haskell, h j - new deal in old rome

T H E

NEW DEAL

IN OLD ROME

HOW GOVERNMENT IN THEANCIENT WORLD

TRIED TO DEAL WITHMODERN PROBLEMS

B Y

H. J. HASKELL

NEW YORK • ALFRED A KNOPF • 19 4 7

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK,PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. *

Copyright 1939 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.All rights reserved. No part of this book may be repro-duced in any form without permission in writing fromthe publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief

passages in a review to be printed in amagazine or newspaper.

Manufactured in the United States of AmericaPUBLISHED MAY 15, 1939

SECOND PRINTING, JUNE 1939SECOND EDITION, REVISED, AUGUST 1947

Published simultaneously in Canada byThe Ryerson Press

TO

A L H -

WHOSE ENTHUSIASM TOOK US TO THE

PONT DU GARD, WHERE THIS

ADVENTURE BEGAN

: S ^ ^ O ^ ^ 3 < D ^ ^ ^

PREFACE

AN AMATEUR is, of course, presuming to enter the fieldof the historian. In this case there may be mitigatingcircumstances. Work as a newspaper man has keptme in touch with political and economic problems inthe modern world. I hope familiarity with these prob-lems has given a fresh slant on similar problems in thepast.

To prevent any misconception let me say at theoutset that this book is neither a criticism nor a de-fence of the New Deal. It is an attempt to provide anobjective survey of instances of government interven-tion in the ancient world. Many of these were so likeexperiments tried in the United States in recent yearsthat they may fairly be classed as New Deal measures.I have tried to show what these experiments were,why they were tried, and how they worked. Makingallowance for the differences between ancient andmodern society, I have ventured to call attention tocertain warning signals from the past.

v

PREFACE

While directed primarily at the economic aspectsof the history of Rome, the book is intended to includeenough of the political background to make the eco-nomic aspects intelligible. In the discussion I haveintroduced personal incidents to reveal the Romans ashuman beings, moved by motives and emotions verylike those in modern America.

The failure of the Roman system to furnish decentminimum standards of living for the mass of the peo-ple was a fundamental cause of instability, both po-litical and economic. The decay of character that at-tended the sudden rush of great wealth underminedthe Republic even before it was submerged by civilwars. Later, in a society unstable through social bit-terness, extravagant public spending proved fatal. ABritish commentator, Professor F. E. Adcock of Cam-bridge University, remarks on the price the world fi-nally had to pay for " the gilding of the Golden Ageof the Antonines." The spending for non-productivepublic works, for the bureaucracy, and for the army,led to excessive taxation, inflation, and the ruin of theessential middle class and its leaders. It destroyedthe men whom Leon Homo, French historian, calls,in a brilliant phrase, "the general staff of civiliza-tion." These facts have implications that may bepertinent today.

I have not cited authorities. The ordinary reader,

Vi

PREFACE

I suspect, finds footnotes a rather formidable inter-ruption, and my references should be familiar to his-torians, should any do me the honour to read thebook. I may say, however, that for the sake of myown conscience and for the convenience of consult-ants I have prepared a reference list citing a respect-able authority, I believe, for every statement of fact.Historical soundness has been a constant aim.

So far as I am aware, no historian has collected ina single volume the economic material here used. Ithas therefore been necessary to comb out the relevantmatter from many books and monographs, includingthose of ancient as well as modern writers. Perhapsmy chief debt is to Tenney Frank, M. Rostovtzeff,Frank Burr Marsh, Rice Holmes, W. E. Heitland,Leon Homo, and contributors to the Cambridge An-cient History. The Latin and Greek writers of theperiod, translated in the Loeb Classical Library, pub-lished by the Harvard University Press, have beenan ever present help. Most of the translated quota-tions in this book are from the Loeb Library, withits generous permission. Further I am under heavyobligation to scores of modern historians, such asA. H. J. Greenidge, H. F. Pelham, Sir Samuel Dill,H. M. D. Parker, F. F. Abbott, J. F. Thompson, WardeFowler, T. G. Tucker, Grant Showerman, R. G. Col-lingwood, M. Cary, Eugene Albertini, and Henri

vii

PREFACE

Pirenne — to mention only a few. For the benefitof those who may wish to pursue the subject further,I have supplied a reading list as an appendix.

In preparing the book I have been fortunate in as-sistance from specialists. I am exceedingly gratefulto Professor Marsh for suggestions on many pointsand especially for helping me straighten out variouscomplicated problems in which I found myself in-volved. I have also had frequent and generous aidfrom Professor Arthur T. Walker of the University ofKansas, and Professor Louis E. Lord of Oberlin Col-lege.

To soften the wrath of meticulous classicists, I maysay that I have deliberately tried to keep away fromwords with an archaic flavour that are commonly usedin historical writing. So far as possible I have avoidedLatin words. I have spoken of the Big Business crowdinstead of " equites " or " knights." I have referredto the granaries along the Tiber as " elevators/' Asan aside to historians, I trust they will believe thatI recognize the controversial nature of many of thesubjects discussed — the real object of the Gracchanpublic works, the effect on unemployment, Catiline'splatform when he ran for consul in 63 B.C., Cassar'sfirst land legislation, and so on. In all these cases Ihave followed what has seemed to me the weight ofthe rather insubstantial evidence available.

The history of economic experiments by the gov-

viii

PREFACE

ernment in the Roman world has proved a fascinat-ing field for inquiry. I can only hope the facts setforth in this book will prove as interesting to othersas they have to me.

H. J. HASKELL

The Kansas City StarJanuary 1, 1939

NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION

The reprinting of this volume has given an oppor-tunity to make a few minor changes. Most of thesehave to do with historical comparisons involving thesecond World War.

H. J. H.The Kansas City Star

October 1, 1946

IX

5«33«3«!33*533*X£5S3S3«X53^^

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XL

XII.

XIII.

