Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius

by Samuel Dill

The greatest glory of the imperial administration for nearly two centuries was the skilful and politic tolerance with which it reconciled a central despotism with a remarkable range of local liberty. It did not attempt to impose a uniform organisation or a bureaucratic control on the vast mass of races and peoples whom the fortune of Rome had brought under her sway. Rather, for ages its guiding principle was, as far as possible, to leave ancient landmarks undisturbed, and to give as much free play to local liberties as was compatible with the safety and efficiency of the imperial guardian of order and peace. Hence those many diversities in the relation between provincial towns and Rome, represented by the names of free, federate, or stipendiary cities, municipium and colonia. Many retained their old laws, constitution, and judicial system.[1156] They retained in some cases the names of magistracies, which recalled the days of independence: there were still archons at Athens, suffetes in African towns, demarchs at Naples. The title of medixtuticus still lingered here and there in old Oscan communities.[1157] When she had crushed the national spirit, and averted the danger of armed revolt, Rome tolerated, and even fostered, municipal freedom, for more than a hundred years after the last shadowy pretence of popular government had disappeared from her own forum.[1158] Central control and uniformity were established in those departments which affected the peace and welfare of the whole vast commonwealth. Although the interference of the provincial governor in local administration was theoretically possible in varying degrees, yet it may well be doubted whether a citizen of Lyons or Marseilles, of Antioch or Alexandria, was often made conscious of any limitation of his freedom by imperial [pg 204]power. While delation and confiscation and massacre were working havoc on the banks of the Tiber, the provinces were generally tranquil and prosperous. The people elected their magistrates, who administered municipal affairs with little interference from government. The provincial administration of a Nero, an Otho, a Vitellius, or a Domitian was often no less prudent and considerate than that of a Vespasian or a Trajan.[1159] And the worst of the emperors share with the best in the universal gratitude of the provinces for the blessings of the “Roman peace.”[1160]

But although for generations there was a settled abstinence from centralisation on the part of the imperial government, the many varieties of civic constitution in the provinces tended by an irresistible drift to a uniform type of organisation. Free and federate communities voluntarily sought the position of a colony or a municipium.[1161] Just as the provincial town must have its capitol, with the cult of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, or imported the street names Velabrum or Vicus Tuscus, so the little community called itself respublica, its commons the populus, its curia the senate or the amplissimus et splendidissimus ordo; its magistrates sometimes bore the majestic names of praetor, dictator, or censor, in a few cases even of consul.[1162] This almost ludicrous imitation of the great city is an example of the magical power which Rome always exercised on her most distant subjects, and even on the outer world of barbarism, down to the last days when her forces were ebbing away. The ease and rapidity of communication along the great routes, the frequent visits of proconsuls and procurators and generals, with the numerous train which attended them, the presence of the ubiquitous Roman merchant and traveller, kept even remote places in touch with the [pg 205]capital. The acta diurna, with official news and bits of scandal and gossip, regularly arrived in distant provincial towns and frontier camps.[1163] The last speech of Pliny, or the freshest epigrams of Martial, were within a short time selling on the bookstalls of Lyons or Vienne.[1164] Until the appearance of railways and steamboats, it may be doubted whether there was any age in history in which travelling was easier or more general.

