CHAPTER V. LIFE AND MANNERS DURING THE FIRST PERIOD OF THE IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. BEFORE the times of Augustus, ready-made clothing, since his times, wool, was imported, and manufactured in Italy. Spanish wool had a high reputation; and, in Strabo's times, the Spanish breed of sheep had already acquired celebrity. Even Gaul no sooner became a Roman acquisition, than it experienced the effect of the immense demand for the prime articles of subsistence in the metropolis. Rome was supplied with salt provisions from the same districts of France, of which the petits sales are renowned in Paris at this day. It may here be remarked, that one of the reasons why salted provisions, fish, and pork, formed such prominent articles of commerce and consumption, may be found in the constant occasion for provisioning large bodies of troops. Besides the large importations from southern Russia, Spain, and Gaul, whole districts of Italy were famous for the feeding of swine. This occupation was followed on a large scale in the neighborhood of the Po and the Adriatic, as well as in Samnium. Fine wool was imported from Asia Minor and the South of Italy, where it went through some of the processes of manufacture. In upper Italy, on the Po, in Liguria, and in Umbria, only coarse wool was produced, and manufactured into articles for common or winter use, particularly in Mantau and Padua, where there were large manufactures. The main point in the policy of Augustus was to satisfy the troops and the populace; how sedulously soever he might veil the true scope of his government. The revival of the old form of democracy in the popular assemblies, as of aristocracy in the senate, could not impose save on the most superficial observation. The senate, which met but twice, at most thrice often but once a month, served no other purpose than to screen the really absolute sovereign. Assemblies of the people, elections, and canvassings he could safely tolerate; as the candidates on such occasions well knew that he kept an eye on them. For the rest, Augustus was tolerably sure of the mass of Roman citizens, having planted in Italy eight colonies, chiefly composed of disbanded soldiers; and having found means to secure to these new citizens the right of suffrage. It was impossible for the citizen of a colony or provincial town, even if he possessed the entire rights of Roman citizenship, to go to Rome on all occasions to profit by their exercise. Augustus accordingly introduced a plan by which their votes were recorded and transmitted to Rome on the day of the comitia.* He "Excogitato genere suffragiorum quæ de magistratibus urbicis decuriones may thus be said to have labored to spread Rome all over Italy; and his successors, pushing the same policy farther, made into Romans successively the Spaniards and the natives of other provinces; augmented the number of colonies out of Italy, and, moreover, took many foreigners into the senate. Julius Cæsar had settled above eighty thousand men in colonies out of Italy, repeopled Carthage and Corinth, and sent colonies to Spain, Gaul, Macedon, Asia Minor, and Syria. The colonies planted by Augustus need not be enumerated: from the time of his reign downwards, they were placed along the frontiers as fortified posts for defence against the barbarians. It had already been a part of Caesar's policy to impress upon the laws a direction favorable to monarchy, to aggravate the rigor of penal inflictions, and to provide against the escape from justice by voluntary exile, which lay open to every Roman citizen, by annexing to it the confiscation of the property of the accused. The same monarchical policy had prompted him to project the revision of Roman legislation, and the enactment of a regular code. Augustus, however, contented himself with rescinding the laws passed in the preceding revolutionary times, modifying old regulations, enacting new, and establishing regular courts of appeal, that the sovereign might be the source of all things. In the metropolis, appeals lay to the city prætor (prætor ur banus) in the provinces, to the provincial officers appointed for that specific function. Though, in general, Augustus abolished the laws made in the times of disturbance, he allowed, however, those to subsist which favored the monarchical principle. Amongst these the Falcidian law deserves especial notice, as it imposed on the Roman citizens restrictions with relation to property, in the same way as a subsequent law (lex Elia Sentia) restricted the manumission of slaves, and their reception into the rank of citizens. To the last days of the republic thus much remained still in force of the old family law, and the powers of parents over their children and relatives, that every one might dispose of his property wholly at discretion, and might either will or prohibit its transmission to his offspring. Thus the clientage of a wealthy patron might be greatly increased by the hopes of legacies, and he might thus attach crowds of his fellow