the phiUullcne aristocracy the state had engaged in entangling alliances throughout Greece and the East which were now conii)clling Rome to decide whether she would endure daily insults as a " friend " or assume control. She chose the second alternative though with many misgivings; for the.senate dreaded the military power that empire neces- sitated, and the democratic leaders feared the power and prestige that would accrue to the senate from provincial .idministration. In a word, questions of foftjgp poljry

...c simplgsf rffftrra rr%\\(\ nitf N* Ht«/Tj*«j^i >. ITie irritating questions of government

threateiHHl to divide Rome into hostile factions.

By this time too the very stock of Rome had begun to change, not through immigration but through the accre- tion of manumitted slaves and war captives. Doubtless the jibe of Aemilianus overshot the fact when he claimed that he had led. tQJ^oni« in chains the hordes that now 1 the revolutionary bills of ^racchus. But the iMii.iNc would have passed as pointISs haSTthere not been much truth in it. That reform through orderly compro- mihe now gave way to revolution through bloodshed is

I J')

I20 THE GRACCHAN REVOLUTION

largely due to the displacement of real Italic peoples by V men of Oriental, Punic and Iberian stock.

t Finally the evil consequences of the ovcr-bencvolent leasing system now began to lower over the whole land. The lease-holders had soon gained possession of all vacant lands thereby precluding new distributions to a growing generation. But more than that, holding an ad- vantage over the settlers who tried to work their plots by precarious hand-to-mouth methods, they even encroached upon and gained possession of many such holdings. For the sixty years before the Gracchan reforms, during a period when war casualties counted for little, the citizen- population of Rome increased not at all. Apparently the peasantry lost courage and withdrew to the provinces, or into the uncounted riff-raff of the cities.

It was a young aristocrat, Tiberius Gracchu.^^ the friend and associate of a group of moderates that read Stoic philosophy at leisure moments, who had the courage [and faith to attempt agrarian reforms which seemed to ■promise social and political amelioration. He had ob-

*The chief accounts are found in Appian, B. C. I, 1-26, and Plufarch's lives of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. Grecnidgc and Clay, Sources for Roman History, have a convenient collec- tion of most of the other ancient references. The introductory chapters in Greenidge, A History of Rome, give an admirable review of social and economic conditions. His chapters on the Gracchi, and those of Heitland, The Roman Republic, II, are the best surveys of the Gracchan reforms. For discussion of the sources see Fowler, in Eng. Hist. Rev. 1905; E. Meyer, Kleine Schriften, p. 383, and Cardinali, Studi Graccani, 1912. The frag- ments of the Gracchan speeches are collected in Meyer, Orat. Rom. Frag.

CRACCUAN UVOLUnON 121

ed while travelling through Etruria that the planta-

system fed upon slavery which he, keener visioned

:iteniporaries, held to be an evil in itself. In

>pccches, fragments of which have survived,

Tgued that such a system could not provide the strong

y of yeomen needed by the army of a growing state.

he went further and appealed to humanitarian meth-

ckIs as well, and, adopting a social theory then gaining

port among Greek publicists, he assumed that the state

:d to its citizens in return for loyal services a parcel

and on which they might earn a livelihood. His pro-

al was to reclaim the public lands that were held con-

7 to the quantitative restrictions of the old Licinian

, and to distribute these in small lots to Roman citi-

s as inalienable leaseholds at low rentals.

'he senators discussed the bill and rejected it. They

ued the injustice of reasserting a claim to lands that

state had overlooked for generations, that had in fact

n improved at no little expense by the holders and had

some extent even passed by testament or purchase to

idows and orphans," who seem somehow even then to

'e accumulated dubious titles. They also reminded the

lian peoples who had been admitted to such lands that

;he Gracchan measures were adopted they would prob-

y lose all they possessed to Roman citizens.

Tiberius, l>alked by the senate, revived the long dor-

n.ant provision of the constitution of 287 which permitted

i referendum* to the plebeian assembly of legislative

* F. F. Abbott. Th^ Referendum and RicaU among th4 Ancient iiimans, Scwance Review, 1915. The theory of the recall was 9

122 THE GRACCHAN REVOLUTION

proposals. When, however, he called for a vote, a U tribune, Octavius, as was his legal right, intcrpos veto. Tiberius refusing to be blocked then propos measure legalizing the "recall" of tribunes who a contrary to the wishes of their constituents. The n ure passed amid cries and charges of rebellion. Fo through as the measure was without adequate cons tional justification, the act was near rebellion, and there were who later revived the precedent. But berius' instinct was right. The tribune was not origir intended to be a magistrate of the state, but rathei advocate and patron of a class or of individuals anc such subservient to the needs of his constituency. I thermore the enlargement of the board of tribunes to unwieldy number of ten had not been intended to ] vide division within the board but only to extend capacity for action over a large area. After tribu began to sell their services to checkmate each other original purpose of the board was defeated, and only reducing its number virtually or actually to one could efficiency be restored; that at least the introduction of "recall" would accomplish. In any case the assem had been empowered by the constitution of 287 to whatever legislative experiment it might desire, thoi it was in duty bound to employ less abridged meth« than Tiberius used on this occasion.

Thus by revamping the machinery of popular s- ereignty Tiberius passed his drastic agrarian law. v^i

again successfully applied in Cicero's day: Asconius, In C nelianom, cd. Kiess. p. 64.

THE GRACCHAN REVOLUTION 133

had a judicial commission electedjdtb powers to examine and adjudge titles and to diilrflwitt the lots. The senate still attempted to impede the execution of the bw, and indeed after the death of Tiberius succeeded in nullify- ing the powers of the commission, but some of the bound- ary stones erected by it are still in existence, and if Mooimsen's contention is correct that an increase of 73,ooo" names on Rome's census list of the year 125 B.C. betokens an increase of approximately that many land- holders, the committee must have worked with great suc- cess. Fate has generously spared a milestone* erected by the consul Popilius, the chief opponent of Tiberius, on which he had inscribed the surprising record: " I first compelled the grazers to gpve back the public land to tilTers." One is almost tempted to hazard a guess that some sarcastic workman inserted the line for amusement. But perhaps Popilius was after all a shrewd politician who knew when to steer with the wind. Tiberius' attempt to secure re-election resulted in a

* Sec Mommscn. Rom. Hist. Ill, ^S! Beloch, Dit Btvolk. p. J08, questions this interpretation. The riddle cannot be solved so long as we do not know precisely the scope of the census list Against Momm sen's view, it has been objected that the land lots were leased and not given outright and that therefore possession of them did not convey citizenship of full rank. This, however. is hardly valid. Gracchus wis primarily interested in extending a sound body of full citizens capable of army ser\'ice. and may well have inserted a clause ift his law bestowing fullest citizenship upon his cok>nists.

* A milestone in Lucania on the new military road leading from Capua to Sicily. The sentence reads: Eideroque primus fecci at de agro poplico aratoribus cedcrent paastores. CI.L.I, 551.

124 THE GRACCHAN REVOLUTION

J riot in which he was killed, and his work soon came to a stand-still. His brother Gaius, however, reached the ^ same office in 124 and continued the work with a widely ', expanded program. Gains Gracchus is indeed still an enigma to us since the documents upon which our later sources rest were all written in the bitterest spirit of partizanship whether for or againt the tribune. From the fragments of his speeches' quoted verbatim, though often excerpted with evil intent, it is clear that he__some- times acted jn the spirit of a party leader, who could K^when need arose pro^se^me^^ur^s^Oxtk-figneral value in (flier to L^.'iin adherents and strenjgnthen his bloc. That he even struck at his opponents in a purely vindictive manner seems demonstrable from his own words. These facts however must not be allowed to weigh seriously in the judgment of his main program or in the interpreta- tion of doubtful points. In pagan Rome, not yet very far,ixom the, age of the vem^etta. vindictiveness under the sting of a brother's murder was accepted as reason- able and considered quite compatible with lofty ideals. |/^*The only question that concern- us at ])r(. hether

the pursuit of vengeance blurred the vision or misdirectea the ultimate blow when the great task of reform called f 61*' completion. And it must Be admitted that no legis- lative act of his actually passed which was not fully justi- fied from the point of view of his program.

As for the intrusion of party politics, we are seldom able to say what measures were merely means to an end, intended to be annulled or neutralized after the goal was

» Meyer, Orat. Rom. Frag. pp. 224 ff.

TBI CtACCBAN UVOLUTXOIf I?5

reached. The monthly dUtqtmtioD o£ corn to the poor atl hail price was citcii by Eil OJHiUHBim j^ a eye oT hrjll^^ This may be correct But, It is alio POtpJc that Gains instituted this mcasnre by way of^empormry relief yser^TonVmif^ ^^ --tttTiT&ctlfc

"ToiSfief tlTf poor in t! rybjjr^ further _

^lOf^I^v veoiBrp for work

in the nunicrous cnuTpri>cs in which he cnii)ioycd the urban laborers. It is, however, not unlikely that this was ^a frank experiment in state socialism suggested perhaps! by his Stoic mentor/JEttSlD ^^ know that the theoryf that the state owed its poor a livelihood had become cur-1 rent in the East in the dreary days of the third century! when Greece was slowly dwindling to futility.* And if_

Gracchus wa« timch^^ lyith Mirh humanitarian JAi^ th^

full of wheat from SidhL which bdonged to the Pwy^* 7 hey had but to vflfl I rtktnTnffSnBTmSSeRSlof tfiar own property. Why shoul*: ) hui|g|2jAflL&^ ^^

cision to open the lay in tficy own

hands?

• Kohler. 'Sitx. Akad, Berlin, 1898, p. 841: Wilamowitz. ibid. 1904. P- 917; Rostowfcw, art fmm^w/nm in Pauly-IVitsawa.'VU, 139^ The Stoic philosopher Blouius, the teacher and companiooX of the Gracchi, seems to play the tame r61e of social rtfonatr) in connection with his pupils that Sphaenis did who a centurv before encouraged Q^omenes to divide all property in Spartai I The Gracchi might also have learned of such movements inl H Greece from their personal conversations with Polybius, who) was deeply interested in the career of the strange Spartan king.! Cicero. De Off. II. 80. implies that the Gracchi followed the o* \ ampIe~of the Spartan kings: ex co tempore tantae discordiic \ sccutae sunt

^ Twa c ^ spirilVWi

126 THE GRACCHAN REVOLUTION

The experiment to be sure led to disastrous results both in neutralizing the success of the Gracchan colbnial schemes and, since no one later dared oppose the charity, in a continued pauperization of the Roman populace. But the first experimenters in social legislation readily fall into errors, and recent experience has proved that states which have to face the exigencies of strenuous military duties take short cuts to the winning of a con- tented and well fed populace, regardless of the future con- sequences to the general morale.

T>^p;^other measures are usually credited to partizan

insfer of jury service from the senators to

the men of wealth, the equitesflSHd the displacement of

the native tax collectors in the province of Asia by

Roman publicans who gathered the dues by contract. A

fragment of a speech by Gracchus proves clearly that in

the former case the author fully realized that it would

create a division^ between the nobility and the knipbts, as

c»f CMiir-c il (lid. The si^L^nificant ])oliti(Til cnnMijiu-nce

^ of the law which Diodorus* and other critics of Gracchus

emphasize, namely its effect in placing provincialgover-

nnrs at \}^^ mercy of the publicans, could hardly have

been contemplated or indeed forseen at the time of its

passage, since that far distant result was made possible

only by the slowly accumulated effects of the contract law.

\ Gains clearly had in view the curtailment of senatorial

fli^fiiyer, but if we bear in mind his peculiar faith in busi-

" ness men and business methods we can readily believe

that Gains desired most of all to elevate that class in

T

Cic. de Leg. Ill, 9; Diodorus, XXXVII, 9. • Diodorus, XXXV, 25.

THE CtACCHAN kEVOLUTIA?^

I J

^f^^ Ky fflg^ IQIT^ o| ^mr.nf r..o.w.w^,[^nn ypH

^idcratc

:ncc tnc

icy oi

istant

irrau,

•a

ft n

iU good win ^^ Iffifilll fimerigncc in public .^j^j^^^^nd though the record this cUtt afterward made as jurymen probably fell below his expectatioosT there is no evidence to show that it performed these serv-C ices with less honesty and efficiency than the senators. ( The collection of Asiatic tithes by-contract, though like all work done by political contracts it ' ' * h cor- ruption, brone^ht in a hrprr and mor?«! venue tfian colli local auti to watch. such as the empire t

the i(

tire ul alluding t!ieful influence of the contract

system that is sti:.,... rce so largely used in modem democracies, and they stand quite aghast before the fact that the largest of democracies still jogs along without so much as a budget. To Gains Gracchus the introductioi^ of the contract was of course a step toward efficiencyf He found that the tribute of Asia instituted a few years before was dwindling partly because some districts were incapable of financial administration, partly because the most capable of them would shirk the burden under any pretext. If he knew — as any Roman of experience must have known from complaints against the publicans en-

128 THE GRACCHAN REVOLUTION

gaged in Italy — ^that the companies would occasionally fall into the temptation to defraud and extort moneys, nevertheless he had reason to tnist in the ^UfiCIYision of the prMi-on-ul or in t' '^u\<- K'oman tribune to

^ring tlic uuiltv to j)unLshnKiU. At any rate bdtTTTResHl, I measures reveal in Gracchus a faith and deep interest in the possessors of wealth, a trait that we have discovered | some trace of in Appius Claudius and Flaminius, but hardly elsewhere.

jj^ Y^jJtl? sajne sympathy with the^^cpfTunercial cla^sses that led Gaius to conceive of a new class ofjoloniesT' nothing less than seaport colonies, not this time simply to protectjanding places against incursiQ.ns, but to encourage Mediterranean commerce. When in 146 the great port of Carthage was destroyed the senate had been so negligent of commercial interests as to leave the new province of Africa dependent upon non-Roman ports like Utica for ingress and egress. This deficiency Gracchus proposedi.i^ I now to remedy by planting a citizen colony at CarthageBv^ ' Tarentum also, partly ruined by the Punic War, was to have a colony of picked citizens who might develop the port to its old-time splendor. The need here was great since a large part of the recently allotted lands lay in southern Italy. A third colony of selected citizens was sent to Scylacium opposite Vibo, perhaps in response to the advice of merchants who preferred to have a portage there rather than risk the troublesome sail around through

•Plut. C. Gracch. 6, 8, 10; App. B. C. I, 23; Livy. Epit. 60; Veil. II, 7. See Hardy, Six Roman Laws, p. 73. Gracchus' policy in these colonial foundations is well treated in Abbott, The Colonising Policy of the Romans, Class. Phil. 191 5, 368.

TRB GtACCHAN tEVOLUTlON 199

the Straits of Messana. It will be remembered that Rome still found it practicable to get much of its merchandise by land transport all the way from Puteolil In all these measures the tribune may have had the advice of the best bctstness intelligence, since in his vast enterprises he con- stantly came in contact with men of large affairs.