Apart from the immense stimulus which was given to trade and commerce by the pacification of the world, liberal curiosity, or restless ennui, or the passion to preach and propagate ideas, carried immense numbers to the most distant lands.[1165] The travelling sophist found his way to towns on the edge of the Scythian steppes, to the home of the Brahmans, or to the depths of the Soudan.[1166] The tour up the Nile was part of a liberal culture in the days of Lucian as it was in the days of Herodotus. The romantic charm of travel in Greece was probably heightened for many by the tales of Thessalian brigands and sorceresses which meet us in the novel of Apuleius. The Emperor Hadrian, who visited almost every interesting scene in his dominions, from the Solway to the Euphrates, often trudging for days at the head of his soldiers, is a true representative of the migratory tastes of his time. Seneca, indeed, finds in this rage for change of scene only a symptom of the universal unrest. Epictetus, on the other hand, and Aristides expatiate with rapture on the universal security and wellbeing, due to the disappearance of brigandage, piracy, and war. The seas are alive with merchantmen; deserts have become populous scenes of industry; the great roads are carried over the broadest rivers and the most defiant mountain barriers. The earth has become the common possession of all. Nor is this mere rhetoric. Travelling to all parts of the known world had become expeditious, and even luxurious. From the Second Punic War, traders, couriers, and travellers had moved freely along the great roads.[1167] The [pg 206]government post, which was first organised by Augustus on the model of the Persian, provided at regular intervals the means of conveyance for officials, or for those furnished with the requisite diploma. Private enterprise had also organised facilities of travel, and at the gates of country towns such as Pompeii, Praeneste, or Tibur, there were stations of the posting corporations (the cisiarii or jumentarii) where carriages could be hired, with change of horses at each stage.[1168] The speed with which great distances were traversed in those days is at first sight rather startling. Caesar once travelled 100 miles a day in a journey from Rome to the Rhone.[1169] The freedman Icelus in seven days carried the news of Nero’s death to Galba in Spain,[1170] the journey of 332 miles from Tarraco to Clunia having been made at the rate of nearly ten miles an hour. This of course was express speed. The ordinary rate of travelling is probably better represented by the leisurely journey of Horace and Maecenas to Brundisium, or that of Martial’s book from Tarraco to Bilbilis.[1171] About 130 miles a day was the average distance accomplished by sea. Vessels put out from Ostia or Puteoli for every port in the Mediterranean. From Puteoli to Corinth was a voyage of five days. About the same time was needed to reach Tarraco from Ostia. A ship might arrive at Alexandria from the Palus Maeotis in a fortnight.[1172] Many a wandering sophist, like Dion Chrysostom or Apollonius of Tyana, traversed great distances on foot, or with a modest wallet on a mule. The rhetor Aristides once spent a hundred days in a journey at mid-winter from Mysia to Rome.[1173] But there was hardly any limit to the luxury and ostentatious splendour with which the great and opulent made their progresses, attended or preceded by troops of footmen and runners, and carrying with them costly plate and myrrhine vases.[1174] The thousand carriages which Nero took with him on a progress, the silver-shod mules of Poppaea, the paraphernalia of luxury described by Seneca, if they are not mythical, were probably the exceptional displays of a self-indulgence bordering on lunacy.[1175] But practical and sensible comfort in travelling [pg 207]was perhaps then commoner than it was, until quite recently, among ourselves. The carriages in which the two indefatigable Plinies used to ride, enabled them to read at their ease, or dictate to an amanuensis.[1176] The inns, from the time of Horace to the time of Sidonius, were as a rule bad, and frequently disreputable, and even dangerous, places of resort.[1177] And vehicles were often arranged for sleeping on a journey. We may be sure that many an imperial officer after the time of Julius Caesar passed nights in his carriage, while hurrying to join the forces on the Rhine or the Danube. With all this rapid circulation of officials and travellers, the far-stretching limits of the Roman world must, to the general eye, have contracted, the remotest places were drawn more and more towards the centre, and the inexhaustible vitality of the imperial city diffused itself with a magical power of silent transformation.

The modes in which the fully developed municipalities of the Antonine age had originated and were organised were very various. Wherever, as in the Greek East or Carthaginian Africa, towns already existed, the Romans, of course, used them in their organisation of a province, although they added liberally to the number, as in Syria, Pontus, and Cappadocia.[1178] Where a country was still in the cantonal state, the villages or markets were grouped around a civic centre, and a municipal town, such as Nîmes or Lyons, would thus become the metropolis of a considerable tract of territory. The colony of Vienne was the civic centre of the Allobroges.[1179] In the settlement of the Alps many of the remote mountain cantons were attached to towns such as Tridentum, Verona, or Brixia.[1180] Sometimes, as in Dacia, the civic organisation was created at a stroke.[1181] But it is well known that, especially towards the frontiers of the Empire, in Britain, on the Rhine, and in North Africa, the towns of the second century had often grown out of the castra stativa of the legions.

