The Comic History of Rome

by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett

The Colonial system pursued by Rome was peculiar, for instead of selecting uninhabited places, she preferred a population ready made, possessing wealth already acquired, of which she usually helped herself to a full third in exchange for a Government, which she supplied from her own large stock of persons in want of places. The relationship between Rome and her colonies has been compared to that of parent and child; but considering the stripping process to which Rome had recourse, she seems to have acted less as a mother than a kidnapper. The Roman Constitution, like the Roman cement, was an excellent compound, of which it is impossible to describe the ingredients; and, indeed, it is found that the best Constitutions—like our own British—are those which cannot be defined by a written prescription, or made the subject of a perfect analysis. There was a judicious spreading of political power over a considerable surface, and thus—to use a figure from the chemist's shop—a plaster was always ready to be applied to the sores, or even the trifling eruptions that might make their appearance on any portion of the great body of the nation.

As in our own admirable form of government, there were three estates, comprising the people, the senate, and the executive; but the want of a permanent and universally recognised head of the state, kept the country continually exposed to agitation on the part of designing demagogues.

As the sword, unfortunately, cuts the most prominent figure in the early history of Rome, we must not omit to speak of its military organisation, which was very complete; for in early times there seemed to be an impression that neighbours ought to be approached with the arm of war, rather than with the hand of friendship. Every Roman citizen was a soldier, and was liable at any moment to be called upon to turn his ploughshare into a sword, though when his special service was over he was at liberty to turn his sword back again into a ploughshare. This transformation was not effected without damage to the instrument, and the ordinary operations of agriculture were frequently interrupted by calling the labourer from the garden to the field, and forcing him to drill when engaged in sowing broad-cast. We have in a single chapter of Livy[39] an account of what a Roman army consisted of during the great Latin war, and though learned writers[40] have snarled and quarrelled over the materials, like dogs over a dry and meatless bone, we quietly walk into the midst of them, and deliberately extract the marrow. An army may be described in half-a-dozen lines, though it consisted of five, which were termed respectively, Hastati, Principes, Triarii, Rorarii, and Accensi.

The Hastati, so called from their carrying the hasta or spear, consisted of youth in the bloom of early manhood, and who went in front, that their early bloom might encounter the first blow of the enemy. The next row was formed of the Principes, or men in the vigour of life, distinguished by the abundance and splendour of their shields, arms, and accoutrements, and comprising what may be termed the heavy swells of the army. Next in order came the Triarii, a body of veterans, selected for their past experience—a quality which, however valuable in council, may be often useless in war; for though experience might have told a veteran that he ought to run for his life, his heels, being as old as his head, might have refused to do the latter's bidding. The fourth rank was composed of Rorarii, from the word Rora, dew, who sprinkled the enemy with various missiles, and who standing behind the Triarii, must occasionally, by aiming short of the foe, have given more than their due to the veterans immediately in front of them. Last in order came the Accensi, or supernumeraries, whose courage and fidelity were not of the highest class, and who either brought up the rear or left it behind, as their resolution urged them on, or their want of it kept them back, while there was always an opening left in case their fears should run away with them. It was frequently the practice of the Accensi to reserve the vacant back-ground as a sort of race-course, in which races between their valour and their discretion were being continually run, and in the majority of cases the latter got by far the best of it.

The habits of the early Romans were extremely simple; agriculture was their most honoured employment; and it was thought high praise to say of any man, that he was a good husband, and a good husbandman. Their food was chiefly corn; and many a happy family afforded an illustration of the fact that love, notwithstanding the assertion of the song writer to the contrary, can sometimes live on flour. Wine was so precious, that, in libations to the gods, it was poured out drop by drop, to prevent their getting a drop too much; and, indeed, so scarce was it in the early days of Rome, that Romulus is said to have used milk in his sacrifices; while Papirius, at a later period, vowed, in the event of his victory over the Samnites, a small glass—or petit verre—to Jupiter.

Long beards were worn by the Romans until the arrival of a Greek barber from Sicily; and he is said to have plucked out, with a pair of tweezers, the beard which had grown for four centuries and a half into a rooted habit. On some he employed the razor, and he was able to reap an abundant harvest from the chins of a people who had never yet worn a smooth-faced aspect.

The invasion of Pyrrhus caused the adoption at Rome of many Grecian luxuries, and among others was the luxury of substituting a silver coinage for copper, which had been found so inconvenient that a rich man had been obliged to use a wagon instead of a purse, if he wished to take his money about with him. Silver was, however, so scarce, that one Cornelius Rufinus was turned out of the Senate for having on his sideboard more than ten pounds of plate; for it was believed that he could not have come honestly by so much of it, and he was regarded as either a thief, or at least as a receiver of stolen property.

So humble were the pretensions to display in those early days, that a silver cup and a salt-cellar formed, usually, the entire contents of a Roman noble's plate-basket. Music, among the early Romans, was at the lowest possible pitch, and the only professors were flute-players, of scarcely any note, from Etruria. Their strains were so dismal as to be employed only at a sacrifice or a funeral, when extreme melancholy was required. On one occasion the band is said to have struck, and retired to Tibur, when the musicians were only brought back by being made helplessly drunk,—a weakness to which some of those hirelings who assist at the performance of funerals are in our day liable.

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