Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul

by T. G. Tucker

Setting aside the aristocratic and wealthy classes on the one hand, and the pauperised class on the other, we have lying between them the workers, whether native Romans or the emancipated slaves, who are now citizens known as "freedmen." To these we must add the rather shabby genteel persons whom we have already described as "clients." Among workers are found men and women of all the callings most familiar to ourselves, with one exception. They do not include domestic servants. Romans who could afford regular servants kept slaves. It 18 true that occasionally one of the poorer citizens, even a soldier on furlough, might perform some menial task connected with a household, such as hewing wood or carrying burdens; but such services were regarded as "servile." With this exception there is scarcely an occupation in which Roman citizens did not engage. In such work they often had to compete with slave-labour. It is probable, doubtless, that the greater proportion of the slave body were employed as domestic servants. But many others tilled the lands of the larger proprietors. Others laboured under the contractors who constructed the public works. Others were used as assistants in shops and factories. It is obvious that such competition reduced the field of free labour, when it did not close it entirely, and the free labour must have been unduly cheapened. But to suppose that all the Roman work, whether in town or country, was done by slaves is to be grossly in the wrong. Romans were to be found acting as ploughmen and herdsmen, workers in vineyards, carpenters, masons, potters, shoemakers, tanners, bakers, butchers, fullers, metal-workers, glass-workers, clothiers, greengrocers, shopkeepers of all kinds. There were Roman porters, carters, and wharf-labourers, as well as Roman confectioners and sausage-sellers. To these private occupations must be added many positions in the lower public or civil service. There was, for example, abundant call for attendants of the magistrates, criers, messengers, and clerks. Unfortunately our information concerning all this class is very inadequate. The Roman writers—historians, philosophers, rhetoricians, and poets—have extremely little to say about the humble persons who apparently did nothing to make history or thought. They are mentioned but incidentally, and generally without interest, if not with some contempt, except where a poet is choosing to glorify the simple life and therefore turns his gaze on the frugal peasantry, who doubtless did, in sober fact, retain most of the sturdy old Roman spirit. About the soldiers we know much, and not a little about the schoolmasters. The connection of the one occupation with history and of the other with authors will account for this fact. Something will be said of the army and also of the schools in their special places. Keepers of inns are not rarely in evidence in the literature of satire and epigram, and no language seems too contemptuous for their alleged dishonesty. But of inns enough has been said. We learn that the booksellers made money out of the works of which they caused their slaves to make copies, and which they sold in "well got up" style for four shillings, or, in the case of slender volumes, for as little as fourpence-halfpenny. But to this day we do not know how much profit an author drew from the bookseller, or how it was determined, or whether he drew any at all. It is most reasonable to suppose that he sold a book straight out to the publisher for what he could get. Otherwise it is hard to see how any check could be kept upon the sales. The only occupation upon which literature offers us systematic information is agriculture, including the pasturing of cattle and the culture of the vine. For the rest we derive more knowledge from the excavations of Pompeii than from any other source. From actual shops and their contents, from pictures illustrating contemporary life, and from inscriptions and advertisements, we are enabled to reconstruct some picture of commercial and industrial operations. We can see the fuller, the baker, the goldsmith, the wine-seller, and the wreath-maker at their work. We can discern something of the retail trade in the Forum; or we can see the auctioneer making up his accounts.

[Illustration: FIG. 70.—BAKER'S MILLS. (Pompeii.)]

[Illustration: FIG. 71.—CUPIDS AS GOLDSMITHS. (Wall Painting.)]

[Illustration: FIG. 72.—GARLAND-MAKERS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 73.—BUST OF CAECILIUS JUCUNDUS.]

The baker, for example, was his own miller. There are still standing the mills, with the upper stone—a hollow cylinder with a pinched waist—capable of revolving upon the under stone and letting the flour drop into the rim below. Into the holes in the middle of the upper or "donkey" stone, and across the top, were fixed wooden bars, which were either pushed by men or drawn by asses yoked to them. The oven is still in place, and, charred as they are, we are quite familiar with the round flat loaves shaped and divided like a large "cross" bun. The dough was kneaded by a vertical shaft with arms revolving in a receptacle, from the sides of which other arms projected inwards, so that there was little room for the dough to be squeezed between them. We have pictures of the fuller, to whom the woollen garments—the togas and tunics, and the mantles of the women—were regularly sent to be washed by treading in vats, to be beaten, stretched, and bleached with sulphur, and to have their naps raised with a comb or a bunch of thorns. The goldsmith is depicted at his furnace or his anvil. The garland-makers are at work fastening the blossoms or petals on a ribbon or a tough strip of lime-bark. Dealers in other goods are showing the results of their labour to customers, who carefully examine them by eye, touch, and smell. The tablets containing the receipts for sales and rents still exist as they were found in the house of the shrewd-looking Jucundus the auctioneer. They formally acknowledge the receipt of such-and-such sums realised at an auction, "minus commission," although unfortunately they do not happen to tell us how much the commission was. We see the venders of wine filling the jars for customers from the large wine-skin in the waggon. In conclusion to this subject it should be observed that all manner of descriptive signs were in use; and just as one may still see a barber's pole or a gilt boot in front of a shop, or a painted sign at a public-house, so one might see the representation of a goat at the door of a milk-vender, or of an eagle or elephant at the door of an inn.