(The proposal upon which the young enthusiast went |. down to defeat — a proposal oflFering mere justice without r ^ any material benefit to the voter — was a bill giving citi- 3 zenship to all possessors of Latin rights and Latinitas to \ all other Italians. His enemies saw in this a scheme f| merely to create a new electorate bound to him alone»|] though it is difficult to see why he should put in jeopardy fl /-^ his present support for a new constituency if power was|| his object. Hia purpose m thiy_ measure was partly to place the Italians m a fair poamon inm retcrencewiBc^

^inn fif ^^"^ ""'"'*' ^^irftt ylir* •^^^^^ ^"^^ ^*»^ rtlMM jtf

irres|jK^psible Roman oflRcia!:;. Moreover, his outtpoken ' interest ii: i to draw

soldiers for the army and his dislike for Iman

class that threatened to dominate the city;i....^ ihe be- lief that he also saw in the measure great advantages for Rome. The bill. how^^i^Ofly VBM OBfalfllled hopcJ in^tie Italians, and its defeat hastened on the Social war| The Gracchan reforms did not save Rome from the^ deserved; of her nup|^^^*nie dSfeli^SoiSmt

measures s^v.v vM>structed, tho^fnat passed were either' modified by the senate or administered with so little of the spirit of the author that their benefits were largely neutralized and their evils exaggerated. The actual re*

%

130 THE GRACCHAN REVOLUTION

suits belied all hopes and intentions. Tin ai^^rarian laws doubtless improved central Italy and relieved Rome tei^- porarily; but, left incomplete, they Sowed the seeds of the , social war, whereas the continuation of the corn-3'oles ^•H-n brought the city to a worse condition than before. rquttcs were recognize <1 in affairs of state, and tWs < should have broadened the economic outlook of Roman » statesmanship. [Unfortunately when met and obstructed at every turn by the jealousy of the old aristocracy, they degenerated into a selfish faction satisfied to become parasites of the financial bureau, growing fat upon what- ever capitalistic investments the new contract system threw in their way. The re-introduction of the principle] of popular sovereignty was excusable only if the elec- torate could have been reformed as the Gracchi intended. Without that reform the Roman populace was coming tfS^ be incapable of self-government, not to speak of the gov- ernment of a world. And the breach in the constitution produced by the attempt could not readily be healed when once the populace had thus recovered the machinery that made them all powerful. The rehabilitation of the ple- beian assembly therefore led directly to the civil WAD. and the Caesarian autocracy. /'••^ ^ «• » i -' /

I Of immediate interest To economists as a result of these f^tests ar^^^e elevation of the capitalist-mercantile class to a position of power in the state and in its financial en- terpriseOthe closing of Italian lands for colonization, which directed capital into other channels, and the ac- ceptance of the policy of state-charity for the poor of Rome which placed industry in the city at a discount for all time. \

CHAPTER IX

Public Finances

IXhb Roman was a practical businesslike person in the management of his private concerns, but in the manage- ment of public finances his instinct for efficiency was neutralized, as happens in all democracies, by the pres- sure of friends seeking special privileges, by lack of a stable and durable policy in the everchanging government, l>y want of any scrutinizing and controlling supervision, and by a popular demand for amiable rather than offi- cious magistrates?! Frequently therefore the Oriental despots whom Roman governors displaced in the East had been better managers than their successors. Their kingdoms had been their private possessions: they had accordingly chosen efficient men to manage the satrapkies, had removed those who failed, and had continued in office the successful officials until they became specialists in their respective tasks. The Roman democracy on the contrary worked upon the theory that any citizen of good family could serve the state in any capacity. An eligible young man began his career as an official of the treasury for one year, then after a year's rest, if he pleased the voting populace, he had charge. a| aedile. of some division ' f tl < public works, an office which under ordinary cir- cuin I inccs admitted him to the senate for life. After another year's rest he might be made a judge in one of the important praetorian courts, whether or not he had

131

132 PUBLIC FINANCES

Studied law. Indeed one of the reasons why Roman civil law freed itself so readily from outworn legal concep- tions, and kept its feet on the common-sense ground of equity was just that normal men of affairs presided in the courts over juries of men of similar stamp. But the system for obvious reasons failed to create an adequate criminal law. The official was then given a year's prac- tice in managing one of the smaller provinces; after which if the people so disposed he might for a year be- come the supreme magistrate of Rome. Thereafter he would be put in command of an important province for a year, from which he returned to Rome to live the rest of his days a respected senator and aid in the direction of the imperial policies of Rome. Obviously such men received a very wide experience, but they were specialists in nothing in particular, and the knowledge they gained must frequently have come through sad mistakes com- mitted in all kinds of offices for which they were not half fitted until it was time to depart for the next position. The system provided an excellent training school for re- tired senators, it did not make for skilful government. In the early days when the city was the state and when the citizen who paid his taxes could see day by day how the state moneys were being expended, no great evil could result for long. What might happen later when unpro- tected provinces far from Rome were placed at the free disposal of such men is well enough illustrated by the stories that have made the name of Verres a proverb.

In the early Republic national expenses were but trifling. The few magistrates served their year without

PUBLIC nNANcn 133

emoluments. To be selected by popular accUmatUm was flattering enough to evoke a year's public senrice without further reward The army also served gratis: only prop- ty owners were called to arms and they presumably had tiiVu iri'.t interest in the protection of their homes and prupcTtics to fight without pay. As for equipment the heavily armed first line and the cavalry were selected from the wealthier men who» could best afford to equip themselves. Public work like wall-building' was done by the citizen-army as a part of its duty, roads and streets were graded by the property owners at public command. The early temples seem largely to have been provided by the sale of booty. And this brief list runs the gamut of the early state's needs. Rome had not yet outgrown the conditions of tribal life where common action, so diffi- cult to secure, confined itself to the mere physical de- fence of the group, leaving all questions of moral, intel- lectual, and social welfare to the devices of the family and the interested individual. New functions the Roman government assumed very slowly and reluctantly. Thus for instance it was not till the day of autocracy that the state considered itself under any obligation to supervise or encourage education, even as in modem times the most liberal governments of Europe have been the most dila- tory in accepting such non-political burdens. . The first demand for a well-stocked treasury came with jthe long war against Veii. The year-long service in the

> For example Livy (VII, ao) sayi that the soldiers after their campaign of the year spent the rest of their time repairing the walls.

134 PUBLIC FINANCES

armjr^with the consequent neglect of farms and business necessitated the introduction of a regular stipendium. At first this was very trifling, little more in fact than enough for the soldier to pay for his rations, but it marks the time from which a tax had to be levied upon Roman property. This annual tribute* seems to the modem not very large, frequently not more than a mill per cent. And even this was at times restored* to the taxpayer, if war indemnity and booty sufficed to permit repayment. This tribute was a uniform property tax. On real estate* it was levied on the agcr Romanus, that is, upon all land within the bounds of the city-state proper as far as the ward-divisions extended, and was levied even if a non- Roman acquired such property. In addition to this all Roman citizens whether living at home or abroad were subject to a tax on all other property as well, as for in- stance on_cash, slaves, cattle, implements and fumiturc. The property of widows and orphans, not at first on the citizen census list which had been made up for military purposes, was later subjected to a tax that was set aside for the equipment of cavalry.

The Samnite wars, long protracted through desolate regions and necessitating a reorganization of the army with new equipment and much road-building, entailed heavy taxpaying for long seasons. The First Punic War

^Livy, XXXIX, 44: his rebus omnibus terni in milia aeris adtribuercntur; Livy, XXIII, 31: eo anno duplex tributum im- peraretur.

•Livy, X, 46; Pliny, N. H. XXXIV, 23.

*Sec Marquardt, Staatsvenvaltung, II, 167, 168; Lecrivain, art, Tributum, Daremberg-Saglio.

also proved extremely expensive, especUny because of the hemvy loMes of the navy. Seven hundred ships of war were lost in battles or in stornii^ It is not surprising hat at the end Rome not only exacted an indemnity from irtliage — though it amounted to but a fractioa of the • ^t — but also adopted from her the new theory that subjects should share with citizens the costs of govern- ment. T! "^ " * ' very materially re- lieved thr ^ 1 the Second Punic War however this tithe did not even suffice to feed the armies in the field. Taxes were doubled and trebled. V< w siituT-t.ixf's oil incomes were added, free contribu-

^l^J^.crc let on credit and loans

iloalcd un the security of Rome's public lands. In-

. i at that time the administration of the Roman ex-

hequer assumed the aspects of a modem national treas-

ur>'. But the Roman Senate disliked arrears and

compV'^'^*'"' ^"''"'-•"" ^'^ 0/%^..,...,w...;jj....f*..- *y^Q ^2|>

ii liu ig the

mortgaged lands to the creditors, at first reserving the right to reclaim them at a revaluation, later conceding even this privilege. Thus the trcasurj' got rid of its loans and thereafter succeeded fairly well in keeping a surplus account. Finally in 167 B.C. the accumulation of a large surplus from state mines, from indemnities and war booty, and an accession of regular income from Spanish tribute and from the rental of the Campanian and other public lands in Italy placed the treasury in such a strong condition that the direct tax upon citizens was dis- continued.

136 PUBLIC FINANCES

In Cicero's consulship, before Pompey had added the new eastern provinces of Syria, Bithynia and Pontus, we are told that Rome's public receipts were about 50,000,000 denarii," or about ten million dollars. The bulk of this sum came from provincial taxes, but smaller amounts were received from the rental of Campanian public land, public mines in Spain and Transpadane Gaul, fishing rights on lakes, rivers, and on coasts, and a salt monopoly, ^ a five per cent, tax on the price of manumitted slaves, an occasional tax of five per cent, on inheritances, and from port duties levied at harbors, usually of from two to five per cent. These port duties were not conceived of as protective tariffs. They were too low to serve such pur- poses, and were in fact collected as regularly on exports as on imports. The Empire indeed developed a system of tariff-districts so that goods which were shipped a long distance were apt to pay duty more than once.

Of the ten million dollars provided in Cicero's day the larger part came from provincial tributes which differed in amount and method of collection according to the treaty or exaction made at the time of conquest. Sicily with its tithes and rents on public lands provided about one tenth of this, the tithe alone amounting to about one million bushels of wheat. Asia furnished one and a half million dollars in Hadrian's day after Caesar had some- what lightened her burden. Perhaps we may estimate two millions for Cicero's day. Since enlarged Gaul pro- vided two millions in the Augustan period, a half million will be a generous estimate for the small province of » Plut Pompey, 45-

rUBUC FINANCES 137

Marbo. In comptrison with these provinces, if we con- sider stxe. productivity and the conditions of cooqocsl of each, we may venture to assume about one mfllkm dd- I.irs from Spain* apart from her mines, a half million for Sardinia and Corsica, one and a half for Africa with her public lands, a half million for Macedonia, and another half million for Cilicia. The other revenues mentioned may well account for some three million dollars.

To these amounts I'ompcy added the revenues of Syria, Hithynia, and IVmtus, amounting to about six million dol- lars; Caesar conquered Gaul thus adding at least one and one half million, and Augustus annexed Egypt which, being wholly royal property and consequently now com- pletely at the disposal of the treasury, brought in a full ten million dollars.* If we add to these some minor taxes instituted by Augustus we find that the Empire in its most prosperous day had an annual budget of about thirty million dollars or less than five per cent, of the annual budget of the City of New York!

These provincial tributes varied in nature and manner of collection, since Rome frequently tried to adapt her methods to those that had already been in vogue. In Spain for instance Carthage had imposed a light burden in order to make her conquest easy, and Rome in order to invite the people to a new allegiance during the Punic War had lightened rather than increased the burden. Hence a definite amount was agreed upon for each community and the towns collected these dues without the inter- ference of Roman publjcans. The stipendium of Span-

• Strabo, 11, 118, and XVII, 798. 10

138 PUBLIC FINANCES

ish communities was equal to about half a tithe.^ In, Sicily,' except in the case of several friendly cities which were left immune and of public lands which Rome had inherited from the former sovereign or expropriated at thcjime of conquest, the grain lands were subjected to tithes, fruit lands to double tithes, and pasture lands to a cattle head-tax. These tithes were estimated jointly by the community and the Roman official, and the collection contracted for accordingly. Since, however, the law required that the contract should be let in Sicily, the com- munity could protect the interests of its citizens by bid- ding for the contract, and this was frequently done. T« be sure Roman and Italian business men who often engaged in collecting port-dues and in renting the public land in Sicily might also enter into the bidding, and being men of ready capital they came to capture many contracts which they managed to make lucrative. In the days of Verres these men had been so favored by the Roman questor on the island that Cicero in gathering evidence for the prosecution found Roman knights engaged in op- pressive exaction in several cities.

After the contract law of Gains Gracchus Asia fared even worse. Here there were legitimate objections to a fixed annual amount, since years of drought and incur- sions from the East made such payments impossible at times. A tithe on the actual crop, whereby both parties shared equally in the uncertainties, was therefore in

T Livy, XLIII, 2, 12.

• Rostowzew, Art. Frumentum, Pauly-Wissowa, VII, 152.

PUBUC riKANCES I39

theory a fairer tax. But many communities^ of the in- terior had little experience in management and failed to bring in their quota. Furthermore the produce waa not needed at Rome and the transporting and disposing of it proved irksome. Gracchus therefore, to ensure a reliable income to the treasury, decided to throw the speculative risks upon capitalistic companies which might care to take the business of collecting^* and disposing of the tithe. The censor auctioned the complete prospective tithe to the highest bidder. The companies that secured the con- tract gathered the requisite capital by issues of stock, which because of the risks involved were put out at at- tractive rates of interest. These stocks were widely bought at Rome, and as a result complaints of extortion on the part of Asiatics met with less sympathy on the rialto at Rome than they might otherwise have done. Sulla, after himself robbing the province, relieved it somewhat by substituting fixed charges, but Pompey, under pressure of the equites who had supported him in politics, reinstituted a modified form of the Gracchan '^ and this lasted until Caesar abandoned the worst 1 of the contract system. In the empire when it

* Cic Ad Qmnl. I, 33; qui petidere ipsi vectigml tine publicano non potucrinc.

>• Rostowzew. GeschickU drr StaaUpctkl, Phil. Supp. IX.

*»Rostowzew, ibid., p. 357; cf. Jotepbot, Antiq. XIV, 10, 6; Cic. prav. conj. 10; Ad Alt. V, 13; V, 16; VI, i, 16; Ad Fmm, XIII, 65; Ad Quint. I, 35; Pro FUuco, 32. Caesar remitted about a third, converted the rest into fixed amounts of money which the cities henceforth collected: Plut, Cois, 48, i; Dio, XUI, 6; App. B. C. V, 4.

I40 PUBLIC FINANCES

became possible to organize permanent civil service bureaus, the contract system was gradually displaced everywhere by officials responsible to the Emperor.

Corresponding to this income were the expenditures for the state bureaus, public works, cults, corn-doles, the army and the provincial government. Since magistrates served without pay, administrative expenses were still low, but the office-forces and bands of public slaves were increasing in size. Little was spent on police or fire departments before Caesar's day. One wonders how long a modern city would last with the kind of police pro- tection that Cicero had. Some charges fell on the treas- ury for games. Public works, as for instance the build- ing and repairing of roads and aqueducts, walls and public buildings, frequently received outright a fifth or a tenth" of the year's income to be assigned by the cen- sors. Temples as in the past were often built by vic- torious generals from booty, and sometimes also endowed by them, or kept in repair by their descendants. But at times the state itself built temples and paid for special devotions requested by the pontiffs. The corn-doles instituted by Gaius Gracchus _requi red in Cicero's day about a million dollars" annually. From this the fifteen bushels of wheat allowed to each man who cared to stand in the bread-line were supplied at a fraction of the cost. Clodius in his bid for popularity passed laws that nearly doubled this expense.

