Books: The Old Roman World

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[Sidenote: The slaves.]

[Sidenote: Slavery.]

We cannot pass by, in this enumeration of the different classes of Roman
society, the number and condition of slaves. A large part of the
population belonged to this servile class. Originally introduced by
foreign conquest, it was increased by those who could not pay their
debts. The single campaign of Regulus introduced as many as a fifth part
of the whole population. Four hundred were maintained in a single
palace, at a comparatively early period. A freedman in the time of
Augustus left behind him four thousand one hundred and sixteen. Horace
regarded two hundred as the suitable establishment for a gentleman. Some
senators owned twenty thousand. Gibbon estimates the number at about
sixty millions, one half of the whole population. One hundred thousand
captives were taken in the Jewish war, who were sold as slaves, and sold
as cheap as horses. [Footnote: Wm. Blair, _On Roman Slavery_,
Edinburgh, 1833; Robertson, _On the State of the World at the
Introduction of Christ_.] Blair supposes that there were three slaves
to one freeman, from the conquest of Greece to the reign of Alexander
Severus. Slaves often cost two hundred thousand sesterces. [Footnote:
Martial, xii. 62.] Every body was eager to possess a slave. At one time
his life was at the absolute control of his master. He could be treated
at all times with brutal severity. Fettered and branded he toiled to
cultivate the lands of an imperious master, and at night he was shut up
in subterranean cells. The laws did not recognize his claim to be
considered scarcely as a moral agent. He was _secundum hominum
genus_. He could acquire no rights, social or political. He was
incapable of inheriting property, or making a will, or contracting a
legal marriage. His value was estimated like that of a brute. He was a
thing and not a person--"a piece of furniture possessed of life." He was
his master's property, to be scourged, or tortured, or crucified. If a
wealthy proprietor died, under circumstances which excited suspicion of
foul play, his whole household was put to the torture. It is recorded,
that, on the murder of a man of consular dignity by a slave, every slave
in his possession was condemned to death. Slaves swelled the useless
rabbles of the cities, and devoured the revenues of the state. All
manual labor was done by slaves, in towns as well as the country. Even
the mechanical arts were cultivated by the slaves. And more, slaves were
schoolmasters, secretaries, actors, musicians, and physicians. In
intelligence, they were on an equality with their masters. They came
from Greece and Asia Minor and Syria, as well as from Gaul and the
African deserts. They were white as well as black. All captives in war
were made slaves, and unfortunate debtors. Sometimes they could regain
their freedom; but, generally, their condition became more and more
deplorable. What a state of society when a refined and cultivated Greek
could be made to obey the most offensive orders of a capricious and
sensual Roman, without remuneration, without thanks, without favor,
without redress. [Footnote: Says Juvenal, _Sat._ vi., "Crucify that
slave. What is the charge to call for such a punishment? What witness
can you present? Who gave the information? Listen! Idiot! So a slave is
a man then! Granted he has done nothing. I _will_ it. I insist upon
it. Let my will stand instead of reason." Read Martial, Juvenal, and
Plautus.] What was to be expected of a class who had no object to live
for. They became the most degraded of mortals, ready for pillage, and
justly to be feared in the hour of danger. Slavery undoubtedly proved
the most destructive canker of the Roman state. It destroyed its
vitality. It was this social evil, more than political misrule, which
undermined the empire. Slavery proved at Rome a monstrous curse,
destroying all manliness of character, creating contempt of honest
labor, making men timorous yet cruel, idle, frivolous, weak, dependent,
powerless. The empire might have lasted centuries longer but for this
incubus, the standing disgrace of the pagan world. Paganism never
recognized what is most noble and glorious in man; never recognized his
equality, his common brotherhood, his natural rights. There was no
compunction, no remorse in depriving human beings of their highest
privileges. Its whole tendency was to degrade the soul, and cause
forgetfulness of immortality. Slavery thrives best, when the generous
instincts are suppressed, and egotism and sensuality and pride are the
dominant springs of human action.

[Sidenote: Degradation of woman.]