Beginning an Adventure

When Rome Went Modern

A Tour of Orientation

Early New Deal Experiments

The Get-Rich-Quick Era

The Farm Problem Emerges

Big Business in Politics

The Republic Couldn't Stand

Prosperity

Drift to Dictatorship

Boom and Depression

Prelude to Crisis

The Totalitarian State

Warning Signals

3

18

36

50

73

86

104

134

154

178

194

214

226

XI

CONTENTS

APPENDIX I. Chronology of Roman New

Deal Measures and Other Economic Ex-

periments 237

APPENDIX II. If You Wish to Read Further 242

APPENDIX III. A List of Books 251

INDEX follows page 258

The Italian Maps

The four maps grouped before the first page of text are re-productions of the marble maps set by the Italian Governmenton the brick wall of the fourth-century Basilica of Maxentiusand Constantine in Rome. The wall abuts on the Via dell'Impero, the new boulevard from the Victor Emmanuel Monu-ment to the Colosseum. The maps illustrate the expansion ofthe Roman domain from the Tiber settlement of the eighthcentury before Christ to the Empire at its greatest extent underTrajan early in the second century of the Christian era. TheRoman territory is shown in white, the rest of the world inblack. (Photos by courtesy of the ENIT.)

xii

THE SHEPHERDS SETTLEMENT ON THE TIBER

IN THE EIGHTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

c

BY THE END OF THE THIRD WAR WITH CARTHAGE,

I46 B.C., THE REPUBLIC HAD CARRIED ITS RULE

ALONG THE NORTHERN SHORE OF THE MEDITER-

RANEAN AND ACROSS TO AFRICA.

AT THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS, A.D. 14, WESTERN AND

PART OF CENTRAL EUROPE HAD BEEN BROUGHT

WITHIN THE ROMAN ORBIT, TOGETHER WITH THE

EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN BASIN AND MUCH OF

NORTHERN AFRICA.

UNDER TRAJAN, EARLY IN THE SECOND CENTURY

OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA, THE EMPIRE REACHED ITS

GREATEST EXTENT. IT COVERED THE ENTIRE MEDI-

TERRANEAN BASIN TO THE RIVERS OF ASIA AND

INCLUDED RUMANIA AND ENGLAND.

THE NEW DEALIN OLD ROME

:^5^**x^^^

CHAPTER I

BEGINNING AN ADVENTURE

IT was a drive with Mrs. Haskell .over the Pont duGard in southern France that led to the adventure ofthis little book. Here was a fine stone bridge sur-mounted by an aqueduct that crossed the River Gardnear Avignon at an elevation of 165 feet above thebed of the stream. The aqueduct was built in the timeof Augustus, nineteen hundred years ago. Thesoaring structure stands a monument to the archi-tectural and artistic ability of Rome. Under its spellI began to consider what sort of civilization had pro-duced it. Then the old problem recurred as to thereasons for the decay of the administrative and en-gineering genius that had been required to carryout such an achievement so far from the centre of theRoman world.

THE NEW DEAL IN OLD ROME

The journey that had taken us to Avignon con-tinued through southern France and Italy, down theDalmatian coast, back to Paris, across to England,and north to Hadrian's Wall that had guarded the Im-perial frontier in Britain. The effect was cumulative.I realized as never before that we live in the longshadow of a civilization outwardly as magnificent asthat of the present age. This gave new interest to mydiscovery at the Pont du Gard that Rome had fallen.This phenomenon, I perfectly understood, had at-tracted the attention of writers from Gibbon downto the present time. But for me it assumed a freshsignificance. Returning home full of my discovery,I was discussing it with friends in New York whenKatharine Dayton, playwright, told of a talk withthe eminent historian Professor James H. Breasted,shortly before his death. She had asked him whetherhe had discovered any New Deals in the ancientworld. " Yes, my dear," he had replied, " I've dugup at least a dozen."

This observation opened a fascinating field. Oldand familiar facts took on a new aspect. Of course,as civilization has advanced, every government hasfound it necessary to intervene in social and economicaffairs; to undertake various collective services, toassume certain obligations to the unfortunate, to setthe rules of the game in private enterprise. In theancient empires, in China, in Egypt, in Greece, and

4


especially in Rome, government through the yearshad adopted a series of economic policies, some ofthem strikingly like those of the New Deal. Theycould not be identified by their modern names bypre-depression historians. But there they were — theFarm Debt Conciliation Committee, ResettlementAdministration, Public Works Administration, FoodRelief, Home Owners' Loan Corporation, Agricul-tural Adjustment Administration, Farm Credit Ad-ministration, Price-and-Wage Act — one after an-other of the much-discussed alphabetical agencies.These seemed worth examining to determine theirbackground and development. In spite of profounddifferences between the Mediterranean world ofRome and the world today, there might be lessonsfrom the experiences of the past.

For such a study, it seemed to me, the reader mightfind the best introduction in the sort of survey thathad led to my own interest in the subject. What sortof civilization was it that rose and fell on the shoresof the Mediterranean and through western Europeover a period of a thousand years? Even with theefflux of centuries, the hand of Rome is all over theplace. In the Balkans as a boy I had seen stretchesof the original Roman pavement of the great highwayfrom Vienna to Constantinople. Now on the recentjourney Mrs. Haskell and I inspected fragments ofthe Roman wall that had enclosed London and looked


upon the timbers of a barge that had been part ofthe busy traffic of the Thames nearly two thousandyears ago. Near St. Albans, a few miles north of Lon-don, we saw the remains of the ancient theatre ofVerulamium, with its oyster bar where young bloodstook their girl friends between acts for food and drink.Near by were the handsome mosaic floor and centralheating system of a comfortable Romano-British townhouse.

Driving west from London a hundred miles to Bath,a famous watering-place in Roman times, we lookedagain at the great Roman bath, its floor still coveredwith sheets of lead, ten feet by five, from the Romanlead mines in the Mendips. Going by rail to Carlisle,a few miles south of the Scottish border, we droveeast along Hadrian's Wall to the fort and garrisontown of Houseteads. The wall was built early in thesecond century under the direction of the EmperorHadrian as the first line of defence for the provinceof Britain. It ran serpent-like over hill and dale morethan seventy miles from the Solway on the west coastto the Tyne on the east. Long stretches of it remain.We stood within the foundation walls of the fort —a fort was built every four miles along the wall —and studied the remains of barracks, washroom,latrines, and granaries with elevated floors to keepthe wheat off the ground. In Puck of Pook's Hill Kip-ling wrote vivid chapters about a Romano-British

6


centurion who was stationed on the wall. His familyhad lived in Britain for three hundred years or more." Remember," said the boy's father, when the son wastalking about his future career, " remember we arepeople of the Old Stock and our duty is to the Em-pire. . . . Your place is among the men on the wall."