The armies and the provinces however devoured the

" Livy, VI, 32; XL, 46, 16; XLIV, 16, 9. >«Sec Marquardt, Staatsverwaltung, II, 1 16-18.

PUBUC FINANCES I4I

greater part of the state's income in these troublesome days, and some provinces cost the state more than they provided in tribute. The senate never admitted the need of a ttmnding anny, always dreading a repetition of its abuse by men like Maritts and SulU, but the warfare in Spain, Africa, and the East continued incessantly and the •enate was compelled to hand on standing armies from one pnxonsul to another. As each soldier received 120 denarii per year as pay the salaries for a legion exceeded $100,000, and the annual expenses of a legion doubtless reached double that amount. From incidental remarks in Cicero's letters we find that even in normal times Syria, A^, Bithynia, AJrica, Sjpain and Ci^]By|fi_Caul had at least three legions each. At least twenty legions were therefore in service. Wars called for new and extra levies though at such times neighboring legions might be brought to the point of immediate danger. Pompey re- ceived six million dollars — more than half the year's in- come— to prosecute the war against the pirates in 67, and in 55 he was voted a million dollars annually for Spain, largely for the sake of matching his forces with those that Caesar had in Gaul. Piso, Caesar's father-in- law, received an equal appropriation for the compara- tively peaceful province of Macedonia in 58, but the Senate in this case probably intended Caesar's relative to come back with a handsome surplus for which he need make no accounting. Indeed at this time the Senate had adopted the theory that nobles who had served the state all their lives gratuitously ought to receive in their last office as provincial governors a large enough appropria-

142 PUBLIC FINANCES

tion to indemnify them in part for past expenses. Cicero

at the end of his term in Cilicia, a province of very

modt-t j.r. ']uiriinn>. liad a Mirplus of a hundred thousand

dollars still unused from the senatorial appropriation, and

an equal sum left over from provincial dues. He did not

^.^.^ j^"^ put it in his own pocket, which awakened some unfavor-

' able comment. A paragraph from Augustus' account of

^'^' his reign" will give a better insight than can any general

statistics into the extraordinary expenditures which the

new empire assumed in its eflforts to please the populace.

** When consul for the fifth time I gave each and every Roman plebeian four hundred sesterces (about $20) ^a from the spoils of war; again in my tenth consulship I made to every man a special gift of four hundred ses- terces out of my own estate; in my eleventh consulship I twelve times distributed food, buying grain at my own expense; in the twelfth year of my tribunician power I again gave four hundred sesterces to every man. These donations have never been made to less than 250,000 men. In my twelfth consulship I gave sixty denarii (about $12) apiece to 320,000 of the city plebs. When consul for the fifth time I gave to each colonist of my army 1,000 ses- terces ($50) from the spoils. About 120,000 participated in this triumphal donation. When consul for the thir- teenth time I gave sixty denarii to the plebs who were at that time receiving public grain; of these there were a little more than 200,000. —

"To acquire lands for soldier-colonies I paid 600,000,000 sesterces (thirty million dollars) for Italian farms and

^*Res Gestae Divi Augusti, 15-17.

puBuc FiNANan 143

360,000,000 tettercet for land in the provinces... and to soldiers whom I sent back to their native cities I gave gratuities amounting to 400,000,000 sesterces* etc"

Rome's method of exploiting mines of precious metals and useful ores for the benefit of the treasury requires a more explicit statement than could be given above in the general review of the state's sources of income. The ancient state's need of precious metal for purposes of coinage early begot a more or less conscious theory that veins of silver and gold were public property to be treated as discovered treasure. Philip of Macedon worked the rich gold mines of Thrace on the state's ac- count, Athens, the silver mines of Laurion, and Carthage, those of Spain. The Roman government of the Republic never consistently claimed possession of such subsoil treasure as a matter of course: Crassus" and other wealthy Romans owned rich mines in Spain, and the state even sold to private individuals various properties it could no long^cr exploit with profit. But the Senate did from time to time, when the need was great or when the opportunity favored, betray a strong interest in acquiring mines and working them for the account of the treasur>'. The Spanish placer-mines which for a while during the second century B.C. brought the state nearly two million dollars** annually may have been upon public land in- herited from Carthage. It seems however that when

>• Plut Crass, 2; Diod. V, 36; Digest, 27, 9, 3.

**Polybtus« according to Stribo. III. 2, la These seem to have been told to private individuals later, perha(M when so far outworked that contractors were no k»ger wtHing to exploit them on a so per cent basis.

144

PUBLIC FINANCES

Rome came into possession of a new province the mines whetlicr in public or private lands were apt to be taken over for the public account." If ores were afterwards discovered the state probably did not claim ownership, at least during the regime of the Senate.

We still possess fragments of the regulations" under which some silver and copper mines of Spain were farmed out by the Emperors, and since the contract system was here used and the mines had then long been worked we can apply most of the specifications to the Republican situation. Here we find that the whole mining region in- cluding the town itself was state property under the supervision of an imperial procurator. Whoever wished to take a mining claim must first pay a stipulated occu- pation price, after which he must begin work within twenty-five days. On beginning work he had to pay the state or give proper security for the price placed on the mine by the procurator, this being fixed on the theory that the state's price should, as in the case of treasure- troves, be estimated at one half the value of the ore. On payment of this price the contractor received the pos- session of the mine so long as he worked it faithfully without a respite of more than six months. Abandoned mines could be occupied on the same terms. In addition to the mining rights however the state also established and rented out a great many concessions in the town. It

" Strabo, IV, 6, 7 and 12.

" At Aljustrel, Lex Metalli Vipascensis, C.I.L. II, 5181, and a fragment of another regulation which may be found in Rev. Arch. 1906, p. 480. See Bruns, Pontes'^, pp. 289-295.

PUBLIC FINANCES I45

controlled a public Uath. the exploitation of which was auctioned to the highest bidder under very strict rules regarding its management: the concessiooaire must con- tract to keep the bath-tubs full of warm water every day throughout the year, must polish the metal work once a month, must admit women from daybreak till one o'clock daily at the price of one cent, and men from two till eight o'clock at half that price!

The state also controlled a public shoe shop, a barber V? ' ^ry, and an auction room, the concessionaires

«> la monopoly of such work in the town but

must provide what was required at prices fixed by the state's procurator. School teachers alone had the free range of the town and paid no fees. The work in the mines was largely done by slaves; but the rules regulating I>enalties for thefts of ore on the part of miners specify free men as well as slaves.

Finally a glance at the peculiar system of public finance n vogue in Egypt,** which Augustus added to the Empire m 30 B.C., will reveal the source of the strange paternal- istic ideas that so profoundly changed Rome's fiscal methods after Cicero's day. Since national and indi- vidual prosperity in Egypt had always depended upon the regular distribution of the waters of the Nile and since this was impossible without a unified control which vir- tually entailed unified ownership, the Pharaohs of Egypt

>• Sec Grcnfell and Mahiffy, Revtnue Laws of PtoUmy Phil; Grenfell and Hunt, Tcbtunis Pap. I, App. I; Roitowtew, Gttch, Rom. KolonaUs. Miuets-Wilcken. CkrtstomaHi L Maspcro, Lit finances 64 rEgypte.

146 PUBLIC FINANCES

had come to be recognized as the owners of the whole acreage of the Kingdom as well as sovereigns of the people. After Alexander's death the Ptolemies succeeded to this vast possession. They owned the soil. To be sure, they generally left the rich temple properties and temple industries intact, they colonized soldiers on various tracts, and they assigned portions to favored groups of people, besides simply renting out large districts as crown lands; but ultimately all the land was at the disposal of the Ptolemies. When Augustus came to Egypt he assumed possession of that vast estate which brought in an annual surplus of over ten million dollars. On wheat lands he, like the Ptolemies before him, charged according to the worth of the soil from one to three bushels per acre, and other lands yielded proportionate rents, usually payable either in money or in wheat. For plants that produced oil a certain percentage of the acreage was specified by the regulations; the state bought the crude oil at fixed prices, manufactured the edible products from it in state factories, and distributed these to small agencies that sold them at regular and fixed prices. The Italian shops which to-day sell " salt and tobacco " for state monopolies are direct descendants of such state agencies in Egypt.

Since by the action of the overflowing Nile the Egyptian peasants were freed from much of the labor of tilling, they were employed for a part of the year in state fac- tories, or permitted to engage in private industries that were more or less under monopolistic control. In this way Augustus in due time became a captain of industry. Indeed most necessities were controlled by the state

PUBUC riNANCIt 147

monopoly: all the clothing of wool, fiax, and hides; salt,

il (the butter of the ancient world), honey (their sugar),

atron (their soap), brick and timber, even the fulleries

aiui the dyeing establishments, and a few luxuries like

jewelry, perfumes, and beer.**

Furthermore since the products of the Egyptian soil and of industry for the most part belonged to the state, the government naturally directed much of the transpor- tation and encouraged trade which helped to dispose of the surplus. Strabo'* says that in his time a ship bound for India sailed every third day from the Red Sea harbor. I'^or the same reason, wherever it paid, Egypt protected its products from having to compete with foreign im- ports. Oil could be imported for use only on the pay- ment of a 25 per cent, duty; importation of oil for sale was wholly prohibited. Finally capital had naturally to be provided or controlled by the state. Every bank was accordingly a state concession which did all its business on a fixed scale. Indeed economic absolutism was carried to an extent never dreamed of elsewhere, unless perhaps by some Bolshevist dictator. Augustus accepted the Ptolemaic inheritance and because it proved very profit-

»• See Mittcis-Wilcken. op. cit. p. 239, on the Egyptian monopo* lies. They classify the lasr named article as a necessity I

"Sirabo. II, 5, 12: "When Gallos was prefect of Egypt, I accompanied him and ascended the Nile as far as Syene and the frontiers of Ethiopia, and I learned that as many as one hundred and twenty vessels were sailing from Myos Hormos to India, whereas formerly under the Ptolemies only a very few ventured to undertake the voyage and to carry on traffic in Indian mer- chandise.'*

148 PUBLIC FINANCES

able continued its practices with but few changes. It was indeed the source of many of those sums with which he fed the Roman populace into an obese acquiescence. We shall have occasion later to note how some of these prac- tices were afterwards applied in an attempt to rehabilitate agriculture in the abandoned areas of Africa and Italy.

CHAPTER X The Plebs Urbana

The direction which industrial development takes de- pends in large measure upon the amount and nature of the available labor and the condition of the society out of which this comes. Our Southern States secured negro slaves because they could be profitably employed in the hot toil of tobacco and cotton lands, but the masses of slaves when once there practically conditioned the further economic development of the South for decades.

Preliminary to a closer study of the industrial innova- tions of the Ciceronian period it will therefore be perti- nent to try to analyze some of the social changes taking place in Rome's lower strata. It is generally recognized that the independent house-holders of the Latin stock had materially decreased in numbers after the Second Punic \'ar, and that their place was filled with slaves and slave utTspring. How far this process had gone during the Republic, we shall attempt to discover.

When Cicero was convassing for the consulship in 64, his brother wrote him an interesting pamphlet on prac- tical electioneering methods in which he reminds him that ** Roma est civitas ex nationum conventu constituta/** and that a candidate must be careful of his behavior to- wards his slaves and freedroen, for these have no Httle power in influencing the vote of the populace. It is in

*■ De PeHHom Cons, 54 and 39.

149

150 THE PLEBS URBAN A

the light of such chance remarks that one may compre- hend the stormy riots and the bloodshed so frequently mentioned during the last days of the Republic, and the power of popular leaders like Clodius who gained such strength through his patronage of labor gilds that neither Caesar nor Pompey dared interfere with him. How Rome's body of citizens had come to be a '* conglomerate of all nations " is however not so readily explained, since, after all, citizenship had not yet been given to any people outside of Italy. The evidence that we now have seems to indicate that immigration played a relatively small role in this change, but that the transmutation of stock was due to the growth of a class which had come up from slavery.

The wars of Rome were largely instrumental of course in destroying Italy's native stock.^ The Second Punic War alone with such disasters as Trasimene Lake and Cannae accounted for a loss of perhaps a third of Rome's citizens. The succeeding wars in Greece, Asia, Spain, against the Cimbri and the Allies were severe enough to keep the manhood of Italy down. And what cost more than actual casualties during this period was the con- stant retention of about twenty per cent, of the young men of piarriageable age in military service, so that the chances of family life decreased to that extent. On the other hand during the period when the best of the native stock was being drafted for service, slaves and freedmen lived in security at home constantly multiplying in

numbers.

V

« See Park, The Plehs Urbana in Cicero's day.

TBI PLBB8 UBBANA I5I

The fact that after the Second Punic War the areas of vacated hmds were being occupied for ranches and plan- tations manned by slaves contributed to the same resuh. ' iidecd as Appian* dryly remarks the landlords preferred slaves to free labor, since free men were liable to military tenrice, while slaves were left alone, and could therefore be depended upon. His words are: ** The landlords used slaves as laborers and herdsmen fearing that if they used free men these would be drawn into the army. The own-

rship of slaves itself brought great gain from the mulH" tude of their children, who increased because they were exempt from military service. Thus the powerful ones became enormously rich and the race of slaves multiplied, \ while the Italian people dwindled in numbers and strength j being oppressed by penury, taxes, and service in the anny. 1

t they had any respite from these evils they passed their • time in idleness, because the land was held by the rich! who employed slaves instead of freemen." The redun- dancy of Appian's phrases does no more than justice to the dclupe of evils that he describes.

The new generation that grew up, excluded from op- portunities to acquire land in Italy, drifted into the back eddies of urban slums or emigrated to the new provinces that were constantly being opened,* and such men were to a great extent lost to Rome's body of citizens. For

• Bell Civ. I. 7.

• The Roman governors found enough Rontan citizens resident in such provinces as Spain, Asia, and Africa to levy a legion of them in lime of need: sec for example Cit Ad. Att. V, 18, 2; Caesar. BeU. Civ. Ill, 4. 3; BeU. AUx. XXXIV, 5. Cf. Kome- maim, art. Comventtu, Pauly-Wiitowa.

152

THE PLEBS URBANA

forty years" after the Second Punic War there was de- spite a constant manumission of slaves but a slight in- crease of 1.3 per cent, annually in the citizens' rolls, and thereafter for thirty years, a period during which Rome added Macedonia, Africa, and Asia to the Empire, there was an annual decrease of one fourth of one per cent.

A complete statement of the causes of decline in popu- lation would necessitate a discussion of the Malthusian law, the social evil, birth control and much else, and for these problems we have of course but few data. Some considerations however may be indicated in passing. There is the striking fact which all readers of Rome's literature quickly notice that of the many families of which we have fairly good records in literary notices few contained more than two or three children. This fact accords with evidence provided by the thousands of tombstone inscriptions recording the names of parents and their children. Confirmation comes also from speeches like that of Metellus inveighing against race- suicide, from the legislation of so many of the emperors

» Beloch, Bevolkerung der GriecK Rom. Welt, 347, gives the census list with some revision as follows:

203 B.C 214,000

193 " 243,000

173 " 269,000

168 " 312,000

163 " 337,000

153 " 324,000

141 " 327,000

131 " 318,000

125 " 394.000

THE PLEBS UUANA 1 53

who tried by tax exemptions or by censorial compolsioo

to indnoe or compel the cttizens to coottder the political

-cessity of a sound and increasing progeny, and finally

rom the blunt statements of historians who record the

laroentatloiis of the poor» saying that they were reduced

• childlessness* because they were unable in their pov- < rty to rear their children/* For the empire during which

vc have fairly full records of the more distinguished imilies we are enabled even to reach definite statistics* regarding the amaxingly rapid decline of the old stock. For instance, of the forty-five patricians in the senate in Caesar's day only one is represented by posterity in Hadrian's day. The famous Aemilii, Fabii, Claudii, Manlii, Valerii and all the rest, with the exception of the G>mclii, have disappeared. Augustus and Claudius raised twenty-five families to the patriciate, and all but six of them vanish before Nerva's reign. Of the fami- lies of nearly four hundred senators recorded in 65 A.D. under Nero all trace of a half is lost a generation bter, and not a few of those surviving live on only through the adoption of children. Of course members of the aris- cracy suffered severely under the political tyranny of that century, but most of this result is after all directly traceable to voluntary childlessness.

