CUTLER’S SHOP
Very slowly and gradually, the sharp line between the new men and the old patrician families began to soften. There were few so proud that they would not go and eat a sumptuous dinner at the house of a man because his parent had not worn the purple stripe on his toga that marked the senator. Education spread. Sulla brought back with him from Greece innumerable treasures, among them the works of Aristotle, which became the educated young Roman’s bible.
All over Italy wealth spread, as the fields blossomed with vine and olive. Great roads made travel easier and swifter; aqueducts brought water where it was needed; the marshes were drained; everywhere lovely villas were built, their exquisite gardens adorned with beautiful statues. Thither the tired Roman went for a few days’ refreshment, accompanied by his friends and escorted by trains of slaves. Slaves wrote his letters for him, and carried them swiftly to his friends in other parts of Italy or across the seas. They copied the verses and prose sketches which the young Roman of fashion liked to have written, so that the vellum roll circulated almost as quickly and freely, among the well-to-do, as does the volume to-day. Life became more elegant and refined. Music, dancing, games of all sorts provided distraction; gambling became a passion with many; eating and drinking were as luxurious as now. When we think of the Romans of the period after the civil wars we must think of men intelligent, cultivated, educated, polished by contact with a wide and various world of affairs, their minds opened by foreign travel and the study of Greek language and literature.
WRITING MATERIALS
Pens, Ink, Tablet, and Potsherd
Brit. Mus.
War, however, remained the high road to popularity and fame. Since all the provinces were held by military governors (pro-consuls or quaestors) any one who aspired to high place in the State must have gone through some sort of military training. The successful general was still the favourite candidate. But military prowess alone was no longer enough. The day was gone by when a boor like Marius could ride rough-shod over the Republic. The hero of the new Rome was to be something more than a soldier, though he must be a soldier too.
Within Italy the struggle between Romans and Italians was over. Italy was one, as it had never been before. Having acquired the vote, though not on terms of full equality with the Roman citizen, the Italian middle class settled down to money-making and did not, as a rule, trouble much about the stormy course of politics in the capital. More and more, it was from Italy that the army came; the Roman populace liked the shows given at the close of campaigns, but did not care much for the dangers and hardship of service.
But although this struggle was over, another remained, sharper and more bitter than before. The return of Sulla had meant the triumph of the Senatorial Party, of the Conservatives, the men of old family and fixed ideas. Sulla’s proscriptions, the murder and banishment of innumerable families and the seizure of their goods and estates, to be divided among their enemies, left behind them a deep hatred between those who had triumphed and those who had been defeated. After Sulla’s death the sons and grandsons of the proscribed began to come back, and what had once been the Popular Party, led by Marius and Cinna, built itself up again. At first it had no leaders. The men who were to be its leaders were still too young. Gradually, however, in spite of the unpopularity that had become attached to its very name, it gathered strength. The new rich and the struggling lawyers joined its ranks, since there was more chance there than in those of the Conservatives for fresh talent and new ideas. A new kind of political organization was built up through the clubs and workmen’s associations.
The main source of the growing strength of this new Popular Party was the weakness and inefficiency of the Government. Sulla had erected a remarkable machine, intended to prevent all change and keep the power of the State in the hands of a small ruling class, the patricians. But the machine would not work when his strong directing hand was removed. It was too stiff and rigid to cope with the growing tasks of administering the great empire over which Rome had to rule. Bit by bit Sulla’s system broke down; his rules were swept aside. In the years between his death and that of Caesar the rule of Rome extended enormously; each extension made the need of a strong and efficient Government more pressing. The actual government of Rome through the Senate was neither strong nor efficient. Nothing was well managed. This growing mismanagement compelled men of active minds to look around and ask themselves what was wrong. They found different answers. But the need of change was clear.