West, in his “Ancient World,” gives an excellent summary of the bonds which made the Greek world one against all “barbarians” in spite of rivalries among their petty States. He cites (pp. 95-97) the common language and literature; the belief in racial kinship; the Olympian religion, with its games, oracles and amphictyonies, as such forceful bonds of union.
The little land we know as Greece was but a small part of the Hellenic world. Doubtless the eastern shore of the Ægean Sea was as truly Hellenic as Attica or Sparta. And the colonies from that coast to Massilia in the west, and notably in Sicily and Magna Græcia, were of vast importance in spreading Greek speech and ideals through the later Roman world and down into modern times. The political independence of the Greek colony is of interest. A good exercise for some student would be to point out how Marseilles, or Syracuse or Chalcis or Cumæ differed in their relations to the parent States from the relationship of the Philippines to the United States, or of Canada or India to Great Britain. And this topic is another illustration of the truth that save for a few cases like the successful resistance to the Persians, the service of the Greeks to the world has been mainly in the intellectual rather than in the physical and political sphere.
Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero
FOWLER’S RECENT WORK REVIEWED BY PROFESSOR A. C. HOWLAND.
This book on Roman social life in the last generation of the Republic, by the well-known author of “The City State of the Greeks and Romans” and other studies in ancient history, will be welcomed by teachers both of Roman history and of Latin. No other study in English deals with just this aspect of the period, and the easy style and interesting method of presentation make the work especially valuable as collateral reading for classes. Its material has been drawn largely from Cicero’s correspondence and the results of widely-scattered investigations have here been brought together and digested.
The first chapter is devoted to the topography of Rome. After a statement of the principal geographical causes for the growth of Roman dominion (pp. 4-8), there follows (pp. 12-23) a description of the main points of interest within the walls in Cicero’s day, the account being noteworthy alike for its clearness and for its omission of details. A good map at the end of the book enables the reader to fix each feature of the city accurately. The second chapter, on the lower population, is perhaps the most interesting in the book, as it deals with a topic seldom discussed and on which our information is very meager. The subject is discussed under three heads—how this population was housed, how it was fed and clothed and how it was employed. Notwithstanding the contempt felt by the writers of the period for the lower classes, Mr. Fowler makes it evident that an understanding of their environment will explain many an obscure point in the history of the period. Why, for instance, had the old Roman religion fallen into such decay at the close of the Republic? We naturally look for scepticism among the cultured, where the old traditions had been undermined by the sudden influx of wealth and Greek culture, but not among the poor and ignorant, who could have been little touched by such influences. But when we consider the tenement houses in which the poor lived, with whole families occupying but one or two rooms (pp. 28-32), it can be seen that there was no place here for the Penates or the family hearth, that the old domestic rites, which constituted the Roman religion so far as it affected the individual, were of necessity driven out and that the poorer classes were forced to satisfy their religious cravings by substituting the gregarious, non-family oriental cults, with their common temples and services. Here the worshippers could enter into personal relations with a deity as they could not in the indigenous Roman temple, which had to do solely with the State’s worship. The only other point around which the personal religious feeling of the old Roman clung—the family tomb—likewise no longer existed for the poor Roman of the city, who could not afford this luxury, but must see the members of his family cast into a common burying place with many others (p. 320).
As to the employment of the lower classes, it is pointed out that in spite of the contempt for retail trade and the crafts—a feeling similar to that of the higher classes in England and due to the same causes—there were many callings at which free Romans must have worked at this time, including milling and baking, market gardening, shoemaking, the making and washing of woolen clothing, etc. (pp. 42-55). But the inadequacy of legal protection for the poor and the uncertainty of employment made a regular income precarious.
In chapter III there is given an excellent description of the activities and business organizations of the Equites in their capacities both as public contractors (pp. 65-80) and as private business men (pp. 80-94), which throws much light on the sources of wealth and the financial methods of this class. The following chapter, on the governing aristocracy, attempts to classify the various types of the nobility and to illustrate each by a brief sketch of some one of its members. The attitude of the old and new nobility towards each other, the effects for good and for evil of the Greek culture on the various classes, and the frivolity and absence of the sense of responsibility among the younger public men are well brought out. The lively description of Cœlius, the talented, but scatter-brained, young friend and pupil of Cicero (pp. 127-33), is one of the most interesting passages of the book.
After thus taking up the different classes of the Roman population, the author proceeds to discuss the more general aspects of the life of the day under such headings as “Marriage and the Roman Lady,” “Education of the Upper Classes,” “The Slave Population,” “The House of the Rich Man in Town and Country,” “Daily Life of the Well-to-do,” “Holidays and Public Amusements and Religion.” The treatment throughout is fresh and vivid, except in the chapter on public amusements, which is rather uninteresting. Under the subject of marriage, after a discussion of the decay of that institution and the increase of divorce and immorality, we are especially grateful for the story of the long and beautiful wedded life, as found in the so-called “Laudatio Turiæ,” and now told in full in English for the first time (pp. 158-67). There must have been many similar cases of domestic devotion and happiness, but they naturally pass unmentioned in the writings of the time, as they largely do in the literature of our own day. The discussion of Roman education is valuable because it explains the weak points of the system and the way in which these produced many of the moral shortcomings in the men of the day. The question of slavery is viewed from an unprejudiced standpoint. Its influence on the depopulation of the provinces is clearly brought out (pp. 206-10), but it is also shown that its economic effects in Italy were not altogether evil, and that slave labor by no means drove free labor from the market (pp. 213-22). The author holds with Wallon[8] and Seeck[9] that the unrestricted manumission of slaves had on the whole an injurious effect on Roman life and character. The Roman idea of religion, so puzzling to the average student, is nowhere more clearly explained than in the last chapter, and here as elsewhere the treatment is so simple and plain as well as scholarly, that no better book can be placed in the hands of a class.