It should not be too hastily assumed that this was ac- complished by means of the old Indo-Germanic practice of expositio. This custom was not as prevalent at Rome as might be inferred from Plautus, whose plots are almost

* Appian. B, C. I. 10, Applying to the time of Tiberius Gncchus. » Stech. Kiio, Btiktft X.

II

154 THE PLEBS URBANA

wholly Greek in origin. It may well be that in early Lat- ium the period of overpopulation had brought such eco- nomic hardship as to reintroduce and excuse a practice which many branches of the race had sloughed off when emerging from barbarism. But Roman law never per- mitted the exposing of any normal male child, and a count of the children, male and female, recorded upon tomb- stones reveals the fact that the numbers were nearly equal, and that therefore female children were reared as were the male.® That the custom was not completely dis- countenanced however helps us to comprehend how pub- lic opinion could early blink at the fact that Roman families were shunning the burden of parenthood.

Of much greater importance than expositio are certain social conditions of the time. After the Punic War the old religion, which had once encouraged large families by stressing the supreme importance of ancestor-worship in the continued happiness of the parent in after-life, counted for little among the upper classes; moreover a society in which the young men spent their prime in the army and came back experienced men of the world to enter into domestic life was apt to have unrestricted patience with the canker of prostitution. Finally it must be remembered that Rome and Greece were the only two nations before the nineteenth century in which many in- dividuals reached a condition of pampered ease, of rational self-control, and of sophisticated freedom from instinct-bom folkways which played havoc, as these things now do, with the devices of natural evolution.

• The detailed study of the inscriptions here employed may be found in the American Historical Review, 1916, 689-708.

TBB PLXB8 UBBANA I55

That the native stock dwindled is dear from all the evidence. The question of what took its place is perti- nent. Immigratioo accounts for a very small part. Lahor in Cicero's day was so largely servile that this element which to-day moves most freely in response to economic needs, was then moved and controlled by capital in the form of slaves. The free man was generally too poor to 'ft for himself. Furthermore neither Italian lands V. Ah required capital for development nor the city of Rome, which had no industries not in servile hands, could attract the foreign workman. And to live in semi-idleness at Rome upon the grain provided by the state required the status of citizenship; and this a foreigner could sel- dom acquire. South-Italian Greeks who received citizen- ship after the Social War were practically the only non- Romans who could avail themselves of this, and as we shall sec they apparently scattered into the provinces to act as middle-men between Roman capitalists and the Greek-speaking East. In the early Empire for which inscriptions provide much information, we find at Rome exceedingly few names that bear the regular forms of nomenclature of non-Romans. The small shopkeepers* and traders of Rome prove to be largely non-Italian, but an examination of their names shows that they are f reed- men rather than free immigrants. Only in some of the learned professions** and arts — in medicine, teaching,

• P&nran, DU NationcUtSi dtr KamfleuU. »• Juvenal. Ill, 76:

"While every Und— daily pours Its sUnring myriads forth, hither they come To fatten on the genial toil of Rome,

156 THE PLEBS URBANA

painting and architecture, for instance — and in some oc- cupations that required versatility and cunning, Hke those of the low comedians and acrobats do inscriptions and letters record a few foreigners; but even in these they had to compete with intelligent freedmen who had been given for purposes of profit a specialized training by their masters.

Slaves were of course available in great numbers. The more docile ones were supplied by the Greek markets where the Greeks in their economic decline sold their un- profitable chattels and for which they presently began to breed and train new generations of slaves as they found the demands of the West worth supplying. Throughout all that vast area of misruled Asia Minor also where petty provinces kept up a constant warfare, hordes of captives and kidnapped children of the various Oriental races were brought to the block by traders and pirates. Strabo" remarks that on the slave market of Delos ten thousand slaves per day were frequently sold. Rome's generals

Minions, then lords of every princely dome, Grammarian, painter, au^r, rhetorician, Ropedancer, conjurer, fiddler and physician."

One might infer from Juvenal's lines that these were free immi- grants, and of course the casual observer had no way of know- ing, but the inscriptions prove that men of this class were fre- quently slaves and freedmen. At Rome slaves could not be rec- ognized as such. When a senator once proposed that slaves be given a distinctive dress, the Senate defeated the measure fearing that the slaves might become dangerous if they came to realize their great number, Seneca, de Clem, i, 24. Cf. Tac. Ann. 4, 27. " Strabo, XIV, 3, 2; Diod. 36. 3-

TIIF PI-EM URBAS'A 157

also brought in vas^t uuiubcrs o! captives, many of them savage warriors who could be used only in heavy labor under close watch or in chains. The glut of Sardinian captives" became proverbial. A hundred and fifty thou- sand Epirotes were brought in by one raid. Pontus pro- vided large numbers of captives in the campaigns of Sulla. Lucullus, and Pompey. When Carthage fell a large part of its population was sold into captivity. The Cimbri taken by Marius, assigned naturally to the heavy work on plantations, made up the backbone of Spartacus' army a few years later. And so the dismal story goes. Such were the laborers on the land and in the industries of Cicero's time. And these were generally permanent ac- cretions, for Rome's extremely liberal policy in manumit- ting slaves and giving them citizenship with freedom made it possible for the conglomerate stock to liberate itself with unusual ease and to merge into the citizen body of Rome. Thus slaves not only supplied the demand for labor but the sons of slaves spread out into the trades and crafts that required civil standing, and in Cicero's day it was these people who already constituted the larger element of the plebeian classes.'* To reach more definite data on the proportion of this new stock in Rome's popu- lation is difficult since no ancient author has chosen to

'• War captives. Sc« Koeser, De Captivis rom,, Livy, XLI, a6; XLV, 34; Appian, Lib. 130; Mithrad. 61 and 78, Livy, Per. 68.

" Sec Chapter XVI. Even the laws of the early Empire de- signed to restrict manumission were seldom enforced. Indeed no one was interested in enforcing them. The Lex Salpensana proves that owners could legally manumit practically without limit. C.I.L. II. I9^.fae.

158 THE PLEBS URBANA

give the complete census figures then available. The best that can now be done is to draw upon such facts as may be derived from Roman inscriptions, keeping well in mind that these inscriptions come largely from the Em- pire and that some reduction must be made for any in- ferences applied to the late Republic.

As is well known, the voluminous Corpus of Latin In- scriptions contains in the sixth volume the full text of all the sepulchral inscriptions of Rome, more than twenty thousand, and it may fairly be assumed that these, nu- merous as they are, record a representative list of Roman names of average type for the first three centuries of the Empire. Now a Roman tombstone may reveal many secrets. The name alone is often eloquent. In its official form it shows whether the bearer is a slave, an ex-slave, or citizen-bom. In the case of citizen-born, the cog- nomen, if foreign, seems to betray ignoble or at least non- Roman ancestry. The stone is also liable, when it records the names of parents, children, or relatives, to disclose useful information regarding the status of the family and hence, by inference, of the individual.

Furthermore the Roman, proud of any petty office he has held, is sure to record the honor, and such offices and occupations to some extent make known the class and rank of the holder. In a word, a careful study of the numerous sepulchral inscriptions can furnish important data for estimating the character of Rome's population.

There has been some doubt as to whether the foreign cognomen is a safe criterion for judging the bearer's origin. If however one considers the inscriptions in

TBI PLXn UXBAKA I59

which tx)th parents and children are named, one finds that the second generation is remarkably fond of chang- ing a foreign sounding cognomen into one of respectably'* native appeanuice. Martial of course commented upon this. If upon all else, and his epignun on the Syrian bar- ber, Cinnamus, who transformed himself into Ctnna, a name of tmsuspected purity, has had many a congener tn recent niunbert of Punch and Lift. This proceti of Romanizing names and choosing distinctly Roman cog- nomina for children is so very pronounced that we may safely infer that the foreign names had no good repute even among the lowly. When the latter occur, they may be taken as proof that the ancestral tree had its roots in foreign soil. And when the name is Greek, as a very large proportion of slave and freedmen names actually are, we may also infer that the bearer came from or at least by way of that part of the slave-producing world in which Greek was the language of commerce, that is Asia Minor and Syria,**

By using all the criteria just enumerated and applying them to lists of persons who actually resided** at Rome with their families, and not to mere transients, and by in- cluding in the list the Latin slave names, like Salvius, Hilarus, and Apparatus, that were avoided by freebom

»« AiH, Hist. Rev. 1916, p. 693, for the full evidence.

"The evidence is collected in Bang, DU Herkunft der Rihm, Sktaven, Rom. Miu. 1910 and 191a.

»• See Am, Hist, Rev. Loc. cit, I have included children of ten years or lest, who presumably were bom at Rome, but of other slaves and freedmen only such at revealed a near personal relationship with some resident of Rome.

l60 THE PLEBS URBANA

ciiutii> we reach the surprising conclusion that nearly 90 per cent, of the population permanently resident at Rome in the Empire bore the taint of foreign extraction.

The question then arises whether it was possible for this foreign and servile population to multiply and to merge into the civil population of Rome. In the absence of evi- dence to the contrary, the assumption has prevailed that in the city at least work in aristocratic households was so exacting that slaves could seldom have been allowed the privilege of family life, and that the masters could not aflford the cost or the waste of service involved in the rearing of slave children. This assumption however proves to be erroneous. The sixth volume of the Corpus of Inscriptions fortunately records names taken from the extensive burial grounds and urn-depositories of several aristocratic households, and these prove that the slaves even in such well-organized establishments usually mar- ried and were well-nigh as prolific in offspring" as the average Roman of free station. Livia's dressmaker married her butler, Octavia's hairdresser was the wife of her keeper of the plate, Statilius' messenger courted the spinning maid, and so on the lists run. To be sure the percentages of offspring are not as large as in average Roman families, but when we consider that the slave child often failed for reasons of expense to receive the honor of an inscription, and furthermore that such chil- dren were often perforce separated from their parents and therefore not recorded with their parents the general conclusion just hazarded will not seem an overstatement.

IT Am. Hist. Rev. 1916, 697-S.

THE PLtBS UBBANA l6l

' That bUvcs usually married and had goodly families not only in the country, as Varro and Appian" both re- mark, but also in the urban households is then evident. A concomitant fact important for our purpose is that the Komans were exceedingly liberal in the practice of the roamnniasion of slaves, so that this stock soon became aq integral part of the citizenship. The facts about manuA mission are so easily accessible in the works of Fried- lander. Dill, and others that we need not attempt to de- scribe them here. The processes are well known. Frugal and ambitious slaves, particularly the quick-witted Ori- entals, could save enough in a few years to buy their freedom. Many were given their freedom because of good service, many were set up in some petty business upon a percentage of profits and hence earned their liberty; very nuuiy were set at liberty by testaments of their masters. Such freedmen would usually labor to win the liberty of their wives and children, if that had not already been secured, and thus there was always a horde of freedmen, whose children possessed full civil liberty, who assumed Roman names, dress, and manners,

"Varro, R. R. II. i, a6: II. 6, 9; X, 6; Appian, B. C. I. 71 Columella, 1,8, 18; Hor. EpodfJl,6s; Uvy, XXII, 11,8; Nepoi. Itticus, 13, 4. Somewhat to our surprise, the laws which were invented for the encouragement of large families favored freed- men and freedwomen as well as the native stock. By the Ux Aetia Sentia a freedwoman of " Junian " standing could become a full citizen by giving birth to a child, and a freedwoman who had four children was released from the guardianship of her patron, Gaius. I. 2Q, and III, 44.

1 62 THE PLEBS URBAN A

and were ready to found new houses that might some day vie in splendor with the nobility of ancient days.

Nor it is to be inferred that the picture we have given of a wholly changed race was true of the city alone. Tacitus speaks only of the metropolis as the " cesspool of the world/' and indeed Rome was naturally more affected than the rest of Italy. But no region of the West really escaped the process of change. Not only do the other im- portant cities of Italy, like Beneventum, Milan, and Pa- tavium, reveal a strikingly large proportion of non-Italian names in their cemeteries but the very core of central Italy whence the hardiest soldiers were once drawn seems to have become largely foreign; a careful reading of the inscriptions of the Marsi and Vestini will allay the most obstinate doubts on this point. In a word, the whole of Italy as well as the Romanized portions of Gaul and Spain were during the Empire dominated in blood by the East.

And it is accurate to say " the East." An analysis of the given names of the slaves and freedmen of Rome reveals that seventy per cent, are Greek; the indices of the same class for Latium outside of Rome give sixty- four per cent. Greek. Even Cisalpine Gaul, the region where one would expect few Oriental slaves and numer- ous Northern ones, proves to yield forty-six per cent. Greek names. And it must not be forgotten that many freedmen of Eastern extraction had already acquired pride enough to hide their condition by substituting Latin for Greek cognomina, so that our percentages do not by any means overstate conditions.

THl PLEBS UIBANA I63

It will probably always remain a problem why the Ori- ental stock continued predominant when in fact the Gallic, German and Dacian wars furnished so very many captives for the block at Rome. The explanation doubt- lett involves to some extent practices well understood at Rome but which have not happened to be recorded. Per- haps slave-capture and kidnapping persisted in the East during the Empire to an extent that has not been sur- mised. Perhaps the expanding economic prosperity of the West drew the surplusage of slaves from a decaying East, and perhaps also the Eastern trade encouraged the rearing of slaves for the Western market as one of the regular products for export. As for the northern war- captive we may surmise why his race soon vanished. A chance remark of Caesar** for instance reveab the fact that Cimbric war captives were the mainstay of the slave revolt under Spartacus. Those revolters were of course wiped out in the hopeless contest. And this may give us a clew to further surmise. The Gallic and Germanic war captives were hardly suited to the household duties which provided the best opportunities for survival. Rude and strong, they were probably sent to the roughest service in the mines and in the galley. There they worked them- selves to an early death knowing nothing of wife and offspring and caring for nought but possible revenge and improbable escape.** Their course was soon run. That inscriptions say little of them is not to be wondered at. Such we must assume were in part the conditions and

»• Bell. Call I. 40, 5.

«• Stride. Hist. Ztiticknft, CXII. 9.

164 "^HE PLEBS URBANA

practices that eliminated the Northern captive and en- couraged the multiplication of the Oriental. At any rate the testimony of the inscriptions that the latter over- whelmed Rome cannot be disputed.