The same influences which tended to rob man of the rights which God has
given him, and produce cruelty and heartlessness in the general
intercourse of life, also tended to degrade the female sex. In the
earlier age of the republic, when the people were poor, and life was
simple and primitive, and heroism and patriotism were characteristic,
woman was comparatively virtuous and respected. She asserted her natural
equality, and led a life of domestic tranquillity, employed upon the
training of her children, and inspiring her husband to noble deeds. But,
under the emperors, these virtues had fled. Woman was miserably
educated, being taught by a slave, or some Greek chambermaid, accustomed
to ribald conversation, and fed with idle tales and silly superstitions.
She was regarded as more vicious in natural inclination than man, and
was chiefly valued for household labors. She was reduced to dependence;
she saw but little of her brothers or relatives; she was confined to her
home as if it were a prison; she was guarded by eunuchs and female
slaves; she was given in marriage without her consent; she could be
easily divorced; she was valued only as a domestic servant, or as an
animal to prevent the extinction of families; she was regarded as the
inferior of her husband, to whom she was a victim, a toy, or a slave.
Love after marriage was not frequent, since she did not shine in the
virtues by which love is kept alive. She became timorous, or frivolous,
without dignity or public esteem. Her happiness was in extravagant
attire, in elaborate hair-dressings, in rings and bracelets, in a
retinue of servants, in gilded apartments, in luxurious couches, in
voluptuous dances, in exciting banquets, in demoralizing spectacles, in
frivolous gossip, in inglorious idleness. If virtuous, it was not so
much from principle as from fear. Hence she resorted to all sorts of
arts to deceive her husband. Her genius was sharpened by perpetual
devices, and cunning was her great resource. She cultivated no lofty
friendships; she engaged in no philanthropic mission; she cherished no
ennobling sentiments; she kindled no chivalrous admiration. Her
amusements were frivolous, her taste vitiated, her education neglected,
her rights violated, her sympathy despised, her aspirations scorned. And
here I do not allude to great and infamous examples which history has
handed down in the sober pages of Suetonius and Tacitus, or that
unblushing depravity which stands out in the bitter satires of the
times. I speak not of the adultery, the poisoning, the infanticide, the
debauchery, the cruelty of which history accuses the Messalinas and
Agrippinas of imperial Rome. I allude not to the orgies of the Palatine
Hill, or the abominations which are inferred from the paintings of
Pompeii. But there was a general frivolity and extravagance among women
which rendered marriage inexpedient, unless large dowries were brought
to the husband. Numerous were the efforts of emperors to promote
honorable marriages, but the relation was shunned. Courtesans usurped
the privilege of wives, and with unblushing effrontery. A man was
derided who contemplated matrimony, for there was but little confidence
in female virtue or capacity. And woman lost all her fascination when
age had destroyed her beauty. Even her very virtues were distasteful to
her self-indulgent husband. And whenever she gained the ascendency by
her charms, she was tyrannical. Her relations incited her to despoil her
husband. She lived amid incessant broils. She had no care for the
future, and exceeded men in prodigality. "The government of her house is
no more merciful," says Juvenal, "than the court of a Sicilian tyrant."
In order to render herself attractive, she exhausted all the arts of
cosmetics and elaborate hair-dressing. She delighted in magical
incantations and love-potions. In the bitter satire of Juvenal, we get
an impression most melancholy and loathsome:--

"'T were long to tell what philters they provide,
What drugs to set a son-in-law aside.
Women, in judgment weak, in feeling strong,
By every gust of passion borne along.
To a fond spouse a wife no mercy shows;
Though warmed with equal fires, she mocks his woes,
And triumphs in his spoils; her wayward will
Defeats his bliss and turns his good to ill.
Women support the _bar_; they love the law,
And raise litigious questions for a straw;
Nay, more, they fence! who has not marked their oil,
Their purple rigs, for this preposterous toil!
A woman stops at nothing, when she wears
Rich emeralds round her neck, and in her ears
Pearls of enormous size; these justify
Her faults, and make all lawful in her eye.
More shame to Rome! in every street are found
The essenced Lypanti, with roses crowned,
The gay Miletan, and the Tarentine,
Lewd, petulant, and reeling ripe with wine!"

[Sidenote: Condition of woman.]

In the sixth satire of Juvenal is found the most severe delineation of
woman that ever mortal penned. Doubtless he is libellous and
extravagant, for only infamous women can stoop to such arts and
degradations, which would seem to be common in his time. But, with all
his exaggeration, we are forced to feel that but few women, even in the
highest class, except those converted to Christianity, showed the
virtues of a Lucretia, a Volumnia, a Cornelia, or an Octavia. There was
but a universal corruption. The great virtues of a Perpetua, a
Felicitas, an Agnes, a Paula, a Blessilla, a Fabiola, would have adorned
any civilization. But the great mass were, what they were in Greece,
even in the days of Pericles, what they have ever been under the
influence of Paganism, what they ever will be without Christianity to
guide them, victims or slaves of man, revenging themselves by
squandering his wealth, stealing his secrets, betraying his interests,
and deserting his home.