" Think of it," the young officer told Kipling's Eng-lish children, describing the wall with its long line offorts and settlements that had grown up around them."One roaring, rioting, cock-fighting, wolf-baiting,horse-racing town, from Ituna on the west to Segedu-num on the cold eastern beach! "

There it had stood, the long frontier settlement,with the characteristics of all frontier settlementsdown to the rough cow towns of the Western Ameri-can plains of the nineteenth century.

Britain was conquered by Rome in the middle ofthe first century and for a longer period than fromPlymouth Rock to the New Deal was a Roman prov-ince. For nearly three hundred years of that time,from early in the second century to the latter partof the fourth, the country, except in the north, wasas peaceful as it is today. A garrison and patrollingforce of about nineteen thousand men was kept onthe wall. If invaders broke through this first line theyencountered troops from the numerous forts builtalong the north-south highways. The final defencelay in the great legion camps at York and Chester. A


third legion camp at Caerleon on the north side of theSevern, not far from the present city of Cardiff,guarded the gate to Wales. All together some fifty-five thousand troops made a barrier from southwest tonortheast to protect the civilized southeastern plains.So well was peace maintained that the farm estates offthe great highways did not require the moats for de-fence that were common in the disorders of theMiddle Ages. Fine country villas sprang up andthe Romanized British squires lived in a comfort andsecurity that were not equalled again until the eight-eenth century. In the important matter of centralheating modern Britain still lags behind the Romanprovince. The heating arrangements were destroyedin the barbarian invasions. The barbarians did sucha thorough job that not even a memory of furnacesand hot-air pipes was left to warm the British im-agination. Only in recent years have bold and ad-venturesome Englishmen here and there begun torediscover central heating — what it is and how itworks.

This far outpost of the Empire failed to develop aliterature of its own and we have to depend largelyupon the archaeologists for our knowledge of theprogress of Roman civilization. But there are occa-sional interesting references in contemporary writers.It is amazing that a Greek geographer, Strabo, writ-ing nearly two thousand years ago, should have esti-

8


mated Great Britain as five hundred and fifty mileslong, which is not far wrong. " Most of the island,"he says, " is flat and overgrown with forests, althoughmany of the districts are hilly." Then, as now, theBritish specialized on hunting-dogs and fogs. " Evenon clear days, fogs shut out the sun except for threeor four hours at midday." The modern name Eire, forIreland, appears in Strabo as Ierne, a word of threesyllables with the accent on the second. Its inhab-itants, he writes, are more savage than the Britons.

The climate impressed the historian Tacitus a cen-tury later. He remarks that it was " always damp withrains and overcast with clouds." Because of the " con-stant moisture in the atmosphere and the dampnessof the soil," vegetation grew rapidly. It was too coldfor olives and grapes, but produced wheat abun-dantly. The story is told in his biography of his ablefather-in-law, Agricola, who was sent to Britain tocommand the Twentieth Legion, stationed at Ches-ter, and later to be governor of the province. TheTwentieth was withdrawn, A.D. 401, after a continu-ous service overseas of 358 years. It would be hardto match this record in military history. In the longRoman period, Latin became the language of theupper classes and even spread through the workersin the cities. In the Guildhall museum in Londonis preserved a tile upon which a bricklayer hadscratched in rather bad Latin a comment on the spree

9


of a fellow worker: " Austalis has been wandering offon his own for the last fortnight."

It is curious to find the same love of country lifein Roman Britain that characterizes England today.The province never was urbanized. The well-to-doRomanized Briton preferred to live in the country,as does the modern Englishman. The remains of fivehundred country houses have been found, the resi-dences of the Romano-British squires of the second,third, and fourth centuries.

In Paris, visiting the Cluny Museum, we wereshown the baths of a Roman emperor's palace, one ofthem a room sixty-five feet long and fifty-nine feethigh. Not far away French boys were playing basket-ball in the Arenes de Lutece, the reconstructed Ro-man stadium built in the second century, when Pariswas still the Roman Lutetia. Roman remains are con-spicuous throughout France, especially in the south-ern part. At Nimes pageants are still given in theRoman ampitheatre. A drive of a few miles northfrom Avignon took us to Orange, with its magnificenttriple triumphal arch that has stood for nineteen hun-dred years, and its fine Roman theatre of the secondcentury. Farther on, in Spain, Segovia is still suppliedwith water from the Roman aqueduct entering thecity across a valley on a double tier of arches halfa mile long. The traveller may cross the Tagus Riverat Alcantara on a massive Roman arched bridge. If

10


he motors over the arid North African plains of Al-geria he comes abruptly upon a lonely forest of pillarsand a great triumphal arch, remote from settlements.These are the remains of the veterans' colony of Tim-gad, established by the Emperor Trajan, A.D. 100.

Sailing down the Dalmatian coast across the Adri-atic from Italy, we paused at Pola. Here is a largeRoman stadium of the second century, its walls stillintact, that would delight any American college ath-letic association. It would accommodate twenty-three thousand spectators. Farther down the coast wecalled on Diocletian at his immense country estate atSpalato, now given the atrocious name of Split. Herethe Roman Emperor, the country boy who had gone totown and made good, retired early in the fourth cen-tury to raise cabbages near the scenes of his boyhood.Within its massive walls hundreds of families stilllive. Robert Adam, British architect and designer,visited the spectacular remains, was impressed withtheir magnificence, and returned to London to designAdelphi Terrace in the spirit of the Roman palace.Americans living in comfortable Georgian houses donot realize that their dwellings show the influenceof Diocletian's architects, transmitted through RobertAdam.