It would be interesting to know how far the social transmutation we have tried to follow accounts for the fundamental changes in the Empire. Was not absolutism inevitable when the Italian, who had so equably combined liberty with law, gave way to impulsive and passionate races** that had never known self government? Did the emotional and mystical religions of the East spread west- ward and capture the Romaif empire as the Orientals who lived by faith and intuition displaced the rationalistic Oc- cidental? Did the literature of the later day lose its originality because a new people came to copy its forms without comprehension of its spirit? Did Rome's capac- ity to govern fail because the people of the iron will, in- defatigable purpose, and prudent vision that had built the state bequeathed its government to men of softer fibre? Such questions lead far afield, but the questions them- selves indicate the direction that historians may expect to take in accounting for some of the economic changes of the Empire.

** In Pro Flacco, 17, Cicero characterizes with much amusing exaggeration the ingcnita levitas et erudita vanitas of the Asiatic Greeks, making the striking statement that " whenever our polit- ical assemblies are thrown into confusion it is usually people of this race that have caused it."

CHAPTER XI

IWDUSTBY AT THE EnD OF THE REPUBLIC

(Recent students of Roman industry have disagreed fundamentally regarding its scope, its aims, and processes, some^ comparing it with the primitive methods of an un- developed rural society, and others applying to it the language of the intricate industrial system of modem tim^/J This disagreement is of course largely due to the inadequate information found in the ancient writers, who were for the most part statesmen interested in political history and who concerned themselves little with the oc- cupations of slaves and freedmen. Except for some agricultural treatises, the volumes of Frontinuson Rome's water supply, and a few books of Pliny devoted to the technical methods of production, Roman writers have left the economist to the mercy of parentheses, obiter dicta, and the mute objects brought to light by the excavator's spade. If progress is to be made in this nebulous subject a patient reckoning with iho cvulcnco df archaeology is essential.

It is my intention in this chapter to examine several > i>ical industries, especially those that have provided

» Cf. Rodbertus. Jahrb. f. Naticnaidk. IV, 341; Bucher, Enl- stehung d. Volkswirischaft*, 1904. p. 117. The opposite view is held by E. Meyer, KMng SchrifUn, pp. 79 ff. and 169 ff. The advocates of both views have gone to untenable extremes. A part of this chapter has appeared in Classical PkUotcsfy, 19181 pp. 155-168.

165

I66 INDUSTRY AT THE END OP THE REPUBLIC

some record of themselves in the form of trademarks and makers* signatures," in order to procure definite data regarding the scale of production, the degree of cen- tralization, the extent of the market, and the class of people involved in the production of them. In the next chapter by way of corrective and a supplement I shall attempt a survey of the economic structure of Pompeii, the only Roman city that has survived to such an extent as to permit a reliable reconstruction, and to this I shall append a summary of such conclusions as seem to be justified.

\ It may be said at once that in general the Roman pro- (iu'cer was much nearer the consumer than he is to-day, that the handicraftsman who sold in his small artisan- shop the product of his own labor was the typical maker and merchant and that a fullfledged factory system of production emerged only in certain favorable circum- stances. What these were may be gathered from the ex- amination of th^individual industries^ which follows.

The table-ware' that was most popular in Augustus* day was a red-glased pottery ornamented with designs in low relief and called, after the most important city of manufacture, Arretine ware.* It frequently bears the stamp not only of the manufacturer but also of the par- ticular craftsman who designed the piece, or rather the mold from which the piece was turned; for the processes

« Such inscriptions have been collected in the fifteenth volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum.

• See CJ.L. XV, 702 and XI, 1081; Chase. Catalogue of Arre- tint Pottery (with bibliography), 1916.

INDU8TBY AT THE EKO OF TBI lEPUBLIC 167

were those of mass-production in a factory rather than of individual craftmen's shops. The designer, for in- stance, produced a Yariety of stencils, probably in clay, with patterns of leaves, geometrical designs, or human figures posturing, etc., and with these he would stencfl running friezes, not into each bowl, but into a mold which could serve for the production of hundreds of bowls. The designer was a trained craftsman who could model in clay and who had some taste in the composition of pat- terns, but we need hardly suppose that he was an original artist like the men who so frequently produced exquisite work in the famous Greek vases, since in Arretine ware the patterns were usually borrowed from those of silver plate.

To judge from the instances in which we can actually apply a test to the form of the signature,* the designer was usually a slave or a freedman. If the designer was lave we may be fairly sure that the ordinary laborers Aire. The owners of the factories were of course Roman citizens, but it is surprising how frequently they bore a foreign cognomen, a fact which implies that they or their ancestors of no remote date had come up from slavery. Indeed some of the owners appear to be the very persons who designed the patterns of an earlier style, an indica- tion that slave-artists sometimes secured their freedom

♦ S«€ Am, Hist. RrvUw, 1916, p. 693, for crircria; also Oxi, Rktim. Mui. 1904, 108. The pottery produced at Gales two cen- turies earlier was designed almost wholly by the thopownert who were free dtixeni. sec Pagenstecher. Dif ci^Ifn Pfliffh^T^" mik, pp. 148 if.

l68 INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

and a sufficient competence to gain possession of their iQi^t^'s factories.

The extensive proportions of some of the factories are proved beyond a doubt. So, for instance, the ware of certain firms has been found, not, to be sure, over the whole Roman world — for each firm seems to have sup- plied the regions opened by the natural arteries of trade — but at least over half the Mediterranean basin. Indeed for one period it is true that the potteries situated in three districts, i. e., near Puteoli, at Arretium, and in the valley of the Po, supplied the whole demand for moderately good table-ware throughout the Empire, excepting only the southeast. The scale of production* is also indicated by the great number of workmen engaged in certain firms. That of Cornelius, for instance, has provided the names of some forty designers. To be sure, they were not all contemporaneous, but at any rate a single designer could keep a large number of mixers, potters and furnace- men busy, since presumably he merely made the molds and touched up the designs. Calidius Strigo had at least y twenty designers, Perennius as many, and there were a dozen other firms of goodly proportions at Arretium. Finally, mass production with a view to extensive trade is disclosed in the establishment of branch factories in Gaul and elsewhere, the purpose being, of course, to save what was in that day the heavy item of freight. Indeed the

^Notizie degli Scavi, 1896, p. 455, describes a large pottery. The mixing vat had a capacity of 10,000 gallons. The Gallic pot- teries also produced on a large scale: Dcchclette, Les vases cera- miques de la Gaule, p. 91.

IIIDU8TBY AT THE EKD OF THE tEPUBLIC 169

home factories were eventually put to rout by these new ones, whether because the clays of Gaul were better, the makers more enterprising, or the provincial market more conservative when fashions began to change in Italy. So, for instance, a consignment of red ware that had reached Pompeii shortly before the eruption — the box had not yet been opened— contained more Gallic pieces than Italian, although the box had apparently been packed at Rome.* In this industf}', then, we find the machinery of an ex- tensive factory production of articles intended for wide distribution. Of course the student of Roman society sees in this instance an exception to, rather than an ex- ample of, the usual rule, but it is apparent that conditions here favored the development of large-scale production. Two elements were of prime importance. One was the quasi-trade-secret involved in the making of the paste, for, though there was no copyright and this particular clay could be and in fact was manufactured in several places, exact knowledge of a rather intricate formula was after all essential. Secondly, a designer of some skill, training, and taste was required; consequently competi- tion could not spring up over night, and the expense of keeping a skilled designer naturally suggested the advis- ability of gathering under him enough unskilled labor to occupy his time. Hence it is that this industry developed in a way that was rather unusual in the Roman world.

By way of contrast both in workmanship and in condi- tions of production it is interesting to compare the manu- * Atkinson, /our. of Roman StudUs, TV, 27. 12

I70 INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

f acture of another article of pottery, namely, the ordinary clay lamps,'' millions of which must have heen manufac- tured every year and sold for a very few cents apiece. Many of these lamps have a little decoration, but seldom does a pattern show any real artistic worth. They were turned out in molds by an ordinary potter, and the clay paste was little better than that used in good roof-tiles. Furthermore, they were so cheap that it would hardly have been worth while to ship them any considerable dis- tance. To be sure, (the recurrence in all parts of the world of certain typ^s of lamps bearing a well-known firm-name succeeded until recently in deceiving archaeol- ogists into thinking that certain firms commanded the trade over wide areas. But it has now been proved* by measurements that the greater number of these lamps came from local potteries that simply used various shapes successively popular at some center like Rome, importing the originals and using them, firm-name and all, as molds. Since, then, in the absence of protective copyright, there was here no difficult formula or trade-secret to aid in excluding competition and no great economic inducement for gathering considerable labor, the industry scattered in such a way that local potteries usually supplied the needs of each community.^ Concerning the class of labor used we have some indications. The firm-names are usually in briefest form, a cognomen alone, though in early examples good Roman gentile names occur. Judg-

^ CJ,L. XV, 784; Fink, Sitsungsb. Akad. Miinchen, 1900; Loeschcke, Keramische Funde in Haitern, p. 210. • Loeschcke, op. cit. p. 210.

INDUSTRY AT THE EKD OF TBI UFUBUC I7I

ing from the frequency of Greek cognomtna we may suppose that the potteries which produced these cheap wares fell into the hands of the class that in general man- aged Rome's industries, at least in the Early Empire, i.e., the freedroen.

Certain developments of the glass industry in Augustus' day* bring us back to conditions not unlike those of the rcd-glazcd pottery. Glass-making apparently grew out of the art of surface-p'-^-"'"" -n Egypt at a very early age, and in Roman times t ware of Alexandria, chiefly

mosaics of varicolored glass pastes, was shipped th^ world over. It is likely that there were verj' large fac- tories in Egypt, but since the ware bears no trade-mark and since it was successfully copied at Rome and else- where, we are quite unable to determine the proportions of such factories. There is, however, a translucent glass of Rome, usually figured and signed, and apparently made -i with the blow-pipe, that provides some little information of value. When Strabo says that in his day certain new I inventions at Rome had greatly increased the production of glass and brought down the price to a cent or two per article he may well be referring to the discovery of the process by which a bubble of glass paste was manipulated with the aid of a blow-pipe. It is obvious why this method revolutionized the production of clear glass. Hitherto for the making of bottles and for many shapes

•Kisa, Das GUu im AUerium, pp. a6i, 70a: Eiscn, Am, Jomr, Arch, 1916, p. 143; Morin, La Verrerit in Caule, 1913; CJX. XV. 871.

172 INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

of beakers a new mold had to be shaped for each indi- vidual article, a labor-consuming process, and one which, because of the sand and clay of the mold, left the article far from clear. With the blow-pipe a permanent outer mold was used which might contain the figured pattern — figures were the fashion in all wares of Augustus' day — and the glass-blower with the use of his pipe could force the paste to fill the mold and assume the pattern desired. The product was clearer and smoother and the work was far more rapidly done than by the old method. It is not surprising that the makers of the new glass, inartistic though it was, showed such enthusiasm over the new process as to put their names in prominent letters upon the pattern. The ware, which can readily be distin- guished, is not only found widely distributed, but the maker's name is printed in Greek as well as in Latin, apparently on the supposition that the articles would find a wide sale.

Here again, as in the case of Arretine ware, conditions favorable to monopolistic production existed. Whether or not modem methods can extract glass paste with ease from the sands and pozzolanas of Italy everywhere, it is clear from Strabo and Pliny that the ancient glass-maker had great difficulty in finding a tractable sand. This alone prevented much competition. Moreover, the new invention made a peculiar distribution of specialists neces- sary. Hitherto the workman who handled the hot glass paste at the furnace must also be skilled at molding it quickly into the desired pattern. By the new process one designer could shape any number of exterior molds, and

IHDUSTIY AT TUB END OP TBI BBPUKJC I73

any number of glait-blowert might produce the articles on these molds, ghren only special sldll in glass-blowing. Thus again it was good economy to gather labor into one place and about one designer.

There is one additional fact of interest here tliat de- serves mention in passing. The manufacturers of this glass bear Greek names and call themselves natives of I Phoenician Sidon. It may be that some of the factories were in Sidon; at least Ennion's work is found mainly in that region. On the other hand» the work of Artas, Xeikon, and Ariston appears mostly at Rome. Either wen are dealing with an eastern product that captured the trade of Rome, or, what is more likely, we are dealing with skilled artisans and manufacturers who, realizing that Rome offered the best market, set up their main fac- tories in Italy. Perhaps these arc the factories on thc_J X'ohumus River mentioned by Pliny.

The brickmaking^'* industry was another which tended toward factory and monopolistic methods at_Rome, though for a very different set of reasons. During the Republic the industry found little encouragement. Pub- lic buildings were largely made of tufa-blocks, and when concrete was introduced it came to be lined with stone, large blocks or small squares set in cement. Gay was l)umt chiefly for roof-tiles. In the early Empire till Claudius' day the stone facing and open reticulatum still continued in vogue, though broken roof -tiles were also introduced for the facing of concrete walls. In the reign

>• CJX. XV. 1; Van Denan, Am, Jowt, ArcK 191a, 247 ff.

174 INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

of Claudius, however, brick-facing became more general so that brickyards had to supply new forms in addition to the roof-tiles. It was in Nero's reign, especially when, after the great fire, a large part of the city had to be re- built, that the brick industry came to its own. It is evi- dent that the brick kilns then in existence had to supply an inestimable quantity of material for the facing of concrete walls, and brick-faced concrete remained the standard material for construction thenceforward.

There were of course both centrifugal and centripetal forces in this industry at Rome as elsewhere. The recipe was centuries old, and by no means a secret. Further- more, good clays for bricks were abundant. To be sure, the excellent Pliocene shales behind the Vatican that now feed the great kilns of Rome seem not to have been ex- ploited to any great extent in ancient times, but the allu- vium of the Anio and of the Tiber which combines the limestone silt of the Apennines with the volcanic pozzo- lanas of Latium still produces some of the finest red bricks of Rome, and here, to judge from the texture of the old bricks and from the brick stamps, were the chief yards of ancient Rome. That supply was inexhaustible and could not well be controlled by any single firm.

Since the product was too heavy for ready transport, it was not easy for a firm to secure control of the trade over large areas. Only in very few instances do the ancient brick stamps appear widely distributed. Bricks from Roman yards were of course barged down to Ostia, and some wares of the Campanian and even the Ligurian and Gallic coasts went by sea to Rome's seaport and vice

XmyUBTBY AT THE END OF TBS IXPUBUC J 75

versa, poMtbly as ballast. Yards on the Tiber above Rome, even a hundred miles away, gained a market down the river, and when a particularly good article was de- sired by a nobleman for his Alban villa he would pay the expenses of a costly transport from the metropolis; but this Ust fairly completes the cases of transshipment

And yet certain brick firms at Rome grew to immense proportions, owing possibly to a capacity and ability to grasp the opporttmities offered. Interesting in this con- nection is the growth of the property of the famous Gallic orator, Domitius Afcr. Arriving at Rome a poor man in the reign of Tiberius, he gained wealth and political position by his remarkable gift of speech, ready wit, and calculating devotion to the reigning prince. Like any Roman ambitious to establish a social position, he in- vested in landed estates, and it was probably in this way that he became an owner of a brickyard, since tile-burning was still looked upon as a legitimatfiJoBllfibLOf JCT'cul- ture and therefore respectable bevond tfacnmof ordinary business. The times were auspicious, for bricks were just working their way into fashion. Afer's adopted sons and heirs, Tullus and Lucanus, profiting doubtless by the devastating fire that destroyed most of Rome, perhaps also skillfully using for business purposes the political in- fluence which they both inherited from their ennobled father, extended their enterprises enormously, acquiring, as their trade-marks show, the yards of several different estates which they finally conducted under a score of managers. There is hardly a public or private building of importance during their period — an epoch of enormous

176 INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

building activity — where their trade-mark is not promi- nent, if not predominant, among the brick stamps found. These, by the way, are the properties which formed the main group of the imperial yards of a later day, for they passed by inheritance through the hands of Lucilla, the daughter of Lucanus, to her grandson, who became the emperor Marcus Aurelius. In his day, indeed, the brick- yards of Rome had largely become imperial property, well-nigh an imperial monopoly, a situation which, how- ever, was largely due to the accident of intermarriage between the families that owned the chief yards at the beginning of the second century and the succession by

^due inheritance into the family of the Annii.

