Romulus was the first who established the Arval[6] priesthood at Rome. This order consisted of the eleven sons of Acca Larentia, his nurse,[7] together with Romulus himself, who assumed the appellation of the twelfth of the brotherhood. Upon this priesthood he bestowed, as being the most august distinction that he could confer upon it, a wreath of ears of corn, tied together with a white fillet; and this, in fact, was the first chaplet that was ever used at Rome. This dignity is only ended with life itself, and whether in exile or in captivity, it always attends its owner. In those early days, two jugera of land were considered enough for a citizen of Rome, and to none was a larger portion than this allotted. And yet, at the present day, men who but lately were the slaves of the Emperor Nero have been hardly content with pleasure-gardens that occupied the same space as this; while they must have fishponds, forsooth, of still greater extent, and in some instances I might add, perhaps, kitchens even as well.
Numa first established the custom of offering corn to the gods, and of propitiating them with the salted[8] cake; he was the first, too, as we learn from Hemina, to parch spelt, from the fact that, when in this state, it is more wholesome as an aliment.[9] This method, however, he could only establish one way: by making an enactment, to the effect that spelt is not in a pure state for offering, except when parched. He it was, too, who instituted the Fornacalia,[10] festivals appropriated for the parching of corn, and others,[11] observed with equal solemnity, for the erection and preservation of the “termini,” or boundaries of the fields: for these termini, in those days, they particularly regarded as gods; while to other divinities they gave the names of Seia,[12] from “sero,” “to sow,” and of Segesta, from the “segetes,” or “crops of standing corn,” the statues of which goddesses we still see erected in the Circus. A third divinity it is forbidden by the rules of our religion to name even[13] beneath a roof. In former days, too, they would not so much as taste the corn when newly cut, nor yet wine when just made, before the priests had made a libation of the first-fruits.
CHAP. 3. (3.)—THE JUGERUM OF LAND.
That portion of land used to be known as a “jugerum,” which was capable of being ploughed by a single “jugum,” or yoke of oxen, in one day; an “actus”[14] being as much as the oxen could plough at a single spell, fairly estimated, without stopping. This last was one hundred and twenty feet in length; and two in length made a jugerum. The most considerable recompense that could be bestowed upon generals and valiant citizens, was the utmost extent of land around which a person could trace a furrow with the plough in a single day. The whole population, too, used to contribute a quarter[15] of a sextarius of spelt, or else half a one, per head.
From agriculture the earliest surnames were derived. Thus, for instance, the name of Pilumnus was given to him who invented the “pilum,” or pestle of the bake-house, for pounding corn; that of Piso was derived from “piso,” to grind corn; and those of Fabius, Lentulus, and Cicero, from the several varieties[16] of leguminous plants in the cultivation of which respectively these individuals excelled. One individual of the family of the Junii received the name of “Bubulcus,”[17] from the skill he displayed in breeding oxen. Among the sacred ceremonials, too, there was nothing that was held more holy than the marriage by confarreation,[18] and the woman just married used to present a cake made of spelt.[19] Careless cultivation of the land was in those times an offence that came under the cognizance of the censors; and, as we learn from Cato,[20] when it was said that such and such a man was a good agriculturist or a good husbandman, it was looked upon as the very highest compliment that could be paid him. A man came to be called “locuples,” or “rich,” from being “loci plenus,” or “full of earth.” Money, too, received its name of “pecunia,”[21] from “pecus,” “cattle.” At the present day, even, in the registers of the censors, we find set down under the head of “pascua,” or “pasture lands,” everything from which the public revenues are derived, from the fact that for a long period of time pasture lands were the only sources of the public revenue. Fines, too, were only imposed in the shape of paying so many sheep or so many oxen; and the benevolent spirit of the ancient laws deserves remark, which most considerately enjoined that the magistrate, when he indicted a penalty, should never impose a fine of an ox before having first condemned the same party to the payment of a sheep.
Those who celebrated the public games in honour of the ox received the name of Bubetii.[22] King Servius was the first who impressed upon our copper coin[23] the figures of sheep and oxen. To depasture cattle secretly by night upon the unripe crops on plough lands, or to cut them in that state, was made by the Twelve Tables[24] a capital offence in the case of an adult; and it was enacted that the person guilty of it should be hanged, in order to make due reparation to the goddess Ceres, a punishment more severe, even, than that inflicted for murder. If, on the other hand, the offender was not an adult, he was beaten at the discretion of the prætor; a penalty double the amount of the damage was also exacted.
The various ranks, too, and distinctions in the state had no other origin than the pursuits of agriculture. The rural tribes held the foremost rank, and were composed of those who possessed lands; while those of the city, a place to which it was looked upon as ignominious to be transferred, had the discredit thrown upon them of being an indolent race. Hence it was that these last were only four in number, and received their names from the several parts of the City which they respectively inhabited; being the Suburran, the Palatine, Colline, and Exquiline tribes. Every ninth day[25] the rural tribes used to visit the city for the purpose of marketing, and it was for this reason that it was made illegal to hold the comitia upon the Nundinæ; the object being that the country people might not be called away thereby from the transaction of their business. In those days repose and sleep were enjoyed upon straw. Even to glory itself, in compliment to corn, the name was given of “adorea.”[26]
For my own part, I greatly admire[27] the modes of expression employed in our ancient language: thus, for instance, we read in the Commentaries of the Priesthood to the following effect:—“For deriving an augury from the sacrifice of a bitch,[28] a day should be set apart before the ear of corn appears from out of the sheath,[29] and then again before it enters the sheath.”
CHAP. 4.—HOW OFTEN AND ON WHAT OCCASIONS CORN HAS SOLD AT A REMARKABLY LOW PRICE.
The consequence was, that when the Roman manners were such as these, the corn that Italy produced was sufficient for its wants, and it had to be indebted to no province for its food; and not only this, but the price of provisions was incredibly cheap. Manius Marcius, the ædile[30] of the people, was the first who gave corn to the people at the price of one as for the modius. L. Minutius Augurinus,[31] the same who detected, when eleventh tribune of the people, the projects of Spurius Mælius, reduced the price of corn on three market days,[32] to one as per modius; for which reason a statue was erected in honour of him, by public subscription, without the Trigeminian Gate.[33] T. Seius distributed corn to the people, in his ædileship,[34] at one as per modius, in remembrance of which statues were erected in honour of him also in the Capitol and the Palatium: on the day of his funeral he was borne to the pile on the shoulders of the Roman people. In the year,[35] too, in which the Mother of the Gods was brought to Rome, the harvest of that summer, it is said, was more abundant than it had been for ten years before. M. Varro informs us, that in the year[36] in which L. Metellus exhibited so many elephants in his triumphal procession, a modius of spelt was sold for one as, which was the standard price also of a congius of wine, thirty pounds’ weight of dried figs, ten pounds of olive oil, and twelve pounds of flesh meat. Nor did this cheapness originate in the wide-spread domains of individuals encroaching continually upon their neighbours, for by a law proposed by Licinius Stolo, the landed property of each individual was limited to five hundred jugera; and he himself was convicted under his own law of being the owner of more than that amount, having as a disguise prevailed upon his son to lend him his name. Such were the prices of commodities at a time when the fortunes of the republic were rapidly on the increase. The words, too, that were uttered by Manius Curius[37] after his triumphs and the addition of an immense extent of territory to the Roman sway, are well known: “The man must be looked upon,” said he, “as a dangerous citizen, for whom seven jugera of land are not enough;” such being the amount of land that had been allotted to the people after the expulsion of the kings.