From Spalato the traveller may journey seven hun-dred miles to the east and near Smyrna find a greatdouble-arched Roman aqueduct. Out in the Asiatic

11


desert at Baalbek are the Roman ruins that stunnedMark Twain in The Innocents Abroad. Looking atthe impressive remains of the vast Temple of the Sun,built by a Roman emperor of the second century, heremarked that " a race of gods or giants must haveinhabited Baalbek many a century ago." Neithergods nor giants carried out the work, but engineers ofa great race. What a sweep of empire! Speaking ofthe splendid cities that were built from Spain to Asia,from North Africa to the Rhine, M. Rostovtzeff says:" Never, not even in the nineteenth century, did menlive in such a surrounding of beautiful buildings andmonuments as in the first two centuries of the Romanera."

At the centre of this tremendous human achieve-ment stood the capital. Rome has long been a favour-ite objective of American tourists. It has becomedoubly interesting through the competent work ofItalian archaeologists under the direction of Musso-lini, who had a fine sense of historical values. In theold days the Forum and the Palatine hill were ob-scured by a rabbit warren of slums. Today we maypause before the huge mass of the Victor Emmanuelmonument where the ancient Great North Road, nowthe Corso, enters the Piazza Venezia. It was the fa-mous Flaminian Way, called within the city the ViaLata, or Broadway. To the southwest is the new Viadel Mare, which connects with the motor road to the

12


port of Ostia. To the southeast stretches the broadnew Via dell' Impero, which gives an unobstructedview of the Colosseum in the distance. On either sideare the remains of the business district of old Rome,with important additions revealed through the Musso-lini excavations. It must be borne in mind that thesurface of Rome has risen a foot or more a centurythrough the accumulation of dust and debris. Thisaccumulation is being cleared away from famousbuildings to give them their proper setting. Thus themassive tomb of Augustus, in which we attended asymphony concert a few years ago, has been freedfrom encrusting buildings, and the ground about itexcavated to the old city level. Familiar to all touristsis the Pantheon, rebuilt by the Emperor Hadrian.Its dome, 142 feet in diameter, is 142 feet above thepavement. Yet it stands with the concrete as perfectas when it was poured eighteen hundred years ago.The baths of Caracalla, built early in the third cen-tury, are now used for summer opera. Twenty-fivehundred performers can be accommodated on thestage and there is seating capacity for more thantwenty thousand spectators, all within the ancientwalls. A bridge across the Tiber to the island, thePons Fabricius, erected in 62 B.C., is still in use, as isthe bridge that Hadrian threw across the river nearhis mausoleum, the Castel Sant' Angelo, in the sec-ond century. Farther up the river we may cross the

13


Mulvian bridge, built one hundred years beforeChrist. Here, near the monumental athletic field de-veloped by Mussolini, Constantine fought the battlewhose victorious outcome had been forecast by thecross in the sky.

Driving out of the city on the ancient Appian Way,we see the massive yet graceful arches of the Claudianaqueduct, opened A.D. 52, striding across the plain.It is uncertain how much water the eleven great Ro-man aqueducts could supply. The amount probablywas between two hundred and three hundred milliongallons daily. Three of these aqueducts still servethe city. Rome today is famous for its fountains.They were a feature of the ancient city as well. Inthe fourth century, the Gazetteer shows 856 baths,11 great combination baths and athletic clubs, andseveral hundred swimming-pools. Two centurieslater, 13,000 fountains were enumerated.

Julius Frontinus was appointed water commis-sioner of Rome near the end of the first century. Hiselaborate report of the water system and its historyis still the delight of engineers. He tells of his annoy-ance at finding the government was supplying con-siderably more water than was being paid for. Hedeplores the dishonesty of " the watermen whom wehave detected diverting water from the public con-duits for private use. But a large number of landedproprietors also," he adds, "past whose fields the

14


aqueducts run, tap the conduits just to water theirgardens." Incidentally he discusses the use of set-tling-basins to purify the supply. The water depart-ment maintained a working staff of seven hundredslaves.

Visiting Rome in the year of the great Augustanexposition celebrating the two-thousandth anniver-sary of the birth of the first Roman Emperor, we sawthe Empire re-created before our eyes. Plaster re-productions in miniature had been assembled of im-portant buildings, bridges, and aqueducts in everypart of the Roman world. In imagination we trav-elled from Dover Castle in England to Leptis Magnain North Africa; from the baths of Trier, Germany,to the temples of Asia Minor. Spread before us wasa model of Imperial Rome, with scores of magnificentpublic buildings on the scale of the newer buildingsin Washington. We entered a reconstructed Romanhouse with indoor toilet flushed with running water.We saw modern surgical instruments, busts of Romanwomen with hair done in permanent waves; farmtools, field and heavy artillery. On a wall an ingeniouselectric map pictured with coloured lighting thegrowth of the Empire from the original Tiber settle-ment until it covered the Mediterranean basin andwestern Europe. As we entered the rotunda of theexposition building we looked down a long roomthrough the gateway of the fine Augustan temple at

15


Ancyra, the modern Ankara, capital of Turkey. Be-yond the gateway, on a brilliantly lighted platform,stood a reproduction of the idealized statue of theGenius of Augustus, brooding over the wide empirewhich he had organized and to which he had broughtthe blessing of the Roman peace.

At its height Rome had a population probably inexcess of a million. Then a decline set in. The capitalof the Empire was removed to Constantinople —where was the Roman Chamber of Commerce tosubmit tamely to such an outrage? — and the citywas repeatedly plundered by barbarians. Visitors inthe early Middle Ages speak of its being "all bututterly in ruins," like " a village of herdsmen: sheepand cows wandered in the city/' At the end of thefourteenth century its population was estimated atperhaps twenty thousand. The site of the Forum,originally pasture land, reverted to its ancient use.It was called the Campo Vaccino, the cow pasture,within the memory of men whose lives reached intothe twentieth century.

In the light of this survey of the physical aspectsof the ancient Empire the question recurs: How didit come that all this varied ability should finally havefailed? Why should this magnificent civilization havegone down into the night of the dark ages — intowhat an indignant French historian, Ferdinand Lot,calls " an accursed period of history "?

16


We have been considering, however, only the ex-ternals of the Roman world. Before we come to theNew Deal experiments we have still to reconstructin imagination the sort of society that lived in thesemagnificent surroundings and to review briefly thecourse of its development.

