The Trial of Jesus from a Lawyer's Standpoint, Vol. 2 (of 2) / The Roman Trial

by Walter M. Chandler

The circuses were scarcely inferior to the baths in magnificence. Caligula is said to have strewn them with gold dust.

The result of Roman luxury in the matter of food and drink was a coarse and loathsome gluttony which finds no parallel in modern life. Epicureanism had degenerated from barley-bread and water to the costliest diet ever known. Wealthy Romans of the age of Augustus did not hesitate to pay two hundred and fifty dollars for a single fish—the mullet. And that they might indulge their appetite to the fullest extent, and prolong the pleasures of eating beyond the requirements and even the capacity of nature, they were in the habit of taking an emetic at meal times. We learn from the letters of Cicero that Julius Cæsar did this on one occasion when he went to visit the orator at his country villa. And the degeneracy of Roman life is nowhere more clearly indicated than in the Fourth Satire of Juvenal where he describes the gathering of the great men of the state, at the call of Domitian, to determine how a turbot should be cooked.

But the reader must not infer that all Romans were rich and that luxury was indulged in every home. In the Roman capital the extremes of wealth and poverty met. The city was filled with idlers, vagabonds and paupers from all quarters of the globe. In the early days of the Republic, sturdy farmers had tilled the soil of Italy and had filled the legions with brave and hardy warriors. The beginning of the empire witnessed a radical change. Hundreds of thousands of these farmers had been driven from their lands to furnish homes to the disbanded soldiers of conquerors like Sulla, Marius, and Cæsar. Homeless and poverty-stricken, they wandered away to Rome to swell the ranks of mendicants and adventurers that crowded the streets of the imperial city. The soldiers themselves, finding agriculture distasteful and unprofitable, sold their lands to Roman speculators, and returned to the scene of the triumphs of their military masters. The inevitable consequence of this influx of strangers and foreigners, without wealth and without employment, was the degradation and demoralization of Roman social and industrial life. Augustus was compelled to make annual donations of money and provisions to 200,000 persons who wandered helpless about the streets. This state of things—fabulous wealth in the hands of a few, and abject poverty as the lot of millions—was the harbinger sure and swift of the destruction of the state.

Slavery.—At the beginning of the Christian era, slavery existed in every province of the Roman empire. Nearly everywhere the number of slaves was much greater than that of the free citizens. In Attica, according to the census of Demetrius Phalereus, about the beginning of the fourth century B.C., there were 400,000 slaves, 10,000 foreign settlers, and 20,000 free citizens. Zumpt estimates that there were two slaves to every freeman in Rome in the year 5 B.C. It frequently happened that a wealthy Roman possessed as many as 20,000 slaves. Slaves who gained their freedom might themselves become masters and own slaves. During the reign of Augustus, a freedman died, leaving 4,116 slaves. Crassus possessed so many that his company of architects and carpenters alone exceeded 500 in number.

The principal slave markets of Greece were those at Athens, Ephesus, Cyprus, and Samos. In the market place of each of these cities, slaves were exposed for sale upon wooden scaffolds. From the neck of each was hung a tablet or placard containing a description of his or her meritorious qualities, such as parentage, educational advantages, health and freedom from physical defects. They were required to strip themselves at the request of purchasers. In this way, the qualifications of slaves for certain purposes could be accurately judged. The vigorous, large-limbed Cappadocians, for instance, like our modern draft horses, were selected for their strength and their ability to lift heavy loads and endure long-continued work.