The great reorganisation of Augustus had made each legion a permanent corps, with a history and identity of its own. To ensure the tranquillity of the Empire the legions were [pg 208]distributed in permanent camps along the frontier, the only inland cities with a regular military garrison being Lyons and Carthage.[1182] Many legions never changed their quarters for generations. The Tertia Augusta, which has left so many memorials of itself in the inscriptions of Lambaesis, remained, with only a single break, in the same district from the time of Augustus to that of Diocletian.[1183] There, for two generations, it kept sleepless watch against the robber tribes of the Sahara. The legion was also peacefully employed in erecting fortifications and making roads and bridges, when the camp was visited by Hadrian in the year 130.[1184] Gradually soldiers were allowed to form family relations, more or less regular, until, under Septimius Severus, the legionary was permitted to live in his household like any other citizen.[1185] From the remains at Lambaesis, it is now considered certain that, in the third century, the camp had ceased to be the soldier’s home. The suttlers and camp-followers had long gathered in the neighbourhood of the camp, in huts which were called Canabae legionis. There, for a long time, the soldier, when off duty, sought his pleasures and amusements, and there, after the changes of Septimius Severus, he took up his abode. At first the Canabae of Lambaesis was only a vicus; it became, under Marcus Aurelius, a municipium—the Respublica Lambaesitanorum, with the civic constitution which is rendered familiar to us by so many inscriptions.[1186] The Legionaries seem to have been happy and contented at Lambaesis; their sons were trained to arms and followed their fathers in the ranks;[1187] the legion became to some extent a hereditary caste. Old veterans remained on the scene of their service, after receiving their discharge with a pension from the chest.[1188] The town developed in the regular fashion, and dignified itself by a capitol, an amphitheatre, two forums, a triumphal arch; and the many monuments of public and private life found on the site reveal a highly organised society, moulded out of barbarous and alien [pg 209]elements, and stamped with the inimitable and enduring impress of Rome. Out of such casual and unpromising materials sprang numbers of urban communities, which reproduced, in their outline and in their social tone, the forms and spirit of the free Republic of Rome. The capitol and the forum are merely the external symbols of a closer bond of parentage. The Roman military discipline did not more completely master and transform the Numidian or Celtic recruit, than the inspiration of her civil polity diffused among races imbruted by servitude, or instinct with the love of a lawless, nomadic freedom, the sober attachment to an ordered civic life which was obedient to a long tradition, yet vividly interested in its own affairs.

On hardly any side of ancient life is the information furnished by the inscriptions so rich as on the spirit and organisation of municipalities. Here one may learn details of communal life which are never alluded to in Roman literature. From this source, also, we must seek the only authentic materials for the reconstruction of a municipality of the first century. The Album Canusii and the tablets containing the laws of Malaga and Salpensa have not only settled more than one question as to the municipal organisation of the early Empire, but have enabled us to form almost as clear-cut a conception of it as we have of the corporate organisation of our own great towns.

But, unlike our civic republics, the Roman municipal town was distinctly aristocratic, or rather timocratic, in its constitution. A man’s place in the community, as a rule, was fixed by his ancestry, his official grade, or his capacity to spend. The dictum of Trimalchio was too literally true in the municipal life of that age—“a man is what he is worth.” Provincial society was already parted and graduated, though less decidedly, by those rigid lines of materialistic demarcation which became gaping fissures in the society of the Theodosian code. The Curia or Senate was open only to the possessor of a certain fortune; at Como, for instance, HS.100,000, elsewhere perhaps even more. On the other hand, the richest freedman could not become a member of the Curia or hold any civic magistracy,[1189] [pg 210]although he might be decorated with their insignia. His ambition had to be satisfied with admission to the order of the Augustales, which ranked socially after the members of the Curia. In the list of the Curia, which was revised every five years, the order of official and social precedence was most scrupulously observed. In the Album Canusii of the year A.D. 223,[1190] the first rank is assigned to thirty-nine patrons, who have held imperial office, or who are senators or knights. Next come the local magnates who have been dignified by election to any of the four great municipal magistracies. Last in order are the pedani, that is, the citizens possessing the requisite qualification, who have not yet held any municipal office. At the bottom of the list stand twenty-five praetextati, who were probably the sons of the more distinguished citizens, and who, like the sons of senators of the Republic, were silent witnesses of the proceedings in the Curia. From this body, and from all the magistracies, all persons engaged in certain mean or disgraceful occupations were expressly excluded, along with the great mass of the poorer citizens, the tenuiores. The taint of servile birth, the possession of libertinae opes, was an indelible blot. In countless inscriptions this gradation of rank is sharply accentuated. If a man leaves a bequest for an annual feast, with a distribution of money, the rich patron or the decurio will receive perhaps five times the amount which is doled out to the simple plebeian.[1191] The distinction of rank, even in punishment for crime, which meets us everywhere in the Theodosian Code, has already appeared. The honestior is not to be degraded by the punishment of crucifixion or by the stroke of the rod.[1192] But it is on their tombs that the passion of the Romans for some sort of distinction, however shadowy, shows itself most strikingly. On these slabs every grade of dignity in a long career is enumerated with minute care. The exact value of a man’s public benefactions or his official salary will be recorded with pride.[1193] Even the dealer in aromatics or in rags will make a boast of some petty office in the college of his trade.[1194] But, although rank and office [pg 211]were extravagantly valued in these societies, wealth was after all the great distinction. The cities were in the hands of the rich, and, in return for social deference and official power, the rich were expected to give lavishly to all public objects. The worship of wealth, the monumental flattery of rich patrons and benefactors, was very interested and servile. On the other hand, there probably never was a time when the duties of wealth were so powerfully enforced by opinion, or so cheerfully, and even recklessly, performed.