17

C N £ K > S X > 2 K ? ^ X ^ ^

CHAPTER II

WHEN ROME WENT MODERN

"THE CREDIT of the Roman money market," saidCicero in one of his speeches," is intimately bound upwith the prosperity of Asia; a disaster cannot occurthere without shaking our credit to its foundations."This curiously modern remark indicates the high de-gree of the commercial organization of the ancientworld. In the time of Cicero, in the last century be-fore Christ, wealthy Romans were busily exploitingthe eastern provinces. Companies of contractorswere organized to construct public works and to col-lect government revenues, from which the contractorstook a large cut. They sold shares in offices on theVia Sacra, the Wall Street of Rome. Everybody, saysthe Greek historian Polybius, meaning all the country-club crowd, bought them. Exactions in the province

18


of Asia were so heavy that the way was prepared forthe concerted massacre on one day of eighty thousandItalians at the instigation of the native ruler of an ad-joining kingdom. We may imagine how the bottomdropped out of Asiatic stocks on the Roman marketwhen the news came.

Under the Augustan peace a half-century later, or-der was imposed on the provinces, roads were re-paired and extended, trade routes were protected,and with virtual free trade throughout the Westernworld prosperity flowed over Rome. For two hun-dred years this peace endured. In a famous passageGibbon wrote that " if a man were called to fix theperiod in the history of the world during which thecondition of the human race was most prosperousand happy, he would without hesitation " name thelast half of this period to the death of the EmperorMarcus Aurelius. With important reservations, thereis reason for this enthusiasm. The reservations in-volve the slaves and the submerged class of free citi-zens, who together constituted an important part ofthe population of Italy. The condition of most of theslaves was wretched; that of the submerged freementhoroughly unwholesome. They got a bare livingthrough public and private relief and were kept en-tertained by the brutal gladiatorial contests and othergames — the familiar " bread and circuses " of Juve-nal. But ignoring the unhappy lot of these classes, as

19


the " best people " of the time ignored it, we may turnto the splendid achievements of the two centuries ofpeace.

Rome itself, the capital of an empire which mayhave included seventy million inhabitants, was trans-formed by Augustus into a magnificent city; he" found it brick and left it marble/' It had its policeand fire departments. Traffic jams in the business dis-trict had become such a problem in the time of JuliusCaesar that all vehicular traffic, chiefly trucking, hadbeen ordered off the streets by day. The orderbrought bitter complaints from the residents of thedistrict. The rumbling of the trucks kept them awakeat night. With the growth of the city, real-estatevalues increased and apartment houses sprang up,some of them so sleazily built that they collapsed.Augustus was forced to set a limit of six to sevenstoreys on the height of buildings. Later this wasreduced by one storey.

The immense burst of prosperity that followed theaccession of Augustus a few years before the begin-ning of the Christian era was based on a series of en-lightened Imperial policies, plus government spend-ing of the treasure seized in Egypt. A war-torn worldwas given the Pax Romana; in the words of the elderPliny, " the boundless majesty of the Roman peace."Property was protected and trade routes made safe.Both private and public exploitation of the provinces

20


was limited by the organization of an efficient andhonest Imperial civil service that gradually spreadthroughout the world. Finally, transportation was de-veloped to a point that was not again reached inEurope until the advent of steam in the nineteenthcentury.

While there was fighting to round out the Empireand while a few sporadic revolts occurred, the frontierwars no more disturbed the general peace than thefighting in Africa and on the Indian border disturbedVictorian England. Pirates were cleared off the seasand police boats patrolled navigable rivers. Therewere scattered stations of Imperial police. Except forthese, the traveller could proceed from Rome toParis, and a few years later to London, without seeinga Roman soldier. He would find evidence of the Em-pire's military forces only in the frontier camps alongthe Rhine or at Chester and York, where the legionskept their ceaseless watch.

Virgil, who like Rudyard Kipling was the poet ofempire, saw in the rise of Rome " a new hope for thehuman race, a hope of peace, of order, of civiliza-tion." In a few famous lines in the ALneid he sumsup his conception of the mission of his people. Otherraces, he says, may have more skill in the arts, maybs able to trace the paths of the stars in their courses." Remember thou, O Roman, to rule the nations withthy sway. These shall be thine arts — to crown

21


Peace with Law, to spare the humbled, and to tamein war the proud/' In the same spirit, although notwith the same organ music, Kipling wrote: " Take upthe White Man's Burden."

Dollar diplomacy had been one of the movingforces in building the Empire; desire for slaves, plun-der, and land. In view of this acquisitive motive andof the terrible cost in human suffering that had at-tended the progress of the Roman eagles we might,with a modern critic, Burton Rascoe, impute hypoc-risy to the poet and call him the publicity agent fora plunderbund. That would be unfair. It would in-volve judging the ancient world by moral standardsthat are only imperfectly accepted today. Even Po-lybius, writing in the brutal days of Republican impe-rialism, a century and a half before Virgil, could saythat the Roman Empire was " the best thing that For-tune ever did for the world." Once the vast domainconquered by the Republic had been provided withdecent government during the first two centuries ofthe Empire, conditions rapidly improved. For a timeit looked as if Virgil's noble conception of Rome'smission might be realized.

The civil service organized by Augustus and per-fected by his successors probably was not againequalled until the development of the German civilservice in the eighteenth century. Indeed, it becameso devastatingly efficient that it finally superseded

22


even local governments and helped to destroy thesense of social responsibility of the natural leaders.How carefully the Imperial government looked afterdetails of administration is shown by official corre-spondence of the second century between the Em-peror Trajan and Pliny the younger, Governor ofthe Asiatic province of Bithynia. Thus Pliny, who wasa good deal of a fuss-budget, reports that the citizensof Nicaea have started to rebuild on a larger scalethe gymnasium that had burned some time before.But he fears the money they have voted for the projectwill be wasted, because it is badly planned and ram-bling. Also the architect is complaining that the walls,erected under the supervision of a rival, are not strongenough to support the superstructure.