citizens to his interests. And this took place: to be named in many wills was held an honor, and bequests from persons wholly unconnected by relationship were no unfrequent means of rising to affluence. But these links of connection between rich and poor suited not monarchy: it was accordingly enacted by the Falcidian law that the fourth part of an inheritance must be left to the natural heir; and, by consequence, the testator could dispose only of three fourths. Much better had it been for the Romans to adopt a monarchical constitution without dissimulation or pretext. The mode of proceeding followed by Augustus rendered deception and hypocrisy duties, and distorted all the relations of civil life. On the other hand, the provinces gained by the new regimen: a stop was put to extortions and oppressions; the outfit of the governors was provided at the pub colonici in sua quisque colonia ferrent, et sub diem comitiorum obsignata Romam mitterent." lic charge; and Augustus, during his travels, inquired into local grievances personally. He deprived of municipal franchises several towns which had abused them; but, on the other hand, bestowed new charters on many others, paid their debts, restored their public buildings when ruined by earthquakes, and gave them the Latin or Roman right of citizenship. Those princes whom he did not chase entirely from their dominions, he reduced under a sort of feudal dependence. At three stations, Ravenna, Forum Julii, and off the promontory of Misenum, lay squadrons of the Roman fleet. The uselessness of those enormous vessels, which were built in the east, had been sufficiently apparent at the battle of Actium. Accordingly no more of them were built; against pirates only light craft were of service; and it was not till later times that use was again made of the war-marine. Thus the naval establishment did not occasion much trouble or expense. With the land force, indeed, it was otherwise. Three legions were stationed in Spain; eight on the Rhine, to intimidate the Gauls and the Germans; two in Africa; the same number in Egypt and Syria; and on the Euphrates four; three in Pannonia and on the Danube; two in Mosia; two in Dalmatia. Besides there were three urban, nine prætorian, cohorts, chiefly levied in Umbria and Etruria, or in ancient Latium. It is impossible to calculate with any exactness the amount of the public revenues under Augustus, as we do not possess any exact and consistent accounts of those revenues, but only here and there scattered notices. Great improvements were made by Augustus in public roads and edifices. It is true that all undertakings of a public nature were conducted in a wholly different spirit from that of older times. The sentiment of unity in the government, of absolute dependence on a single head, was thenceforth paramount from one end of the empire to the other, and was studiously suggested at every step in life, and by every object. From thenceforwards all things referred to the person of the ruler, instead of having reference, as formerly, to the general government. This is obvious even in the matter of public roads and posts. On the monument erected to commemorate the improvement of the Flaminian way, Augustus is represented as if he had been the founder and beginner of the work. It has been said that his sole motive for so zealously promoting the extension of public roads throughout the empire, was to enable the governors of provinces and other civil officers more conveniently to visit particular towns, and hold provincial councils. This may be left matter of conjecture: what is certain is, that the senators and their sons were forbidden from visiting without special permission, their estates in the provinces. Under Agustus, Sicily alone was excepted from this prohibition. Claudius added Narbonensian Gaul.† "Ornamento viarum munitarum princeps Agustus provincias affecit, ut præsides, et qui pro consulibus eo munere fungerentur, facilius provinciarum urbes atque conventus obirent." "Galliæ Narbonensi, ob egregiam in patres reverentiam, datum, ut senatori The regulations out of which sprung the imperial establishment of posts, were made by Augustus at first merely for the purpose of forwarding his orders, and receiving intelligence from the provinces. They consisted in the erection of houses at certain distances on the highways, where young and active persons were posted, to forward the despatches from one station to another. This description of estafette continued till the time of Nerva, when mail carriages and horses were substituted for these messengers; and a sort of government post was established for the transport of state functionaries, and emissaries to them from the central authorities. The whole system of police and of general administration was remodelled upon similar principles. A new watch (ostensibly to guard against fires) was formed. Tranquillity and security were provided for by measures of this kind, while new scope was given to the Italian love of the far niente. Previously