Yet, although these communities were essentially aristocratic in tone and constitution, the commonalty still retained some power in the Antonine age. On many inscriptions they appear side by side with the Curial “ordo” and the Augustales.[1195] They had still in the reign of Domitian the right to elect their magistrates. It was long believed that, with the suppression of popular elections at Rome in the reign of Tiberius, the popular choice of their great magistrates must also have been withdrawn from municipal towns.[1196] This has now been disproved by the discovery of the laws of Malaga and Salpensa, in which the most elaborate provisions are made for a free and uncontaminated election by the whole people.[1197] And we can still almost hear the noise of election days among the ruins of Pompeii.[1198] Many of the inscriptions of Pompeii are election placards, recommending particular candidates. There, in red letters painted on the walls, we can read that “the barbers wish to have Trebius as aedile,” or that “the fruit-sellers, with one accord, support the candidature of Holconius Priscus for the duumvirate.” The porters, muleteers, and garlic dealers have each their favourite. The master fuller, Vesonius Primus, backs Cn. Helvius as a worthy man. Even ladies took part in the contest and made their separate appeals. “His little sweetheart” records that she is working for Claudius.[1199] Personal popularity no doubt then, as always, attracted such electoral support. But the student of the inscriptions may be inclined to think that the free and independent electors had also a keen eye for the man who was likely to build a new colonnade for the forum, or a new schola for the guild, or, best [pg 212]of all, to send down thirty pairs of gladiators into the arena “with plenty of blood.”[1200]

The laws of Malaga and Salpensa prescribe, in the fullest detail, all the forms to be observed in the election of magistrates. These were generally six in number—two duumvirs,[1201] who were the highest officers, two aediles, and two quaestors, for each year. Every fifth year, instead of the duumvirs, two quinquennales were elected, with the extraordinary duty of conducting the municipal census.[1202] The candidates for all these offices were required to be free born, of the age of twenty-five at least, of irreproachable character, and the possessors of a certain fortune. The qualifications were the same as those prescribed by the lex Julia for admission to the municipal Senate, which expressly excluded persons engaged in certain disreputable callings—gladiators, actors, pimps, auctioneers, and undertakers.[1203] In the best days the competition for office was undoubtedly keen, and the candidates were numerous. In the year A.D. 4, the year of the death of C. Caesar, the grandson of Augustus, so hot was the rivalry that the town of Pisa was left without magistrates owing to serious disturbances at the elections.[1204] But it is an ominous fact that the law of Malaga, in the reign of Domitian, makes provision for the contingency of a failure of candidates. In such a case the presiding duumvir was to nominate the required number, they in turn an equal number, and the combined nominees had to designate a third set equal in number to themselves. The choice of the people was then restricted to these involuntary candidates. The city has evidently advanced a stage towards the times of the Lower Empire, when the magistrates were appointed by the Curia from among themselves, with no reference to the people.[1205] A man might, indeed, well hesitate before offering himself for an office which imposed a heavy expenditure on the holder of it. The honorarium payable on admission amounted, in an obscure place like Thamugadi, to about £32 for the duumvirate, and £24 for the aedileship.[1206] In [pg 213]the greater Italian cities it probably would be much more; at Pompeii the newly elected duumvir paid more than £80.[1207] But the man chosen by the people often felt bound to outstrip the bare demands of law or custom by a prodigal liberality. He must build or repair some public work, to signalise his year of office, and, at the dedication of it, good taste required him to exhibit costly games, or to give a banquet to the citizens, with a largess to all of every rank small or great.[1208]

But in return for its liabilities, the position of a duumvir gave undoubted power and distinction. The office was the image or shadow of the ancient consulship, and occasionally, as the inscriptions attest, a Hadrian or an Antoninus Pius did not disdain to accept it.[1209] The duumvirs commanded the local militia, when it was, on emergency, called out.[1210] They presided at meetings of the people and the Curia, they proposed questions for their deliberation, and carried the decrees into effect. They had civil jurisdiction up to a certain amount, and their criminal jurisdiction, which, in the third century, had been transferred to imperial functionaries, was, according to the most probable opinion, undiminished at least down to the end of the first century.[1211] This judicial power, however, was limited by the intercessio of colleagues and the right of appeal. They had extensive responsibilities in finance, for the collection of dues and taxes, and the recovery of all moneys owing to the municipality.[1212] After the fall of the free Republic, when so many avenues of ambition were closed, many an able man might well satisfy his desire for power and distinction by the duumvirate of a provincial town.