The answer shows some impatience on the part ofthe Emperor. The Governor, he says, is on the spotand ought to know what should be done. "Thosefool Greeks have a foible for gymnasia, so perhaps thecitizens of Nicaea have been too ambitious in theirplans. They must be contented with a building thatwill be adequate for their needs."

Again Pliny writes that the water system of Ni-comedia is in a mess. Large sums have been spenton two aqueducts, and neither is completed. Hethinks the second might be extended and put intouse. Trajan replies that he may use his own judg-ment, as the city must have water. But he suggests

23


an inquiry to learn whether the money had not beensquandered by collusion with contractors.

The foundation of the transportation system thatbound the Empire together was a vast network ofhighways, the famous Roman roads. Sixteen roadsconverged in ancient Rome, of which seven camefrom the Alps or the sea. Their focal point was theGolden Milestone set up by Augustus in, the Forum.This was a column sheathed in gilded bronze uponwhich were engraved the names of the chief citiesof the Roman world and their distances from thecapital. At its height the Empire was gridironed byforty to fifty thousand miles of highway, of whichthirteen thousand miles were in France and five thou-sand miles in Britain.

It was possible to travel over these roads acrossEurope, northern Africa, and Asia Minor at the rateof fifty miles a day. At the beginning of the last cen-tury it took an American traveller six days of harddriving by stage to go from Boston to New York.The principal streams had to be crossed by ferry. ARoman traveller could have made the same distancein greater comfort in five days, crossing the riverson massive stone bridges. Under military necessityCaesar once journeyed seven hundred odd miles ineight days, ninety miles a day from Rome to Genevain a hired carriage, and we have the record of an Im-perial messenger who covered three hundred and

24


thirty-six miles in Spain in thirty-six hours. The jour-ney between London and Rome took as long at the be-ginning of the nineteenth century as at the beginningof the first. In 1834 Sir Robert Peel was unexpectedlysummoned from Rome to London to form a cabinet.He was a month on the way. In 54 B.C. Csesar sent aletter from Britain to Cicero in Rome. Cicero wrotehis friend Atticus that the letter was sent September 25and that it arrived October 24. Nearly nineteen hun-dred years later Peel was able to make no better time.

The great network of roads was of immense valuefor commerce. But primarily it was a military systemover which troops could speedily be transferred fromone part of the Empire to another for the protectionof the frontiers. Also it enabled the central govern-ment to keep in close touch with provincial admin-istration. The Imperial posts went through by ponyexpress in time that was not equalled again untilthe advent of railroads. Private correspondence wasfacilitated, although for such correspondence messen-gers were used from staffs privately employed. Pro-fessor Breasted describes letters found in Egyptwritten by a young Egyptian recruit stationed on anorthern frontier to his father and sister in a littlevillage on the Nile. People were able to travel freelythroughout the Empire, and great travellers the Ro-mans were. There was no modern fanaticism of race,colour, or language to make travelling disagreeable.

25


In the north of England has been found a tombstonecommemorating a native of Palmyra in an oasis ofthe Syrian desert. He had migrated to Britain, hadmarried a British woman, and had died in that dis-tant land, still a Roman.

Shipping was developed for freight and passengertraffic. A city of a million population like Romerequires a well-organized food-supply. Grain-shipsplied regularly between its port, Ostia, and the wheatcentres in Sardinia, Sicily, Spain, Africa, and Egypt.Along the Tiber at the foot of the Aventine were largegrain elevators and warehouses in which were storedthe commodities brought up the river from Ostia.Merchantmen used sails. War galleys depended pri-marily on oars, with sails for auxiliary power. TheVatican obelisk was brought from Egypt in a speciallyconstructed ship of 3,200 tons displacement. It couldhave carried 500,000 bushels of wheat. The averageRoman ship was perhaps 200 feet long and 50 wide,with a carrying capacity of 250 tons. St. Paul's shipcarried 276 persons as well as a cargo of grain. Wehear of one ship that could carry 600 passengers.Commerce was so well organized that when a vesselreached Puteoli, an important port near Naples, thenews was semaphored to Rome.

Early in the reign of Augustus there were 120 mer-chantmen in the trade with India. In favourableweather a Roman merchant could send a letter to his

26


agent in Alexandria, the Liverpool of the Mediter-ranean, in ten days. A traveller could leave the finedocks of Ostia and land in Spain within a week. Par-ties of wealthy Romans used to take the Mediter-ranean cruise or go up the Nile. In the older landsto the east, Greek was the polite language and thelanguage of commerce, much as French is today. Inthe newer lands of the west, corresponding toAmerica, Latin was generally spoken.

While there were no public elementary or second-ary schools, the private schools in the early gradeswere cheap, and pretty much everybody learned thethree R's. The poorer children then dropped out tofind work if possible. But the boys of well-to-dofamilies went on, although the curriculum was nar-row. It was the thing for the sons of wealthy familiesto go to college at Athens. A Roman could send adraft to his son for university expenses, and theboy might be spending the money within a week.Bad weather, slowing down transportation, mightlengthen the time to a month. The story of Cicero'sson, Marcus, should appeal to many American parentswith children of college age. The boy wanted to en-ter the army, but his father insisted that he go toAthens to finish his education, and provided him anallowance of four thousand dollars a year. Athenswas no place for a poor lad. Away from home re-straints, Marcus indulged his tastes. He was proud

27


to be known as the hardest drinker in the city. In-stead of attending lectures, he was always goingto entertainments and dinners. Cicero undoubtedlywas distressed when he learned what his son was upto. Perhaps he remonstrated, as may be inferredfrom a letter that has been preserved, from Marcusto Tiro, his father's confidential secretary. The boywrites that he is terribly sorry for the way he has beenwasting his time, and he assures Tiro he has begunto lead a better life. He is always inviting one of hisprofessors to dinner and they sit up late discussingproblems of philosophy. He has cut all his old friendsand he associates only with members of the faculty.Finally he admonishes Tiro: "Take care of your-self so we may be able to talk science and philosophytogether when I get home." It is a safe guess thatMarcus expected the letter to be shown to his fatherto prepare the way for the suggestion that a largerallowance would be appropriate for such a studiousyoung man.