[Sidenote: Games and festivals.]

Another essential but demoralizing feature of Roman society, were the
games and festivals and gladiatorial shows, which accustomed the people
to unnatural excitements, and familiarity with cruelty and suffering.
They made all ordinary pleasures insipid. They ended in making homicide
an institution. The butcheries of the amphitheatre exerted a fascination
which diverted the mind from literature, art, and the enjoyments of
domestic life. Very early it was the favorite sport of the Romans.
Marcus and Decimus Brutus employed gladiators in celebrating the
obsequies of their fathers, nearly three centuries before Christ. "The
wealth and ingenuity of the aristocracy were taxed to the utmost, to
content the populace and provide food for the indiscriminate slaughter
of the circus, where brute fought with brute, and man again with man, or
where the skill and weapons of the latter were matched against the
strength and ferocity of the first." Pompey let loose six hundred lions
in the arena in one day. Augustus delighted the people with four hundred
and twenty panthers. The games of Trajan lasted one hundred and twenty
days, when ten thousand gladiators fought, and ten thousand beasts were
slain. Titus slaughtered five thousand animals at a time. Twenty
elephants contended, according, to Pliny, against a band of six hundred
captives. Probus reserved six hundred gladiators for one of his
festivals, and massacred, on another, two hundred lions, twenty
leopards, and three hundred bears. Gordian let loose three hundred
African hyenas and ten Indian tigers in the arena. Every corner of the
earth was ransacked for these wild animals, which were so highly valued
that, in the time of Theodosius, it was forbidden by law to destroy a
Getulian lion. No one can contemplate the statue of the Dying Gladiator
which now ornaments the capitol at Rome, without emotions of pity and
admiration. If a marble statue can thus move us, what was it to see the
Christian gladiators contending with the fierce lions of Africa. The
"Christians to the lions," was the watchword of the brutal populace.
What a sight was the old amphitheatre of Titus, five hundred and sixty
feet long, and four hundred and seventy feet wide, built on eighty
arches, and rising one hundred and forty feet into the air, with its
four successive orders of architecture, and inclosing its eighty
thousand seated spectators, arranged according to rank, from the emperor
to the lowest of the populace, all seated on marble benches, covered
with cushions, and protected from the sun and rain by ample canopies!
What an excitement when men strove not with wild beasts alone, but with
one another, and when all that human skill and strength, increased by
elaborate treatment, and taxed to the uttermost, were put forth in the
needless homicide, and until the thirsty soil was wet and matted with
human gore! Familiarity with such sights must have hardened the heart
and rendered the mind insensible to refined pleasures. What theatres are
to the French, what bull-fights are to the Spaniards, what horse-races
are to the English, these gladiatorial shows were to the ancient Romans.
The ruins of hundreds of amphitheatres attest the universality of the
custom, not in Rome alone, but in the provinces.

[Sidenote: The circus.]

The sports of the circus took place from the earliest periods. The
Circus Maximus was capable of containing two hundred and sixty thousand,
as estimated by Pliny. It was appropriated for horse and chariot races.
The enthusiasm of the Romans for races exceeded all bounds. Lists of the
horses, with their names and colors, and those of drivers, were handed
about, and heavy bets made on each faction. The games commenced with a
grand procession, in which all persons of distinction, and those who
were to exhibit, took part. The statues of the gods formed a conspicuous
feature in the show, and were carried on the shoulders as saints are
carried in modern processions. The chariots were often drawn by eight
horses, and four generally started in the race.

The theatre was also a great place of resort. Scaurus built one capable
of seating eighty thousand spectators. That of Pompey, near the Circus
Maximus, could contain forty thousand. But the theatre had not the same
attraction to the Romans that it had to the Greeks. They preferred
scenes of pomp and splendor.

[Sidenote: The circus and theatre.]

[Sidenote: Baths.]