/ It is deserving of notice that brickmaking is practically the only industry at Rome in which the aristocrat does not hesitate to display his connections with the profits of a factory. The reason probably lies in the associations with agriculture already mentioned. The Roman noble was supposed to be a landlord, and it was always proper for him to be intimately acquainted with all the processes of agriculture and to develop all the resources of his land, be this by grain- or stock-raising or by turning a clay bank into a tile yard. Indeed Asinius Pollio was one of the first nobles at Rome to have his name stamped upon tiles which he apparently made at his Alban villa, and there is little reason to doubt that the tiles bearing the

Lname of Tuli from the vicinity of Tusculum were made at the favorite Tusculan villa of Cicero.

This fact again explains a peculiar business practice in the association of the owner and slave-managers of such

IKDUSTtY AT TBI tND OF THt ISPUBLIC I77

factories, for brick tUmps usually indicate the nainet of both the owner and the superintendent of the yard, the latter invariably a slave or freedmtn. The practice of course simply continues the conditions that regularly held upon the large landed estates. The landlord at this time seldom leased his lands; he rather cultivated them hinv self, placing a trusted slave or freedman in charge of his property, a position of considerable responsibility and dignity. It is apparent that the superintendent of the brickyards who was permitted to stamp his name upon the brick with that of his master corresponds in every way to the vilicus of the estate.

Regarding the manufacture of mitaUwor$ a few defi- nite facts can be elicited from ancient writers, and in the case of bronze and lead-ware, from producer's signatures. Wrought iron and steel of excellent qtudity were made and used in arms and agricultural implements, but sinceN the vahred bellows had not yet been invented a thorough

letting of iron ore was not yet possible. The Roman manufacturer" therefore did not know of cast iron, the cheapest and most serviceable form of the metal. In lieu of thorough melting he had to content himself with the expensive product that could be procured by patient and reiterated forging on the anvil. Delian price lists quote

ron at about six dollars per hundred weight, which seems very high when we consider that the Roman procured his copper at very little above the modem price.

"Julliin, Art Fabri, Datcmbcrg-Saglio, Blumncr, Techmolo'

178 INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

In Cicero's day there seems to have been a very re- markable concentration of iron production at Puteoli. Italian iron ore came then as now from the island of Elba off the Tuscan shore. The ore dug there was brought to the mainland and " roasted " until the mass " resembled sponges" with such heat as could be produced in low furnaces. At the time of the Second Punic War," the Etruscan cities still held possession of the iron industries of Italy, producing great quantities of arms and imple- ments; but in the second century Puteoli captured the trade and the industry. Here, according to Diodorus,^' manufacturers gathered great numbers of smiths who wrought the crude metal into "arms, mattocks, sickles and other implements," which merchants bought and car- ried into all parts of the world. That Puteoli succeeded Tuscany" is not surprising when we consider her wealth

« Livy, XXVII, 45.

1' Diodorus, V, 13. In Cato's day Cales on the border of Cam- pania produced good iron ware. The industry may have spread from there to Puteoli. Of course excellent steel was also made in Spain, Noricum, and in Anatolia, in articles which the Ro- mans always imported in quantities.

1* Pliny^s chance remark that an old decree of the Senate had forbidden mining has led to much futile guessing (Pliny, N.H. Ill, 138; XXXVII, 201). The iron mines of Elba were being worked in Strabo's day, and doubtless were worked as long as they proved profitable. It may be that the Senate had once ordered the mines closed in the third century when the Gauls invaded Italy and found arms in northern Etruria. It will be remembered that Porsenna had previously forbidden the use of iron in Latium except for agricultural implements. Needless to say the Senatorial decree must have become a dead letter as soon

INDt-STKY AT TBI END OF THE BBPUBLIC 1 79

of fact in the Phlcgraean fields, her excellent harbor, her potttkm nemr the richest agricultural land of Italy where iroo tools were especially used, and her ph^e as a dis- tritnittng center for the armies and navies of Rome.

The language of Diodom ' - ' • ' unwary into

assuming a real factory sysi' ry, as indeed

•loes justify us in applying to it the terms of capitalistic industry and international commerce. But we must not infer too much. Since the furnaces could not produce a thoroughly molten ore in large quantities, cast-iron im- plements which might have been made en nuuse were of course out of the question. Every iron and stn^ufnpit- ment was accordingly the product of repeated heatings and f( ' n individual anvils. There was therefore

in all p;v.i,..w..iiy little division of labor, and ^'♦♦^" 'r^** of labor-saving machinery except such as any would employ. If some manufacturers, as Diodorus im- plies, took advantage of Puteoli's excellent position, to gather there under one roof a large number of skilled smiths, slaves or free, they might well be called capital- btic producers, but the essential elements of a factory system, such as we have found in the pottery and glass industries, cannot without further evidence be asstuned.

as the Roman confederacy had complete control of Italy. The law limiting the output of gold at Vercellae, also quoted by Pliny (S. H. XXXIII, 78), was probably intended to prevent a sadden fluctuation of prices such as had taken place when gold was dis- covered at Aquileta (Pol. XXXIV. 10). Such gold placer-mines did not continue to produce long, and no repeal of the law was therefore necessary, a thing which seems to have misled Pliny into thinking these laws were still in force in his day.

l80 INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

In these circumstances it is not surprising that all the large cities reveal in their inscriptions the fact that indi- vidual producers of iron implements continued to prosper everywhere." They were the artisans who kept a small shop with a single forge where with the aid of an appren- tice-slave or two they made their own specialty and sold it. In the Vatican gallery there stands a typical illustra- tion of such a shop represented upon a tombstone.*' On one side is pictured the smith forging a blade, on the other he is seen by the side of a small rack of knives and sickles making a sale to a customer. Nothing could better illus- trate the general condition of Roman industry. Very many of the tombstones of Roman artisans reveal this same system prevailing in the iron trade in that they men- tion the special craft of shield-maker, sword-maker, sickle-maker, helmet-maker, and the like.

In the production of arms and armor the participation of the government altered conditions in the trade, but this probably did not interfere seriously with private enter- prise until late in imperial times. Every army*^ had its

"C. /. L. VI, 9886, 2196, 1952, 9442, 9260; II, 3357; X. 3984, 3987; Cic. Cat I, 8, mentions a house at Rome inter falcarios. The Roman gild of fabri is mentioned in C. /. L. VI, 1892. Pompeii seems to have had hardware stores without forges; probably most of the iron ware of that town was supplied from the factories of Puteoli.

Varro also mentions travelling smiths that went from farm to farm, and some landlords found it worth while to own slaves trained as smiths, see C. I. L. VI, 6283-5, and Cic. Pro Plancio, 62.

»« Amelung, I, 275.

" Vegctius, II, 11; Livy, XXVI, 51; XXIX, 35; Polyb. X, 17.

nrDUSTBY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC l8l

group of smiths behind the lines not only to make the artillery of the army but also to mend shields, swords and helmets and to supply spear-points in great abundance. But the artisans at home, during the Republic at least, did no little work in filling the demand for arms since every kgionary soldier" had to provide himself before depar- ture with a helmet, a breastplate or coat of mail, a stand- ard sword, and a steel-pointed lance. It is probable too tkit the armories** which every municipality of any size kept well stocked against sudden riots or invasioDS bought their supplies from private shops or large pro- ducers. At any rate the armamentarium"* of Pompeii which was recently found had no pbce for production in the vicinity. In the late Empire, as is well known, the government assumed the task of producing all the arms and armor needed by its forces and erected for the pur- pose large state factories in several cities throughout the Empire.

The manufacture of hronse and copper- ware** on the other hand seems to have developed a real factory system, at least in Capua. At the end of the Republic and in the early Empire there was being produced a great abundance of bronze utensils frequently of seemly shape and artis-

»• Tic. Ann, I, 17.

»»Cic Pro Rab. »; Tic Hist, I, 38.

»• Sotisie degli Scavi, 1916, p. 432.

•> See Willers, Bronseeiwur von Htmmcor, p. 213; Neme Un» Irrruchmngen; Shtdun g. Gritchisckt Kunst, p. 156; Mm-Kelscy, Pompeii, pp. J69-79, for iUustntions. See ilso Pliny, N. H. XXXIII, ija

1 82 INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

tically ornamented, such as wine-containers, platters, ladles and bowls, not to speak of kitchen pots and pans, and all of these bear producer's names which recur with remarkable frequency. This ware, quite uniform in workmanship, had been found in abundance not only in Italy" but everywhere in Germany and as far north as Scotland, Sweden, and Finland. It is probable that we should look to Capua for the source of these articles. There the Etruscans in the earliest times created a bronze industry; there Cato" advises his readers to buy " bronze buckets, containers for wine, oil and water, and all other copper ware *'; there Pliny says the best copper-ware of his day was still produced, and it was there that medieval churches had their campane made. The conjecture that Capua was the producing center of the widely scattered ware has practically been proved by finding on Capuan tombstones the frequent occurrence of the family names which these articles bear: Cipius, Oppius, Nasennius, and others.

Willers, who has studied this ware, believes that the producing factories were large enough to employ thou- sands of workmen. Considering that during the Middle Ages copper utensils were remelted whenever found, the survival of many dozens of specimens throughout Europe would seem to justify his conclusion. He also seems to be justified in employing the term " factory." The process

*2 C. I. L. XV, gives the Roman inscriptions, "ato, R. R. 135; Pliny, N. H. XXXIV, 95; cf. Horace, Serm. I, 6, 116.

INDU8TKY AT THE EWD OF TOE lEPUBUC 183

of production involved in making these articles was more hiborate and required a greater number of special artisaiia than in the iron industry described above. The metal was melted, mixed with proper proportions of tin or zinc» cast in molds that only trained artists could pro- duce, and then submitted to trained artisans who polished, carved and forged. Here there was surely not only the investment of large capital but the far-reaching division of labor which characterizes the modem industrial factory.

The reasonable surmise has been made that the exist- ence of these foundries at Capua made possible the ex- tensive employment of bronze in the statues, busts, and objets dart which have been found in abundance at Herculaneum and Pompeii. To be sure, archaeologists'^ are still prone to ascribe many of these to the studios of Athens, but busts of men like decilius Jucundus, the Pompeian banker, prove that native work of very good quality could be produced in the vicinity. It is not im- probable that in Cicero's day and during the century fol- lowing the Capuan foundries cast a large number of statues for Greek and Campanian artists residing at Naples, and that much of the work usually assumed to be imported will soon be accepted as native. Certain it

that much of the beautiful metal furniture of Pompeii, the bronze lamp stands, tables, braziers and tripods, whkrh Imve influenced later decorative art to such an extent, was

'« Deonni, Statuoria in Dareinb.-Saglio; fomr. Hell. Stud. 1903. P ai7.

1 84 INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

made possible by the high development of the bronze in- dustry at Capua.*'

In the manufacture of water pipes — always made of lead — the factory system however failed to emerge, de- spite the fact that large quantities in standard sizes were frequently needed. Here we get our information partly from Frontinus' business-like account of the water supply of Rome, but mainly from the stamps upon the pipes which indicate their owner and maker.^* In general, the imperial water-bureau provided for the main aqueducts of Rome, and for the distribution of water to all public places, that is, to the imperial palaces, to the public baths and gardens, and to a large number of free public foun- tains whence the poor carried their water. In Frontinus' day the bureau owned some seven hundred slaves to do the requisite work, a part of which consisted in making and laying the lead pipes of the public service; indeed such pipes usually bear the name of the maker besides those of the water commissioner and the emperor. And here it is interesting to find that the bureau not infre- quently had to employ the services of independent plumb-

25 Unfortunately we have no way of determining what class of labor was used in this Capuan industry, since we do not know whether the signatures belonged to the factory owner, the de- signer or the workman. It is not unlikely that in Campania where Greek ideas still largely prevailed many free workmen labored in the shops, especially since frequent expropriations by Sulla and the triumvirs had removed many natives from the land.

"C. /. L. XV, 906flf.

INDIIRTBY AT THE END HP THE BEpITIll ir 185

crs,-' as I-roiitinuh iniik>cll iiuphc:> la lus )»Utement that hr ih compelled to let contracts for part of his work.

\t Rome, however, the larger number of pipes was contracted for by private individuals who had purchased the right to tap the public water-main, a group that in- cluded most of the well-to-do of the city. Such pipes were quite regularly stamped with the owner's name in order to afford ready identification in case of repairs — for often several lines lay parallel to each other under the street. Usually the maker also took this occasion to have his own name recorded. Now these names reveal some singular circumstances. From the great mass of material recovered and the numerous names recorded, it does not appear that any one firm secured large contracts or tried to build up a stock for large orders, although Frontinus shows that certain standard sizes were in de- mand. A maker's name in fact very seldom recurs in two widely separated regions of the city, and furthermore when a contract is large it is apparently divided among several plumbers." Moreover it is clear that the names occurring upon the pipes were almost invariably made a part of the original mold, which indicates that the pipe was made to order and that no stock was accumulated. The system in vogue therefore was this: small shop- owners with a few slaves, with no large capital, and with few facilities, took the orders when they came, bought

«^C. /. L. XV. 7279-83, 7369. 7309^ Compare 73^5 with 75^3 k. and 7i^ with 7409.

"C./.L. XV, 7369-73. 13

1 86 INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

the metal,*" melted it and rolled it into plates which were cut into the requisite strips and soldered into pipes, and finally laid and connected these. That is to say, the plumber was also the maker of the pipes. Why this time- consuming system was conserved it is difficult to under- stand. Of course since the city laid few mains, and the private citizen who desired water had frequently to con- duct it for long distances, it was exceedingly important that the owner's name should be stamped in enduring form, a point certainly secured by this system; but other ways of attaining the same result are conceivable. It would seem that the inertia of this industry is simply an illustration of how tenaciously the small-shop system con- served itself against obvious economic inducements to- ward centralization — a phenomenon too well known and recognized to need further illustration.

That the people engaged in this trade, if independent shop-owners, were frequently freedmen, or of the same general class as freedmen, is shown by the frequent re- currence of the Greek cognomina. Often indeed they were simply practicing a trade which as slaves they had learned in the imperial or municipal bureaus. Thus the plumber who laid the pipes of the great villa on the Appian Way'** was an imperial freedman, and at Ostia several plumbers bear the descriptive name of Ostiensis in lieu of family names.

*• Lead was very cheap, since most silver mines produced more lead as a by-product than the market needed. Pliny, XXXIV, i6i, quotes the price of pipe-lead at one cent the pound.

•0 C. I. L. XV, 7799.