to the new police regulations, highway robberies in Italy had increased to such a degree, that the honorable title of grassator, or highway robber, was as common as that of bandit at the commencement of the seventeenth century: and that persons of the highest rank were no more ashamed to kidnap citizens through the instrumentality of these robbers, and to consign them to the work houses, or out-door toils of their slaves, than the Italian of later days to hire the assasin's poniard. Amongst the number of new offices and dignities which Augustus created, the prefect of the watch was a sort of commandant of gensd'armes, the prefect of the body-guard an important court of functionary, who became, under Tiberius, the person of second rank in the empire. Augustus and his councillors, on the other hand, had endeavored to prevent the military power from showing itself too prominently, and therefore conferred the post of commandant of the guard, not on a senator, nor, indeed, on any one individual, but divided it between two equestrians, and anexed to the military command no civil authority. The prefect of the city soon took on himself all affairs which had previously been transacted by the republican authorities, to whom nothing was left of their old splendor but empty titles and honors. This functionary appeared in public attended by six lictors, acted in the emperor's name, and drew within his jurisdiction not merely the department of police, but the most important part of criminal justice. The superintendence of money changers, usurers, butcher's meat, the regulation of the police force in the city, and in a circuit of 100 Roman miles round it, was under his charge; he was empowered, at his discretion, to pronounce the sentence of banishment; and those who had been banished by the emperor it was his duty to transport to their assigned place of exile. Private life, as well as public, took a new shape. To get through the world in Rome, it became necessary for those who could not get access to the person of the sovereign, which was of course a matter bus ejus provinciæ non exquisita principis sententia jure quo Sicilia haberetur res suas invisere liceret. of great and increasing difficulty, to attach themselves to some one of the great men of the day. These grandees had a regular court about them, and employed persons of the rank of a modern colonel as chamberlains or companions. Those who had not the means of seeking wealth and respectability, by dancing attendance on some grandee, were fain to take up one or other of those pursuits, which Horace describes as the royal roads to opulence. Contracts for the works performed for a small, enormously wealthy class, for the building of temples, the draining of marshes, sepulchral monuments, or processions, were, as Horace says, the way to get rich. Others, he says, coax ancient and wealthy widows with sweetmeats, like children, or snatch at the rich heritage of old curmudgeons, or, in secret, drive the forbidden trade of usury.* Clientship was, indeed, an institution subsisting from time immemorial; but it was one thing to attend a patron and senator of the olden time, and another thing to wait on some punctilious Mæcenas, who narrowly spied whether the upper garment fitted the lower; how the beard was shaven; whether the clothes retained their nap, or were threadbare; whether the toga hung awry, or whether any particle of the under garments peeped from beneath the tunic. It must, however, be owned, that no trace had as yet appeared of the later oriental ceremonial. Even the country client, who carried his sandals under his arm to save them, was admitted to a place at the patron's table. As money was the master-key to every sort of enjoyment, it became the sole object of pursuit; and, as honor was no longer to be otherwise had than by chance or favor, the education of youth, and the efforts of age, were exclusively bent on gain. This might have admitted of apology, had it served to promote industry, invention, art, and every species of useful enterprise; but unfortunately, the spirit of traffic took that direction in those times which it takes at this day, so far as it deals in stockjobbing and agiotage, and in jointstock undertakings of delusive remoteness and extent. The most grinding usury followed the most measureless extravagance; boys were bred up from early youth to the mysteries of money-dealing; and Horace ascribes it to his father as matter of especial merit, that he caused him to be instructed, not in usurious calculations, but in liberal arts after the Greek model. The length which usury went may be conjectured, from the circumstance that one of the most famous of the wholesale dealers in this line received an interest on his loans monthly, which, in twenty months, amounted to an equal sum with the capital. It * Epist. lib. i. v. 77. See also Juvenal. "Edem conducere, flumina, portus, Siccandam eluviem, portandum ad busta cadaver." "Noluit in Flavi ludum me mittere; magni Serm. lib. i. Sat. vi. v. 72. |