The property of the master in the slave was absolute. The owner might kill or torture his slave at will. Neither the government nor any individual could bring him to account for it. Roman law compelled female slaves to surrender themselves, against their will, to their master's lust. All the coarseness and brutality of the haughty, arrogant, and merciless Roman disposition were manifested in the treatment of their slaves. Nowhere do we find any mercy or humanity shown them. On the farms they worked with chains about their limbs during the day; and at night they were lodged in the ergastula—subterranean apartments, badly lighted and poorly ventilated. The most cruel punishment awaited the slave who attempted to escape. The fugitavarii—professional slave chasers—ran him down, branded him on the forehead, and brought him back to his master. If the master was very rich, or cared little for the life of the slave, he usually commanded him to be thrown, as a punishment for his attempt to flee, to the wild beasts in the amphitheater. This cruel treatment was not exceptional, but was ordinary. Cato, the paragon among the Stoics, was so merciless in his dealings with his slaves that one of them committed suicide rather than await the hour of punishment for some transgression of which he was guilty.[165] It frequently happened that the slaves had knowledge of crimes committed by their masters. In such cases they were fortunate if they escaped death, as the probability of their becoming witnesses against their masters offered every inducement to put them out of the way. In his defense of Cluentius, Cicero speaks of a slave who had his tongue cut out to prevent his betraying his mistress.[166] If a slave murdered his master, all his fellow-slaves under the same roof were held responsible for the deed. Thus four hundred slaves were put to death for the act of one who assassinated Pedanius Secundus, during the reign of Nero.[167] Augustus had his steward, Eros, crucified on the mast of his ship because the slave had roasted and eaten a quail that had been trained for the royal quail-pit. Once a slave was flung to the fishes because he had broken a crystal goblet.[168] On another occasion, a slave was compelled to march around a banquet table, in the presence of the guests, with his hands, which had been cut off, hanging from his neck, because he had stolen some trifling article of silverware. Cicero, in his prosecution of Verres, recites an instance of mean and cowardly cruelty toward a slave. "At the time," he says, "in which L. Domitius was prætor in Sicily, a slave killed a wild boar of extraordinary size. The prætor, struck by the dexterity and courage of the man, desired to see him. The poor wretch, highly gratified with the distinction, came to present himself before the prætor, in hopes, no doubt, of praise and reward; but Domitius, on learning that he had only a javelin to attack and kill the boar, ordered him to be instantly crucified, under the barbarous pretext that the law prohibited the use of this weapon, as of all others, to slaves."

The natural consequence of this cruel treatment was unbounded hatred of the master by the slave. "We have as many enemies," says Seneca, "as we have slaves." And what rendered the situation perilous was the numerical superiority of the slave over the free population. "They multiply at an immense rate," says Tacitus, "whilst freemen diminish in equal proportion." Pliny the Younger gave expression to the universal apprehension when he wrote: "By what dangers we are beset! No one is safe; not even the most indulgent, gentlest master." Precautionary measures were adopted from time to time both by individuals and by the government to prevent concerted action among the slaves and to conceal from them all evidences of their own strength. To keep down mutiny among his slaves, Cato is said to have constantly excited dissension and enmity among them. "It was once proposed," says Gibbon, "to discriminate the slaves by a peculiar habit; but it was justly apprehended that there might be some danger in acquainting them with their own numbers."[169]

If the Roman masters maltreated and destroyed the bodies of their slaves, the slaves retaliated by corrupting and destroying the morals of their masters. The institution of slavery was one of the most potent agencies in the demoralization of ancient Roman manners. The education of children was generally confided to the slaves, who did not fail to poison their minds and hearts in many ways. In debauching their female slaves, the Roman masters polluted their own morals and corrupted their own manhood. The result teaches us that the law of physics is the law of morals: that action and reaction are equal, but in opposite directions.

Destruction of New-Born Infants.—The destruction of new-born children was the deepest stain upon the civilization of the ancient Greeks and Romans. In obedience to a provision of the code of Lycurgus, every Spartan child was exhibited immediately after birth to public view; and, if it was found to be deformed and weakly, so that it was unfit to grow into a strong and healthy citizen of the Spartan military commonwealth, it was exposed to perish on Mount Taygetus. The practice of exposing infants was even more arbitrary and cruel in Rome than in Greece. The Roman father was bound by no limitations; but could cast his offspring away to die, through pure caprice. Paulus, the celebrated jurist of the imperial period, admitted that this was a paternal privilege. Suetonius tells us that the day of the death of Germanicus, which took place A.D. 19, was signalized by the exposition of children who were born on that day.[170] This was done as a manifestation of general sorrow. The emperor Augustus banished his granddaughter Julia on account of her lewdness and licentiousness, as he had done in the case of his daughter, Julia. In exile, she gave birth to a child which Augustus caused to be exposed. It often happened that new-born babes that had been cast away to die of cold and hunger or to be devoured by dogs or wild beasts were rescued by miscreants who brought them up to devote them to evil purposes. The male children were destined to become gladiators, and the females were sold to houses of prostitution. Often such children were picked up by those who disfigured and deformed them for the purpose of associating them with themselves as beggars.