No people probably abandoned themselves to pleasures more universally
than the Romans, after war ceased to be the master passion. All classes
alike pursued them with restless eagerness. Amusements were the fashion
and the business of life. At the theatre, at the great gladiatorial
shows, at the chariot races, senators and emperors and generals were
always present in conspicuous and reserved seats of honor; behind them
were the ordinary citizens, and in the rear of these, the people fed at
the public expense. The Circus Maximus, the Theatre of Pompey, the
Amphitheatre of Titus, would collectively accommodate over four hundred
thousand spectators. We may presume that over five hundred thousand
people were in the habit of constant attendance on these demoralizing
sports. And the fashion spread throughout all the great cities of the
empire, so that there was scarcely a city of twenty thousand people
which had not its theatres, or amphitheatres, or circus. The enthusiasm
of the Romans for the circus exceeded all bounds. And when we remember
the heavy bets on favorite horses, and the universal passion for
gambling in every shape, we can form some idea of the effect of these
amusements on the common mind, destroying the taste for home pleasures,
and for all that was intellectual and simple. What are we to think of a
state of society, where all classes had leisure for these sports. Habits
of industry were destroyed, and all respect for employments which
required labor. The rich were supported by the contributions from the
provinces, since they were the great proprietors of conquered lands. The
poor had no solicitude for a living, for they were supported at the
public expense. They, therefore, gave themselves up to pleasure. Even
the baths, designed for sanatory purposes, became places of resort and
idleness, and ultimately of improper intercourse. When the thermae came
fully into public use, not only did men bathe together in numbers, but
even men and women promiscuously in the same baths. In the time of
Julius Caesar, we find no less a personage than the mother of Augustus
making use of the public establishments; and in process of time the
emperors themselves bathed in public with the meanest of their subjects.
The baths in the time of Alexander Severus were not only kept open from
sunrise to sunset, but even the whole night. The luxurious classes
almost lived in the baths. Commodus took his meals in the bath. Gordian
bathed seven times in the day, and Gallienus as often. They bathed
before they took their meals, and after meals to provoke a new appetite.
They did not content themselves with a single bath, but went through a
course of baths in succession, in which the agency of air as well as
water was applied. And the bathers were attended by an army of slaves
given over to every sort of roguery and theft. "_O furum optume
balmariorum_," exclaims Catullus, in disgust and indignation. Nor was
water alone used. The common people made use of scented oils to anoint
their persons, and perfumed the water itself with the most precious
perfumes. Bodily health and cleanliness were only secondary
considerations; voluptuous pleasure was the main object. The ruins of
the baths of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian, in Rome, show that they
were decorated with prodigal magnificence, and with every thing that
could excite the passions--pictures, statues, ornaments, and mirrors.
Says Seneca, Epistle lxxxvi., "_Nisi parietes magnis et preciosis
orbibus refulserunt_." The baths were scenes of orgies consecrated to
Bacchus, and the frescoes on the excavated baths of Pompeii still raise
a blush on the face of every spectator who visits them. I speak not of
the elaborate ornaments, the Numidian marbles, the precious stones, the
exquisite sculptures, which formed part of the decorations of the Roman
baths, but the demoralizing pleasures with which they were connected,
and which they tended to promote. The baths became, according to the
ancient writers, ultimately places of excessive and degrading
debauchery.

"_Balnea, vina, Venas corrumpunt corpora nostra_."

[Sidenote: Dress and ornament.]

The Romans, originally, were not only frugal, but they dressed with
great simplicity. In process of time, they became extravagantly fond of
elaborately ornamented attire, particularly the women. They wore a great
variety of rings and necklaces; they dyed their hair, and resorted to
expensive cosmetics; they wore silks of various colors, magnificently
embroidered. Pearls and rubies, for which large estates had been
exchanged, were suspended from their ears. Their hair glistened with a
network of golden thread. Their stolae were ornamented with purple bands,
and fastened with diamond clasps, while their pallae trailed along the
ground. Jewels were embroidered upon their sandals, and golden bands,
pins, combs, and pomades raised the hair in a storied edifice upon the
forehead. They reclined on luxurious couches, and rode in silver
chariots. Their time was spent in paying and receiving visits, at the
bath, the spectacle, and the banquet. Tables, supported on ivory
columns, displayed their costly plate; silver mirrors were hung against
the walls, and curious chests contained their jewels and money. Bronze
lamps lighted their chambers, and glass vases, imitating precious
stones, stood upon their cupboards. Silken curtains were suspended over
the doors and from the ceilings, and lecticae, like palanquins, were
borne through the streets by slaves, on which reclined the effeminated
wives and daughters of the rich. Their gardens were rendered attractive
by green-houses, flower-beds, and every sort of fruit and vine.

