According to the tablet of Velia[346] to the Emperor Trajan, the landed proprietors of the place received on mortgage at five per cent.,[347] less than half the usual rate of that time, what would be about $50,000 of our money, the interest of which was to go to the maintenance of three hundred poor children.
The means employed to help parents and prevent them from exposing their children were skilfully contrived. Through the municipality, Trajan lent money to certain proprietors to improve their land, and the interest paid on this loan constituted a benevolent fund by which the children were taken care of, or rather, by which their parents were rewarded for not murdering them. From the table of Velia we learn also that fifty-one proprietors of that section received on land twelve times the value of the loan, or 1,116,000 sesterces ($52,820) the annual interest of which, 55,800 sesterces ($2,650), constituted a fund for the support of three hundred children, two hundred and sixty-four boys and thirty-six girls. The boys received annually 192 sesterces, and the girls 144 sesterces. Illegitimate children were given less, the boys 144 sesterces, and the girls 120 sesterces, although in the tablet there were only two illegitimate children, one boy and one girl. The fact that the number of girls assisted was only one-tenth the number of boys, goes to show, that this new institution was not due so much to the fact that the sentiment of charity had infiltrated through pagan society, as to the fact that pagan society was endeavouring to repair the ravages of degenerate and pauperistic days, shown in the diminution of the class of freedmen in Rome.[348]
Writing to Pliny at Bithynia, to which place he had been sent by Trajan as imperial legate, the Emperor mildly answers an inquiry as to what the law shall be in that province regarding deserted children. Trajan rules that deserted children, who are found and brought up, shall be allowed their freedom without being obliged to repay the money expended for their maintenance.
“The question concerning such children who were exposed by their parents,” says Trajan, “and afterward preserved by others, and educated in a state of servitude, though born free, has been frequently discussed; but I do not find in the constitutions of the princes, my predecessors, any general regulation upon this head extending to all the provinces. There are, indeed, some rescripts of Domitian to Avidius Niguinus and Armenius Brocchus, which ought to be observed; but Bithynia is not comprehended in the provinces therein mentioned. I am of opinion, therefore, that the claims of those who assert their right of freedom upon this principle, should be allowed, without compelling them to purchase their liberty by repaying the money advanced for their maintenance.”[349]
A new note this, for in order to encourage the saving of children who had been exposed, the custom had been rigidly followed that the person who saved a child was able to regard it as his slave, without regard to what its condition had been previous to exposure.
As shown in the correspondence of Pliny and Trajan, there is much truth, in the contention that the Emperor shows up better than the philosopher and poet.
The noteworthy thing about this remarkable exchange of letters is that a new spirit is revealed. It is a living, working philosophy that we discover, practical results of that philosophy bringing a kindlier treatment of slaves, a greater respect for women, a more thoughtful regard for the education of the young, and a gentler assistance of the helpless and distressed.
True, Cicero, a century and a half before had preached doctrines that paved the way, and for generations earlier there had been such a kindlier spirit in the air. But not until now do we find a man of Pliny’s dominating prominence, or nearness to power, suggesting that he will pay a third of the expenses of the cost of founding a university in his own town. His reason, he says, is to save youths from going to Milan for their education and thereby getting away from the proper home influences.
Tracing the thin thread of child progress through these livid days we are brought in touch with the little known but better side of Roman life; for despite the general debauchery of the upper classes and the unwholesome pictures of Juvenal, there is evidence that there were Roman families untouched by the general immorality where women of the type of Marcia or Helvia, addressed in the letters of Seneca, presided over homes in which there was an atmosphere of virtue and self-restraint, and where tales of deeds of the Romans of the earlier days still had their charm and their influence.