INDU8TIY AT TBI END OF TBS IBPUBLIC 187

Finally/divcrsc tendencies of industry may be illus- trated f romthe activities of the jewelers and goldsmiths. There is no evidence that wholesale production played any part in this trade^ Rings and pendants and orna- ments of precious liooes^ were generally made and sold in small shops, though we somednies hear of negotiantes who apparently were not artisans. Since the raw mate-

il was costly, an extensive system of custom-production usually prevailed, and we frequently hear of individuals bringing their old gold or uncut stones to the gold-smiths to have them made into jewelry.** But this was by no means the only practice. The cases of lawsuits cited by the jurists** also imply that goldsmiths were at times handicraftsmen who owned their raw material; and the tombstone of many jewelers which record large legacies** or enumerate lonp lists of f rcedmen who had once served them prove that these men often possessed considerable wealth. 5n this industry furthermore, as in many others, wealthy patrons often equipped an artisan's shop for a skilled slave or f reedman, as a profitable way of investing capital^ An inscription** raised by such a patron to the memory of his f reedman reads in part:

■> Gummems has recently discussed this matter in KUe, volt. XIV and XV.

»« PUutus, Men. $2$: Digest, 19, 2, 31; 34. a, 54; 41. h77l 1% aa, I. Diocletian's edict assumes custom work in this industry, but at a very late date when free labor was being suppressed.

•» Digest, 19. 5, ao, a.

•♦ C. /. L. VI, 22j6. 9433. 9S44-4S. 9547. 9W0, 30973-

••C.LL, VI.9»2

1 88 INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

"To M Canuleius Zosimus — The patron to his freedman. He did nothing contniry to the wishes of his patron. Though he always had much gold and silver in his possession he cov- eted none of it. He excelled in carving Clodian ware."

Qosely related to the jewelers, sometimes identified with them, were the gemmarii, cutters of intaglios and cameos.'* In ancient days this art assumed very signifi- cant proportions for the reason that every man of the least consequence must have his own signet ring, and in the later days of the Republic the aristocratic Romans commanded the services of the very best gem-engravers for these seals, many of which are still treasured as works of exquisite art. There are of course all grades of work. Dioscurides, who was summoned from the East to make the imperial seal, was looked upon as an artist of high rank, and he doubtless did not need to keep a shop. He is a fair instance of the Greek and Oriental artisan who drifted to Rome with the tide of wealth. At the other extreme are the craftsmen known from humble tomb- stone inscriptions who designate themselves as gem- engravers'^ from the ** Sacred Way," the jeweler's street. Here was apparently a row of shops where such crafts- men took orders and worked. Their names seem to indi- cate that they were freedmen. Possibly they had been trained as slave apprentices and had saved enough by

»« Furtwangler, Antike GemtMn. p. 300, and plates 49 and 50. Sec also Arch. Jahrh. 1888. " C. /. L. VI, 9433-6, 9545-49, 33872.

INDU8TBY AT TBI BKD OF THE BEPUBLIC 189

xtra labor to purchase freedom and set up shops of their

\vn. Finally, there is a peculiar group of signatures! Arittrn in Greek, though with Latin praenomina. Pre-

un;.it)ly these designate men who were also immigrant irtists but who had gained citizenship— the right to use the Roman form of name — by direct gift of the state, per- haps in recognition of their work. That is to say, they use the Roman praenomen to distinguish themselves from the f reedmen. but write the name in Greek as a means of suggesting the fact that their work is not the ordinary

rude native cutting. The signatures seem to indicate that for one fine craft at least Rome had to draw largely upon the artisans of Greece and the East. The more or- dinary grades of work fell to the slave apprentice, and the business of the small shops was conducted here, as in other trades, by the freedman class. Production on capitalistic lines was naturally out of the question, not only because customers insisted upon having the special attention of some recognized artist, but because most of the work had to be done to order.

CHAPTER XII Industry, Continued

Inferences drawn solely from the larger industries must perforce lead to conclusions that are partially incor- rect. It is fortunate therefore that we are enabled by the survival of the skeleton of Pompeii to examine in some detail the economic structure of an ancient town and thus to round out our conceptions of industrial conditions. Pompeii* was not in every respect a typical Roman city. A small seaport town, it doubtless served commerce rather than industry. Living in a region that was still half-Hellenic in Cicero's day its inhabitants had learned to look upon manual labor with a kindlier eye than did the old fashioned nobility of Rome. But the difference should not be overemphasized. The dominant class in Pompeii's politics and society were the well-to-do land- owners who had descended from Sulla's Roman veterans, and these of course had brought Roman folkways with them. The differences in size caused no great dissimilar- ity in their economic regime: a city of twenty-five thou- sand souls was rather more significant in those days of evenly distributed production than it is now. If we could recover a few blocks of a typical street of Nero's Rome, we should find difficulty in distinguishing its system of shops and booths from that of Pompeii. The picture of

* A portion of this chapter has appeared in Class. Phil. (1918,

190

IKDUSTIY AT THE BKD OF THE UPVBUC I9I

the city disclosed by the diligent Italian excavators may with this word of caution be used to illustrate Roman eoooomics.*

At Pompdi, as was usual in the ancient walled towns where space must be carefully husbanded, shops lined all busy thoroughfares, while houses of residence subsided to the centers of the blocks. Since this system obtains throughout the city we may examine a typical insula,' No. 2 of Regio VII, in order to trace some lines of con- nection between the industries and the sodal classes. The insula contains about forty shops and booths strung out mainly along the busier streets — Slabiana and Augustali — beside some ten residences crowded into the center with hallways usually opening into one of the quieter streets. The first large house on via Stabiana ( No. 6) belonged to Paquius Proculus, a very popular baker, who reached the high office of the duumvirate apparently by an over- whelming majority,* and was proud enough of the fact to have his portrait, genial, and sufficiently apologetic if rather unintellectual, painted, apparently in white toga, upon the wall of his tablinum.* With this house he com- bined the adjacent one, sacrificing the gardens of both

*The oflkial reports of Pompeian excavations are not ade- quately published from the historian's viewpoint Very often objects of little artistic value are not reported though tfacy might prove of great use to the student of economic and social history.

•See map in C. I. L. IV, SuppL II; Niccolini, Le case ed i monuwunti, II, 42-5, and III; FiorelH, Dttcrigiont d% Fompei, P 1^4,

*C. /. L. IV, 1122.

• llaa-Kelsey. PomptH*, p. 477-

192 INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

for the mill and workrooms of his bakery. And yet, though the owner was willing to live within sound of his mills, he did not choose to display his wares directly in the five shops that lined the front of his home. These shops are all independent of the house. To judge from an election notice* which appears nearby, Proculus owned a fairly large bread and cake-shop on the opposite comer (Reg. IX, 3, 10) to which also was attached a bakery with five mills. Here there was less danger perhaps of flecking his judicial toga with the dust of his calling. Be that as it may, it is interesting to find that duumvir juredicundo actively engaged in an expanding business of milling and baking. He may fairly represent the pros- perous industrial class to which the petty aristocracy of Pompeii's municipal officials largely belonged.

No. II is a house of moderate size which was turned into a dyeing establishment in the early empire when the clothing industry became important in Pompeii. It is indeed characteristic of the conservative industrial ten- dencies of Pompeii that the proprietor did not build a place to suit his needs but installed himself in a house built for domestic use, where, of course, the rooms were by no means adapted for his purposes. The proprietor, like Proculus the baker, apparently used part of the house as a dwelling-place.

The next residence of note is No. 16. It is spacious, contains a handsome peristyle, and has supplied several noteworthy frescoes to the Naples museum.^ Its owner

•C. /. L. IV, 3651.

T Naples Mus. Cat. Nos. 1381, 1383, 1385.

INDU8TBY AT TRB END OF TBI ItPUBUC I93

was M. Gavius Rufus. a man of some wealth, who was

once aedile and who, whether or not with success, offered himself as a candidate for the duumvirate. What his source of income was we do not know; his house is not physically connected with any shop or booth.

Next door (No. 18) lived C. Vibius, probably he of the cognomen Severus» since the dozen election placards of Vibius Severus are all found in the immediate neighbor- hood. If so he also entertained the ambition of becoming duumvir. He too turned the rear part of his house into a workshop, for the chambers beside the peristyle were used as store-chambers whence there was direct com- munication with the shop upon the back street.

N. Popidius Priscus dwelt in the next house (No. 20, Casa dei Marmi*), the largest and most handsomely decorated in the block and apparently long in the posses- sion of the family, since the family name appears in Oscan on an old stone inscription in the peristyle.* Yet the source of this display is readily disclosed to anyone who will follow the three several doors that lead from the house to various shops in other parts of the block. Indeed there was found in the house a bronze stamp such as bakers use to trade-mark their cakes, and this stamp bore the name of Popidius. The excavator was there- fore not surprised to find a door leading from the atrium of this house into a prosperous bakery at the comer. 1 fere were five mills of the usual type made to be worked

■ Helbig. WandgtmiUt, 475-

* There were magistrates of this family before Sulla took the city; Conway, Italic DiaUcU, 61.

194 INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

by horse-power, a cunningly contrived machine for kneading dough, a baker's oven having a capacity of perhaps two thousand loaves per day, and a number of cake forms, but no display counters nor doors inviting the purchaser. Popidius may have had his sales-shop elsewhere, or he may have disposed of his wares at wholesale. But this was not his only investment. In the rear of his house a door led to a spacious barroom (No. 47) with many wine jars and a hospitable double door upon the street. Finally another rear door led to a com- plex of rooms (No. 38) which appears to have consti- tuted a workshop terminating in two salesrooms upon the street — ^but we do not know what was produced and sold here. Whatever the various sources of his income, the sum total was not small, judging from the magnificence of his house.

No. 35 is a house of moderate size which is character- istic of a very large class of houses at Pompeii, in that it connects directly with two workshops upon the street, Nos. 27 and 30. The former contains a fixed workbench and a small furnace in one of its two small rooms, but there is nothing in No. 30 to indicate the character of its products.

Such were the houses that hid within and fed upon the encircling row of petty shops bordering the four streets. They give us a picture — proved true to type by the study of other blocks — of a society somewhat less provincially aristocratic, a trifle more worldly-wise, than that which Rome's staid literature deigns to notice. These men who had their courtyards decorated with marble cupids and

INDUSTIY AT THE EKD OP THB BEPtTBLIC I95

fauns* their dining-room walls frescoed with legends from Homer and Euripides, the men whom their fellow- townsmen elected to the highest municipal positions** of trust and to expensive honors, these leading citizens of Pompeii were, to some extent, her prosperous bakers, potters, and tanners, and they did not scorn to draw their livelihood from shops and booths if only the accumulated profits summed up Urge enough.

But the greater number of doors in this block lead merely to independent one-, two- or three-room shops and other small shops connected by a stairway with a balcony room or two. Here it was that the " other half," or rather the other nine-tenths, lived packed in the narrowest of quar- ters with the typical work- and salesrooms upon the street. These are in fact the very essence of ancient in- dustry with its inordinate number of petty specialists. Their purpose is often betrayed by two distinguishing marks: some remnant of a workbench, forge, or furnace, which proves the inhabitant an artisan, and a peculiar wide lintel with grooves, which shows that in the day- time the shop stood wide open to invite customers. The

** We know the houses of several other magittratet and candi- dates: Vedius Siricus, duovir in 60 A.D., lived at Reg. VII, i, 47, well known for its mosaic of Sahe Lmcru (see Overbeck-Maa. pi 3ao); L. Popidius Secundus, an Augtutumus and duovir, lived in the beautiful "house of the citharist," Reg. I, 4; M. Lucretius Frooto in Reg. V. 4, 11; Bruttius Balbus at Reg. IX, 2, 16; Cnsptns Pansa, four times duovir, in the modest house at IX, I, sa; Albucius Celsus in the "house of the silver wedding** (ICao-Kelsey, p. 301 ); and Trebius Valens in the charming boose rtcently found at Reg. Ill, 2, I {NoHMie, 1915, p. 416).

196 INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

well-known picture of the cupids as goldsmiths" gives precisely the right conception of this kind of industrial life. Various little workmen are busy at the furnace, the anvil, and the workbench, but at the center one of them is engaged in making a sale. Except for the fact that Pompeii had a greater proportion of non-slave artisans than the metropolis, these combination workshop-sales- rooms were typical of all normal Roman industry. It was from shops like these that the Roman usually got his shoes and his togas, his jewelry and his lamps, his furniture, the ornaments of his house, and his kitchen utensils.

The first impression then upon walking around any normal block at Pompeii is of a busy hive with count- less small cells where poor artisans make and sell their few specialties, but where the space within is occupied by prosperous men who in part direct and live upon the fruits of this petty industry. A larger survey of the whole city, however, will lead to a more complex defini- tion of the city's industrial life; and for such a survey it it of first importance to examine the articles of commerce discovered in the shops and in particular the articles that bear inscriptions and trade-marks. The ordinary terra- cotta tableware" was certainly imported. A large part of it came from the well-known potteries of Arretium, while the firms of Puteoli" and Capua and the new pot-

11 Mau-Kelsey, p. 334.

"C. /. L. X, 8055-6; Atkinson in Jour. Rom. Studies, IV, 27. "5m//. delV Instituto, 1875, p. 242; Pliny, N. H. Ill, 82, men- tions the pottery of Puteoli that was made from clay found on

INDUSTIY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC my

tcrics ot Ciaiil Mipphtti uic rot. ihcrc is no evidence that Pompcian potteries made any "Arrctinc" ware. Indeed even the simple morlaria** that are so numerous in Pompeii were generally imported. At least many of them bear the mark of famous Roman tile-makers whereas none has a brand known from native ware.

On the other hand all the very crude and bulky terra- cotta articles such as tiles" and wine jars were made nearby. In fact the ware of L. Visellius, most popular at Hcrculaneum, is the only one that extends freely over several Campanian towns. It is noteworthy also that while more than fifty producers supplied such ware only two or three makers are represented by any considerable number of stamps. There was therefore no monopoly in these articles. It is very probable that, as at Rome, tile-making was considered practically a branch of agri- culture and that any farmer who found that he had suit- able clay was apt to burn tiles and jars for his own use and also if convenient for neighboring customers.

The splendid silver plate" that the rich Pompeian set upon his table was in large part the product of Gunpanian shops. The only piece of the Boscoreale trove that bears a maker's signature is a mirror signed by a Roman citizen, presumably of freedman stock, M. Domitius Polygnos; all the marks of ownership are Latin; and two of the

the island of Ischia. Cumae and Sorrento also produced this wart (Martial. XIV. 102. and Sutius, Sihw, IV. 9, 43). Cf. Dubois. PoussoUs Antique, p. lai.

"C/. JLX.ScMa

»»C. /. L, X. 8048-53.

»• For the Boacoreak treasure see Mons, Piot. V.

198 INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

finest cups portray Augustus and Tiberius in scenes taken presumably from Roman triumphal arches.*^ If these ex- cellent pieces could be made in Italy, the rest may well have been, though of course some of the patterns are obviously Alexandrian. Even Pompeian craftsmen may have pro- duced work of this kind, for there were silversmiths" in the town. Perhaps we may go a step further and say that the production of such ware had passed to a large extent out of the hands of independent handicraftsmen into the control of large producers. If in such shops the principle of division of labor had been introduced so that each workman performed a set task instead of producing com- plete articles, we can explain why so few of these elab- orate pieces are signed, why themes and designs from Egypt, Syria, and Rome occur side by side, why on cer- tain pieces the engraving, the molded design, and the emblemata often fail to harmonize, and finally why Italian inscriptions mention specialists in silver-work who ob- viously were tied to some very circumscribed part of the work, as for instance the figurator, the flaturarius, the tritor, the inaurator, and the caelator}^ Pliny indeed seems to refer to shops of large output when he com- plains that the fashion in silver plate changed, demanding nunc Furniana, nunc Clodiana, nunc Gratiana}^ It is

»» Mrs. Strong, Roman Sculpture, p. 83; Pliny, N. H. XXXIV. 47.

