History of Ancient Civilization

by Charles Seignobos

The Old Customs.—The old Romans had for centuries been diligent and rude husbandmen, engaged in cultivating their fields, in fighting, and in fulfilling the ceremonies of their religion. Their ideal was the grave man. Cincinnatus, they said, was pushing his plough when the deputies of the Senate came to offer him the dictatorship. Fabricius had of plate only a cup and a salt-cellar of silver. Curius Dentatus, the conqueror of the Samnites, was sitting on a bench eating some beans in a wooden bowl when the envoys of the Samnites presented themselves before him to offer him a bribe.[133] "Go and tell the Samnites," said he, "that Curius prefers commanding those who have gold to having it himself." These are some of the anecdotes that they used to tell about the generals of the olden time. True or false, these legends exhibit the ideas that were current in Rome at a later time regarding the ancient Romans.

Cato the Elder.—At the time when manners were changing, one man made himself notable by his attachment to the "customs of the fathers." This was Cato. He was born in 232[134] in the little village of Tusculum and had spent his youth in manual labor. Entering the army, according to the usage of the time, at the age of seventeen, he fought in all the campaigns against Hannibal. He was not noble, but he made himself popular by his energy, his probity, and his austerity. He passed through the whole course of political honors—quæstor, ædile, prætor, consul, and censor. He showed himself everywhere, like the old Romans, rude, stern, and honest. As quæstor he remonstrated with the consul about his expenses; but the consul, who was Scipio, replied to him, "I have no need of so exact a quæstor." As prætor in Sardinia, he refused the money that was offered him by the province for the expenses of entertainment. As consul, he spoke with vigor for the Oppian law which prohibited Roman women from wearing costly attire; the women put it off, and the law was abrogated. Sent to command the army of Spain, Cato took 400 towns, securing immense treasure which he turned into the public chest; at the moment of embarking, he sold his horse to save the expenses of transportation. As censor, he erased from the senate-list many great persons on the ground of their extravagance; he farmed the taxes at a very high price and taxed at ten times their value the women's habits, jewels, and conveyances. Having obtained the honor of a triumph, he withdrew to the army in Macedonia as a simple officer.

All his life he fought with the nobles of the new type, extravagant and elegant. He "barked" especially at the Scipios, accusing them of embezzling state moneys. In turn he was forty-four times made defendant in court, but was always acquitted.

On his farm Cato labored with his slaves, ate with them, and when he had to correct them, beat them with his own hand. In his treatise on Agriculture, written for his son, he has recorded all the old axioms of the Roman peasantry.[135] He considered it to be a duty to become rich. "A widow," he said, "can lessen her property; a man ought to increase his. He is worthy of fame and inspired of the gods who gains more than he inherits." Finding that agriculture was not profitable enough, he invested in merchant ships; he united with fifty associates and all together constructed fifty ships of commerce, that each might have a part in the risks and the profits. A good laborer, a good soldier, a foe to luxury, greedy of gain, Cato was the type of the Roman of the old stock.

The New Manners.—Many Romans on the contrary, especially the nobles, admired and imitated the foreigners. At their head were the generals who had had a nearer view of Greece and the Orient—Scipio, conqueror of the king of Syria, Flamininus and Æmilius Paullus, victors over the kings of Macedon, later Lucullus, conqueror of the king of Armenia. They were disgusted with the mean and gross life of their ancestors, and adopted a more luxurious and agreeable mode of living. Little by little all the nobles, all the rich followed their example; one hundred and fifty years later in Italy all the great were living in Greek or oriental fashion.

Oriental Luxury.—In the East the Romans found models in the royal successors of Alexander, possessors of enormous wealth; for all the treasure that was not employed in paying mercenaries was squandered by the court. These oriental kings indulged their vanity by displaying gleaming robes, precious stones, furniture of silver, golden plate; by surrounding themselves with a multitude of useless servants, by casting money to the people who were assembled to admire them.[136]

The Romans, very vain and with artistic tastes but slightly developed, had a relish for this species of luxury. They had but little regard for beauty or for comfort, and had thought for nothing else than display. They had houses built with immense gardens adorned with statues, sumptuous villas projecting into the sea in the midst of enormous gardens. They surrounded themselves with troops of slaves. They and their wives substituted for linen garments those of gauze, silk, and gold. At their banquets they spread embroidered carpets, purple coverings, gold and silver plate. Sulla had one hundred and fifty dishes of silver; the plate of Marcus Drusus weighed 10,000 pounds. While the common people continued to sit at table in accordance with old Italian custom, the rich adopted the oriental usage of reclining on couches at their meals. At the same time was introduced the affected and costly cookery of the East—exotic fishes, brains of peacocks, and tongues of birds.

From the second century the extravagance was such that a consul who died in 152 could say in his will: "As true glory does not consist in vain pomp but in the merits of the dead and of one's ancestors, I bid my children not to spend on my funeral ceremonies more than a million as" ($10,000).

Greek Humanity.—In Greece the Romans saw the monuments, the statues, and the pictures which had crowded their cities for centuries; they came to know their learned people and the philosophers. Some of the Romans acquired a taste for the beautiful and for the life of the spirit. The Scipios surrounded themselves with cultivated Greeks. Æmilius Paullus asked from all the booty taken by him from Macedon only the library of King Perseus; he had his children taught by Greek preceptors. It was then the fashion in Rome to speak, and even to write in Greek.[137] The nobles desired to appear connoisseurs in painting and in sculpture; they imported statues by the thousand, the famous bronzes of Corinth, and they heaped these up in their houses. Thus Verres possessed a whole gallery of objects of art which he had stolen in Sicily. Gradually the Romans assumed a gloss of Greek art and literature. This new culture was called "humanity," as opposed to the "rusticity" of the old Roman peasants.

It was little else than gloss; the Romans had realized but slightly that beauty and truth were to be sought for their own sakes; art and science always remained objects of luxury and parade. Even in the time of Cicero the soldier, the peasant, the politician, the man of affairs, the advocate were alone regarded as truly occupied. Writing, composing, contributing to science, philosophy, or criticism—all this was called "being at leisure."[138] Artists and scholars were never regarded at Rome as the equals of the rich merchant. Lucian, a Greek writer, said, "If you would be a Pheidias, if you would make a thousand masterpieces, nobody will care to imitate you, for as skilful as you are, you will always pass for an artisan, a man who lives by the work of his hands."