But it was at their banquets the Romans displayed the greatest luxury
and extravagance. No people ever thought more of the pleasures of the
table. And the prodigality was seen not only in the indulgence of the
palate by the choicest dainties, but in articles which commanded, from
their rarity, the highest prices. They not only sought to eat daintily,
but to increase their capacity by unnatural means. The maxim, "_Il
faut manger pour vivre, et non pas vivre pour manger_," was reversed.
At the fourth hour they breakfasted on bread, grapes, olives, and cheese
and eggs; at the sixth they lunched, still more heartily; and at the
ninth hour they dined; and this meal, the _coena_, was the
principal one, which consisted of three parts: the first--the
_gustus_--was made up of dishes to provoke an appetite, shell-fish
and piquant sauces; the second--the _fercula_--composed of
different courses; and the third--the dessert, a _mensae
secundae_--composed of fruits and pastry. Fish were the chief object
of the Roman epicures, of which the _mullus_, the _rhombus_,
and the _asellus_ were the most valued. It is recorded that a
mullus (sea barbel), weighing but eight pounds, sold for eight thousand
sesterces. Oysters, from the Lucrine Lake, were in great demand. Snails
were fed in ponds for the purpose, while the villas of the rich had
their piscinae filled with fresh or salt-water fish. Peacocks and
pheasants were the most highly esteemed among poultry, although the
absurdity prevailed of eating singing-birds. Of quadrupeds, the greatest
favorite was the wild boar, the chief dish of a grand _coena_, and
came whole upon the table, and the practiced gourmand pretended to
distinguish by the taste from what part of Italy it came. Dishes, the
very names of which excite disgust, were used at fashionable banquets,
and held in high esteem. Martial devotes two entire books of his
"Epigrams" to the various dishes and ornaments of a Roman banquet. He
refers to almost every fruit and vegetable and meat that we now use--to
cabbages, leeks, turnips, asparagus, beans, beets, peas, lettuces,
radishes, mushrooms, truffles, pulse, lentils, among vegetables; to
pheasants, ducks, doves, geese, capons, pigeons, partridges, peacocks,
Numidian fowls, cranes, woodcocks, swans, among birds; to mullets,
lampreys, turbots, oysters, prawns, chars, murices, gudgeons, pikes,
sturgeons, among fish; to raisins, figs, quinces, citrons, dates, plums,
olives, apricots, among fruit; to sauces and condiments; to wild game,
and to twenty different kinds of wine; on all of which he expatiates
like an epicure. He speaks of the presents made to guests at feasts, the
tablets of ivory and parchment, the dice-boxes, style-cases, toothpicks,
golden hair-pins, combs, pomatum, parasols, oil-flasks, tooth-powder,
balms and perfumes, slippers, dinner-couches, citron-tables, antique
vases, gold-chased cups, snow-strainers, jeweled and crystal vases,
rings, spoons, scarlet cloaks, table-covers, Cilician socks, pillows,
girdles, aprons, mattresses, lyres, bath-bells, statues, masks, books,
musical instruments, and other articles of taste, luxury, or necessity.
The pleasures of the table, however, are ever uppermost in his eye, and
the luxuries of those whom he could not rival, but which he reprobates:--

"Nor mullet delights thee, nice Betic, nor thrush;
The hare with the scut, nor the boar with the tusk;
No sweet cakes or tablets, thy taste so absurd,
Nor Libya need send thee, nor Phasis, a bird.
But capers and onions, besoaking in brine,
And brawn of a gammon scarce doubtful are thine.
Of garbage, or flitch of hoar tunny, thou'rt vain;
The rosin's thy joy, the Falernian thy bane."
[Footnote: Martial, b. iii. p. 77.]

[Sidenote: A poet's dinner.]

He thus describes a modest dinner, to which he, a poet, invites his
friend Turanius: "If you are suffering from dread of a melancholy dinner
at home, or would take a preparatory whet, come and feast with me. You
will find no want of Cappadocian lettuces and strong leeks. The tunny
will lurk under slices of egg; a cauliflower hot enough to burn your
fingers, and which has just left the garden, will be served fresh on a
black platter; white sausages will float on snow-white porridge, and the
pale bean will accompany the red-streaked bacon. In the second course,
raisins will be set before you, and pears which pass for Syrian, and
roasted chestnuts. The wine you will prove in drinking it. After all
this, excellent olives will come to your relief, with the hot vetch and
the tepid lupine. The dinner is small, who can deny it? but you will not
have to invent falsehoods, or hear them invented; you will recline at
ease, and with your own natural look; the host will not read aloud a
bulky volume of his own compositions, nor will licentious girls, from
shameless Cadiz, be there to gratify you with wanton attitudes; but the
small reed pipe will be heard, and the nice Claudia, whose society you
value even more than mine." [Footnote: _Ibid_. b. v. p. 78.]