** A caelator is mentioned in Notisie, 1912, p. 69.

i» Schreiber, Alexandrinische Toreutik, p. 132; Drexel, Bonn. Jahrh. 1909, p. 179.

20 Pliny uses the phrase genus officinae in this passage {N. H. 33. 139); however individual craftsmen would naturally accept the styles set by large producers. One such smith (VI, 9223) claimed preeminence in caelatura Clodiana.

llfPUSTKY AT Tf>fr RMD OP THE tEPUBUC I99

doubtful whether individual crafUmen could to have influenced the market.

What has been said in the preceding chapters regarding the iron and copper industries is in accord with condi- tions at Pompeii. The city was too near the iron and bronze factories of Puteoli and dpua to necessitate much native work in these articles. Instead of many small shops that combined production and selling there- fore we find what seem to have been general " hardware shops" which had no forge or workbench.*' In such places are found despite centuries of looting a few farm implements, locks and keys, kitchen utensils, pieces of harness and even bronze trinkets and cheap objets dart.

Where and how the great abundance of very elaborate Pompeian furniture was manufactured we are of course not told, nor does any of it bear tell-tale factory signa- tures. Many of the simpler pieces were doubtless made in petty shops, but the excavators have not yet unearthed any shop so equipped as to be able to produce the better articles. The beds, chairs and table-couches certainly required skilled craftsmen of many arts for their pro- duction,** and the requisite raw materials could not have been assembled without the outlay of considerable capital. The legs of these pieces, generally of wood, required the turning lathe, usually skilled hand-carving, and often the craft of the intarsia worker. The frames, if of wood, were frequently inlaid with figured bronze and silver, chiseled ivor>', or at times with tortoise shell or precious

«> NoHsU dtgli Scovi, 1912, pp. 353. 355; 1913. 31. ** Sec Ransom, ShtdUt m AncUnt FumUur*.

200 INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

stones. The headrest and back were often veneered or inlaid, and the decorated metal braces usually took the forms of finely wrought horses' heads, dolphins, satyrs and the like, figurines that were sometimes molded, some- times beaten out or carved by hand. Even if some of the metal ornaments could have been ordered from the foundries of Capua, this kind of furniture implies the existence of elaborate factories that employed many craftsmen skilled in all kinds of wood and metal work. The combination of carved marble, fine woods and wrought metals in tables, stands and candelabra also points to factory production. Perhaps the Roman in- scription (CIL. vi, 9258) mentioning a gild of Neapolitan citron-wood workers may be taken as a clue to the loca- tion of the important industry near Pompeii. That in- tarsia furniture was imported to Rome in large quantities from some such center we may infer from the existence at Rome of a strong gild of negotiatores eborarii et citriarii whose statutes we still have in fragmentary form (CIL. vi, 33885).

In wheat milling and breadmaking, as we have seen, wholesale proportions were reached, though in the nature of the case the trade could not well spread beyond the confines of a city, and " town economy " was a necessary result. Certain it is that very few Pompeian homes had ovens for the baking of bread, though it is possible of course that some of the large ovens of the city were for community use, as is frequently the case in Italian cities to-day. What so quickly centralized this trade in large shops despite the abundance of house servants, we are

INDUSTIY AT TBB END OF THB UPUBLIC 201

not told, but presumably the scarcity of fuel and the fall* ure to invent an adequate method of milling the wheat may explain it. At Rome also as we may infer from in- scriptions'' and from the elaborate frieze on the bakers' tomb still visible at Porta Maggiore wholesale bakers quickly captured the trade of the city. During the Em- pire however the government there took charge of the business when it decided to distribute loaves of bread to the poor instead of grain.

There must have been some wholesale trade in wine,** since the trade-marks upon the amphorae bear witness to the importation of Coan, Cnidian, Sicilian, not to speak of Falemian and Cumaean brands. Perhaps Cornelius Hcrmeros was a wholesale wine merchant," since his mark occurs upon several brands of imported as well as old domestic wines and other "bottled goods." How- ever, no large wine dealer's storehouse has as yet been discovered in Pompeii, and among the thousand or more marks repetitions of names are relatively so infrequent that it would be quite misleading to assume an organized system of middlemen wine dealers. Judging from the frequency with which estates'* are named upon the jars

**C. /. L. VI, 22 and 1002. Th« Urge gild mentioned in VI, 1739 WIS nnder ttmte control.

^C. LL, IV, 55io-66oa

•• Wholesale dealers are mentioned on 5535 (the pritueps Hbet' tmentm of C. /. L. IV, 117) and 55^6. One jar (5894) bears the marks of the shipping ofhce: in nave Cn, Senti Onurit Ti Claudi Orpfi vfctc. Pompeian wine was also shipped to Rome, and the trademark mentioned by Pliny ("Trifolinum,** V // » *. 70) has ban discovered (IV. 5518).

•• For example, in the house of the Vettii, these jars arc marked, rwpectivebr, d* Arriano, de Anniamc, di Fonmiamo, U

202 INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

we should attribute the personal names and initials partly to owners of vineyards and partly to responsible vilici of wine-producing estates.*^ We may conclude therefore that wine was usually supplied to owners and private cellars directly from vineyards, just as the wine growers of the Alban hills even now send their cartloads to Rome every morning. At Rome the trade naturally assumed larger proportions both because of the demand for great quantities of imported brands and because of the neces- sity of carrying large stocks on hand. What quantities had to be available at times may be realized when we read that on the occasion of triumphs it was not unusual to distribute several hundred thousand gallons of wine to the populace in one day. ^

Olive oil, like wine, was generally distributed at Pom- peii in moderate quantities by the grower to the petty retailer with little interposition of oil merchants. No store chamber of large capacity has been found in the city and the oil jars lying about the small shops usually bear the names of nearby plantations. There is a hint in Cato'* that oil production had once tended to fall into the hands of a special class, for he speaks of contractors who would buy the crop on the trees, harvest it, and man- ufacture the oil. Possibly the Italian farmers were at that time not yet thoroughly familiar with the approved processes of manufacture, or it may be that the product was not then readily marketed, since olive oil was still

»T Cf. C. I. L. IV, 5778 (L. Arcllius Successus), and 6499- *" Cato, R. R. 144. He generally assumes, however, that the owner harvests the crop.

INDUSTftY AT THE END OF THE IXPtTBLIC J03

considered something ot a luxury. However when, by the invention of the screw-prets, a cheap and easily ma- nipulated oil-press could be installed on any plantation, the grower usually pressed and distributed the oil, and the situation which we find at Pompeii doubtless became normal. Rome, of course, presented peculiar conditions. Since wealthy epicures demanded the best products of South Italy, Spain and Africa, there developed whole gilds of olcarii negotiantes. In the Empire the dema- gogic princes began to interfere both with the trade and with the production of the vicinity by distributing largesses of oil to the populace, until finally they were compelled to assume complete control of the oil trade in the city. The mountain of broken jars behind the em- porium called Monte Testaccio— which the Italian army recently used as a station for anti-aircraft guns during the Great War — is largely composed of casks that brought these government requisitions from Spain and Africa.

Large-scale factory methods are well illustrated in the production by the wealthy duumvir Umbricius Scaurus and his freedmen of the famous fish sauces called garum** and liquamen. The constant discovery at Pompeii of jars bearing the familiar trade-marks of this producer proves the magnitude of the business, and the prominence of his mark shows how nearly his firm secured a mo- nopoly of the trade at home. Here too is one of the few Pompeian products that reached a foreign market. Pliny knew the garum of Pompeii as one of the three best known brands and indeed a jar marked gar. Pompeian,

-C.LL IV, 5657 ff.

204 INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

has been found at Rome.*** Despite the success of Scaurus, however, there were epicures in his native town who craved the best brand, the garum of the large joint- stock company of publicans in Spain.** A jar bearing this trade-mark was found in the house of M. Gavius Rufus.

We are far from well informed about the organization of the clothing trade in the Roman world, and it may be that Pompeii will some day provide the essential facts for solving the problem. The mountains between Pompeii and Amalfi must have furnished pasture** for thousands of sheep, and that the city became an important center in the clothing trade is shown by the inordinate number of elaborate fulleries that took possession of old-fashioned houses in several parts of the city. In the Middle Ages when the manufacturing of clothing first emerged from the stage of household production it often happened that the wool grower, or the weaver, or the fuller assumed the role of entrepreneur and organized the trade of a country district by purchasing the wool and directing it from spinner to weaver and so on from house to house until

•® Scaurus, however, seems not to have brought the whole in- dustry under one roof. There are several brands, e.g., G(ari) F(los) ex ojfficina Scauri; ab Umbricia; ah Umbricio Abascanto; G. F. Scauri ex off. A gat ho pi.

" Pliny, N. H. XXXI, 94; Martial, XIII, 102. This firm wai probably the corporation of publicans that bought the fishing concession on the Spanish coast, and then proceeded to pack and distribute the product of their fisheries. There are very few in- stances of such producing corporations on record.

'* Seneca {Nat. Quaest, VI, 27) mentions the herds of sheep on these mountains.

INDUSTBY AT THE END OP THE EtTUBUC 20$

the finished article was ready for the market. When presently an export trade developed the drapers or cloth merchants further organized the trade and brought the goods together in a community hall, like Blackwell Hall in London, where individual purchasers might choose their goods, and whence the agents of the drapers' gild might go to oiTer the surplus on the foreign market for the common benefit of all the gild members. Large fac- tories seldom arose until the invention of machinery re- quired the collection of the various craftsmen at some common point where the requisite power could be had.**

At Pompeii it is evident from the ubiquitous whorls and weights that spinning and weaving remained in the household; and the list of assignments scratched on a pillar of the house of Terentius Eudoxus** shows how the eleven slave maids of one house employed their spare time. Indeed so long as the very simple processes of spinning and weaving could conveniently utilize the unoc- cupied energies of such housefolk, which would other- wise go to waste, it is clear that there would be neither a demand for high-power machinery nor the possibility of large-scale production in factories. This explains why gilds of spinners and weavers did not arise in ancient Italy.

With the subsequent processes of cloth-making how- ever it was different. Homespun direct from the house- hold loom was now no longer used even by people of moderate means. It had to be sent to the fuller who put

** See Ashley. Th^ Economic OrgamiBaiion of England, p. 9a »* Insula VI, 13. 6; cf. C. /. L. IV. 1507.

206 INDUSTRY AT THB END OP THE REPUBLIC

it through an elaborate treatment of cleansing and bleach- ing," of stamping, carding, and shearing. Then the dyer, whose work might or might not be done in the fullery, finished the cloth into a delicate product of which the figures in Pompeian wall paintings give a faded im- pression. At Pompeii the fullery with its expensive sys- tem of vats, its complex trade-processes, and its group of skilled workmen may fairly be called a factory; but it is at once characteristic of the ancient conservative methods that no fullery outgrew the relatively narrow confines of the ordinary dwelling-house.

And yet at Pompeii the fullers seem to have taken an unusual step toward the organization of the whole trade. In the early Empire, Eumachia, a generous priestess, built an extensive hall near the forum for the use of the full- ers." This building is certainly not a fullery, and it can hardly be anything but a hall for sales-booths, like Blackwell Hall in London. In other words it is very likely that, as often happened in England, the fullers, who were the last to handle the cloth in the process of manufacture, bought the stuffs outright, finished them, and became the distributors as well. So far we may safely go, but we do not yet know whether the fullers ever attempted to organize the whole trade by purchasing the raw wool and contracting for the spinning and weaving of it. Nor do we know whether, like the drapers' gilds of England, they ever attempted to market their goods abroad through corporate agents.

«» Pliny, A^. H. XXXV, 198. •• Mau-Kelscy, p. no.

INDUSTRY AT THB EKD OF THB BIPUBUC 70J

In thb trade again Pompeii seems to represent the normal practice in the Roman world. Roman authors generally assume that maid-servants of the households occupied their spare moments with spinning and wcst- iig;*^ there is no evidence of clothing factories in Italy;^ we have no mention of gilds of weavers or spinners in our inscriptions, while the fullers' gilds were among the most important ones. Indeed several cities besides Pom- peii possessed special buildings for them,** while Rome granted them certain exemptions from the public water- rents.** To be sure we may not assume that the well-to- do at Rome and other large cities continued to wear " homespun '* to any considerable extent. But much good cloth could doubtless be selected by the fullers from the

•^ Friedlandcr, Sittengeschichte, I, 46a; Varro, Men, Sat. 190; Coluro. 12, praef. 5-^ Cato's farm was equipped for weaving but Cato preferred to buy the clothing from the city (/?. R, 10^ 5; 14. 135); perhaps this particular farm had no sheep. Gum- merus, KUo, Beihrft V, has generalixed too boldly from this in- stance. Atticus, who owned large sheep ranges in Epims (Varro, R. R. II. 10, II), apparently had the wool woven on his estate, Cic. Ad. An. XI, 2. 4. In Sicily Verres found that good stuffs were produced in many wealthy households, he accordingly re- quested them to produce tapestries for him, Cic Frrr. IV, 58.

"An exception may be found in the wholesale remaking of cast-off clothing by r^fi/oiuirii. Perhaps several of the workmen mentioned in Roman inscriptions (C. /. L. VI, 7861, 3, 4. etc.) labored in such a factory since they are all freedmen of a certain Octavius. A few weavers* gilds were found in the East and in Gaul. WalUing. Coffor. II, 153: IV, 95,

••C. /. L, X, 5682; XIII, 3200; IX, 2236.

«* C. /. L. VI, 266; 10298. The fullers were of course also the laundrymen of ancient times.

208 INDUSTRY AT TUE END OF THE REPUBLIC

products of household looms and when skilfully fulled, carded, and dyed, be marketed as wholly satisfactory cloth. For the fastidious there were always the im- ported** stuffs from the Egyptian state factories, the hand worked fabrics of Anatolia, the choice purples of Syria, and the "Coan Silks" of the Greek islands. For the manufacture of garments there was no need of an ex- tensive industry, since most garments were simple pieces of cloth that came from the loom in almost the form in which they were to be worn.

The shoe trade at Pompeii as everywhere was in the hands of individual shoemakers who were generally con- sidered men of very humble station. There was appar- ently a gild of them in the town and several of their shops may be identified. The shop of Insula IV, 3, is typical, where the cobbler eked out his small profits by serving as portier for his former officer in the army. At Rome ^ the sutores seem to have drifted down to the ** shoe- makers^ al^ " in the Subura in great numbers, and their row of shops may be restored in imagination by any one who has tried to buy a pair of shoes from the street racks in the cobblers' quarters of Athens or Constantinople. A gild" of those who specialized in women's footwear at Rome claimed some three hundred members, a sufficient proof of the minute distribution of the trade.

By contrast the tanner who supplied the leather to the

** Sec Chapot, Textrinum, in Daremb.-Saglio.

**The Collegium fabrum soliarium baxiarium centuriarum III (C. /. L. VI, 9404)- Wholesale trade in leather is attested by the third century inscription, VI, 11 17.

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