Rome was pre-eminently an agricultural state. For-tunes were made by shrewd speculators in provincialreal estate, by public contracting companies, and bymoney-lenders. But with the advent of Augustus," this thrifty, respectable, long-headed and long-livedrepresentative of the Italian middle class," as H. A. L.Fisher calls him, commercial pursuits became morerespectable, although it was never really fashionable

28


to be " in trade." In the two centuries of peace, in-dustry developed to the verge of mass production.Here, however, we must bear in mind the "pecul-iar institution " already mentioned. Slavery deeplyaffected the Roman world and differentiated it fromthe world today. Italian industry, like much of Italianagriculture, was based on slave labour. Later weshall consider some of the disastrous consequencesof this social system.

Although Horace refers to " the smoke, wealth, andnoise of prosperous Rome," the capital, like Washing-ton, never became a great manufacturing centre.Household goods were made, including lamps andluxury furniture. There was a considerable produc-tion of lead pipe, and we read of an establishmentin which paper was manufactured from Egyptianpapyrus. Brick-making was the chief industry. Itunderwent a large expansion to supply materials forthe rebuilding of Rome after the great fire of Nero'sreign. But factories sprang up in many bustlingItalian towns. Terracotta lamps made by Fortis, innorthern Italy, with the name stamped on them, havebeen found all over Europe and even in Britain. Wemay still see them in museums. There was large-scaleproduction of pottery, metalware, glass, and paper. Amixing-tank of ten thousand gallons' capacity wasused in the pottery works at Arretium, the modernArezzo. Arretine red glazed tableware was used ex-

29


tensively in the Empire. The Cornelius factory em-ployed forty designers. When the technique of glass-blowing was discovered, prices fell so that a glasscup and saucer could be bought for a cent, and win-dow glass became available.

Puteoli captured a large share of the world's irontrade. Ore from Elba was brought there and smeltedwith wood from the neighbouring forests into what awriter of the time calls " a spongy mass," and thenworked into agricultural implements, weapons, andknives. For a significant reason, of which I shallspeak later, the process of making cast iron was notdiscovered until the fourth century, and so mass pro-duction did not develop. A factory system for themanufacture of copper and bronze utensils, however,was built up and the exports went as far north asScotland and Sweden. There was a thriving tradewith the East as far as China. " Every peasant's wifeof the country beyond the Po," the elder Pliny says," wears amber trinkets, and every servant girl has asilver mirror."

At the same time large-scale farm production ofwine and oil contributed to the export trade. In theneighbourhood of Pompeii excavations have re-vealed the remains of wine- and oil-presses, store-houses, and forwarding departments, with dormito-ries for the slaves. In the Po Valley Pliny says winewas made in vats " bigger than houses." Italian wine-

30


containers have been found in the Danubian coun-tries, in Roman Germany and Britain, as well as inFrance, Spain, and North Africa.

There were no newspapers, but Caesar had intro-duced shorthand stenographers in the Senate and aCongressional Record was published in the AdaDiurna, the Daily Record, issued by the government.It was posted in the Forum and a corps of copyistsmade a fair living by reproducing it, or excerpts fromit, and sending copies to out-of-town subscribers whowanted to keep in touch with the news and gossipof the capital. From incidental references to theDaily Record it is inferred that it contained lists ofbirths and deaths, a statement of treasury receiptsfrom the provinces, information about the grain-supply, edicts of magistrates, wills of prominent men,reports of trials, news of the Imperial court, and elec-tion returns. Apparently, too, divorces and scandalsin high society were reported. In short, the DailyRecord was the forerunner of the modern newspaper.

Books were plentiful. Every wealthy gentlemanhad his library and there were twenty-eight publiclibraries in Rome in the fourth century. Provincialcities also had their libraries, often the gifts of Ro-man Andrew Carnegies. Authors were out of luck;there were no copyright laws. Publishers maintainedstaffs of slaves who copied manuscripts from dicta-tion. Occasionally a publisher would buy a manu-

31


script from an author, but there always was clangerof competition from pirated editions cheaply got outand poorly copied. There were bookshops near theForum in " Booksellers' Row," and the names andprices of books were inscribed on pillars at the doors.The equivalent to a modern book of thirty pagesmight be issued for twenty cents. School books usu-ally cost less than a dollar.

The law in Rome was an honourable and profitableprofession. In the earlier days a law was enacted pro-hibiting the payment of fees to lawyers. Theoreticallythe lawyer was at the service of all who applied tohim. It was an aristocratic law, like the old Englishprovision against paying members of the House ofCommons. Only the rich could afford to practise,just as only men with resources could serve in theCommons. Gradually the law became a dead letter,and by the time of the early Empire, lawyers wereauthorized to accept fees not in excess of five hun-dred dollars. Clients recognized that they receivedbetter service if their lawyers were rewarded. Vari-ous means were found through gifts or legacies to getaround the statute. When Cicero bought his expen-sive house on the Palatine, he borrowed from clients.One lent him a hundred thousand dollars, and whenCicero was attacked in the Senate for taking themoney, he laughed it off. He estimated his legacies

32


at more than a million dollars, a large share fromclients.

But the supply of lawyers was, as always, greatlyin excess of the demand. The run-of-the-mine attor-ney could barely make a living. " Put in one scale,"Juvenal wrote, " the estates of one hundred lawyers,and you may balance it in the other with the singlefortune of a racing magnate."

While lawyers had excellent social standing — in-deed, the law was a common stepping-stone to highpublic office in Rome as it is today in America — thedoctors, along with architects and even engineers,were regarded as socially inferior. The stigma camefrom the fact that so many of the medical practition-ers were Greek slaves. Rich men often kept theirown physicians. Anyone might practise, and quacksabounded. But medical science had made progressand specialists began to appear. Medicine and sur-gery rarely were practised by the same man. Therewere oculists and dentists. Teeth bound togetherwith gold have been found in Italian tombs, and oneof the Roman satirists makes fun of a lady whose falseteeth were prominent.

Physicians and surgeons of high reputation com-manded good fees in the Imperial period. One of theemperors paid his personal physician twenty-fivethousand dollars a year. Two medical partners left a

SS


joint estate of a million dollars. In the reign of Neroa famous surgeon was called from Marseilles to per-form an operation in Italy. He received a fee, includ-ing his travelling expenses, of ten thousand dollars.