[Illustration: FIG. 74.—PLOUGH. (Primitive and later forms.)]

Meanwhile out in the country we can perceive the farm, with its hedges of quick-set, its stone walls, or its bank and ditch. The rather primitive plough—though not always so primitive as it was a generation or so ago in Italy—is being drawn by oxen, while, for the rest, there are in use nearly all the implements which were employed before the quite modern invention of machinery. It may be remarked at this point that the rotation of crops was well understood and regularly practised. Then there are the pasturelands, on the plains in the winter, but in summer on the hills, to which the herdsmen drive their cattle along certain drove-roads till they reach the unfenced domains belonging to the state. There they form a camp of huts or wigwams under a "head man," and surround their charges with strong fierce dogs, whose business it is to protect them, not only from thieves, but also from the wolves which were then common on the Apennines—where, indeed, bears also were to be met. There was no want of occupation in the country in the time of haymaking, of the vintage, or of olive-picking. Even the city unemployed could gather a bunch of grapes or pick an olive, just as they can with us, or just as the London hop-picker can take a holiday and earn a little money in Kent. In the vineyards, where the vines commonly trailed upon low elms and other trees, various vegetables grew between the rows, as they still do about Vesuvius; on the hills were olive-groves, which cost almost nothing to keep in order, and which supplied the "butter" and the lamp-oil of the Mediterranean world.

[Illustration: FIG. 75.—TOOLS ON TOMB.]

We need not waste much compassion upon the life of the Roman working class. It is true that there was then no doctrine of the "dignity of labour," but that there was reasonable pride taken in a trade reputably maintained is seen from the frequent appearance of its tools upon a tombstone. In respect of the mere enjoyment of life, the labourers, of the Roman world were, so far as we can gather, tolerably happy. They had abundant holidays, mostly of religious origin; but, like our own, so frequently added to, and so far diverted from religious thoughts, that they were more marked by jollity and sport than by any solemnity of spirit. The workmen of a particular calling formed their guilds, "city companies," or clubs, in the interests of their trade and for mutual benefit. There was a guild of bakers, a guild of goldworkers, and a guild of anything and everything else. Each guild had its special deity—such as Vesta, the fire-goddess, for the bakers, and Minerva, the goddess of wool-work, for the fullers—and it held an annual festival in honour of such patrons, marching through the streets with regalia and flag. Doubtless the members of a guild acted in concert for the regulation of prices, although the Roman government took care that these clubs should be non-political, and would speedily suppress a strike if it seriously interfered with the public convenience. The ostensible excuse for a guild, and apparently the only one theoretically accepted by the imperial government, was the excuse of a common worship. It is at least certain that the emperors jealously watched the formation of any new union, and that they would promptly abolish any which appeared to have secret understandings and aims, or to act in contravention of the law. In the towns which possessed local government the municipal authorities were still elected by the people; and the guilds, especially of shopkeepers, could and did play their parts in determining the election of a candidate. The elections might make a difference to them in those ways in which modern town-councillors and mayors, may influence the rates, the conditions of the streets, the rules of traffic, and so forth. There are sixteen hundred election notices painted, in red and black about the walls of Pompeii, and we find So-and-So recommended by such-and-such a trade as being a "good man," or "an honest young man," or a person who will "keep an eye on the public purse." It is amusing to note that, in satirical parody of such appeals as "the fruitsellers recommend So-and-So," we find that "the petty thieves recommend So-and-So," or we get the opinion of "the sleepers one and all." Special objects connected with these and other associations were the provision of "widows' funds," and of proper burial for the members. Of the importance of the latter to the ancient world we shall speak when we come to a funeral and the religious ideas connected with it.