Wealthy Romans lived in houses in many respectsas comfortable as those in America of the last century.These houses had bathrooms with hot and cold water,libraries, dining- and drawing-rooms. There is a de-lightful letter from the younger Pliny describing hisseaside villa with its windows commanding views ofsea and mountains, its swimming-pool and tenniscourts. The larger houses, especially in the colder cli-mates of Gaul and Britain, had central heating. Hot-air systems were used. In most of them the heatedair was carried under the floors to hollow tiles in thewalls from which the heat was radiated. In some,however, with charcoal-burning furnaces, the hotgases were admitted through registers from the wallflues.

Even after the decay of Rome and Italy the samesort of pleasant living survived in France to the endof the fifth century. " It was as though," says an Eng-lish archaeologist, Stanley Casson, " England hadbeen overrun and almost destroyed while British cul-ture still survived in Australia." We have descriptionsof this life in the letters of a Gallo-Roman countrygentleman, who later became a bishop. Sidonius hada villa in the lovely hill country of southern France

84


near Clermont. He describes it with its library, itsdining-room equipped with an open fireplace, itsbaths, its hunting and dinner parties. But already thebarbarians had broken through and Sidonius was un-easy. However, he could not believe his civilizationwas doomed. " Providence," he wrote a friend, " Idoubt not will grant a happy issue to our prayers andunder new blessings of peace we shall look back uponthese terrors as mere memories."

Providence failed him. Within a few years afterhis death the handsome villas had been burned, thecities were shrinking and drying up, and the sort oflife he knew had vanished from Europe. It took thir-teen hundred years for the world to build back to thelevel of comfort in which Sidonius lived in his villain the French hills.

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^&^&?&^&^S\^&?&^S^

CHAPTER III

A TOUR OF ORIENTATION

Important Dates in the Tour

1000 B.C. — Shepherds' settlement on the Tiber.753 B.C. — Traditional date of founding of Rome.

509 B.C. — Republic established with overthrow ofmonarchy.

509-265 B.C. — Unification of Italy.264-133 B.C. — Period of rapid territorial expansion.133-31 B.C. — Revolutionary era, culminating in

civil war, ending in battle of Actium and disap-pearance of the Republic.

31 B.C.-A.D. 235 — Empire established, with Romanpeace; Golden Age.

235-284 — Military anarchy.284-476 — Totalitarian state and end of Western

Empire.

36


ON a visit to Athens we were called upon by a learnedguide with a large supply of dictionary English. " Be-fore I conduct you to the Acropolis and other placesof historical interest," he said, " we must first under-take a tour of orientation to acquire a general concep-tion of the city/' His plan quite justified itself inpractice. In the next few pages we shall make a brieftour of orientation of Roman history. Such a tourshould provide a framework for the events we areabout to consider and clear up some of the confusionin which they often seem enveloped.

There is no more concise and vivid summary of theRoman achievement than was given in a public ad-dress a few years ago by a prime minister of England." Only a few short years after the fall of Troy," Stan-ley Baldwin said," there was but a settlement of shep-herds on the Palatine hill. Yet within a thousandyears the tramp of the Roman sentinel was heardalong the Wall; his watchfires illuminated the watersof the Euphrates; the hand of Rome reached from theBiscay to the Euxine, from the Danube to the Nile."

Speaking to the British Classical Association, hedid not need to remind his hearers that Troy fell a lit-tle less than twelve hundred years before Christ; thatby 1000 B.C. a few Latin shepherds had settled on alow hill some fifteen miles above the mouth of theTiber; that within the next two centuries they had be-gun to spread out; that they had consolidated their

37


rule over Italy and then had entered upon an era ofspectacular expansion that took the Roman sentinelto Hadrian's Wall in the northwest, across Europeand beyond the Black Sea to the rivers of Asia, alongthe coast of North Africa, and northwest from theMediterranean to the shores of the Atlantic and theBay of Biscay.

This was the achievement. It was followed by cen-turies of disintegration. The driving energy that hadbuilt the Empire finally failed. The barbarians fil-tered into its lands and gradually civilization died outof Europe. Any lessons for modern times must bedrawn from a consideration of both the achievementand the decline.

Roughly, the history of Rome which we are to sur-vey covers a period of a thousand years, dividedsharply in the middle shortly before the birth ofChrist. For the first five hundred years the city-statethought of itself as a republic governed by a councilof Elder Statesmen, the Senate, in conjunction withassemblies of all citizens and with elective magis-trates. For the last five hundred the governmenthardened into an autocracy, " despotism temperedby assassination." The Republic finally disappearedshortly after the murder of Julius Caesar; the Empirebegan with the accession of Augustus.

It may help us get our bearings to note the periodsto which some of the most familiar Roman names be-

88


long. Most of them are grouped in the last centuryof the Republic and the first century of the Empire.To the Republican century belong the brothers Grac-chus, social reformers; Catiline, the famous conspira-tor; Cicero, lawyer, statesman, practical philosopher," Rome's least mortal mind," Byron calls him; Lucre-tius, Voltairian poet; Catullus, the young John Keatswho fell for " the burning eyes of Clodia," the Lesbiaof his poems; Julius Caesar, the universal genius.With the Empire came Virgil to celebrate the eternalmission of Rome; Horace, the gifted writer of lightverse; Livy, the nostalgic historian of the Republic;Seneca, multimillionaire moral essayist whose prac-tice, observes an acid Greek chronicler, Dio Cassius,unhappily fell considerably below his preaching; Tac-itus, grand, gloomy, and cynical historical writer; Ju-*venal and Martial, who satirized the smart set; and acentury later the lonely figure of Marcus Aurelius,who wrote in Greek his meditations by the light ofthe campfires of his military campaigns.

There are important differences in life and temperbetween Republic and Empire. The Republic wascharacterized by self-reliance and rugged individual-ism. Under the paternalism of the Empire Romeswung to the opposite extreme and became, in thewords of Tenney Frank, a nation of " coupon-cutters."" Coupon-cutting on a large scale," he adds, " doesnot make for national morale." In a famous passage

39


Gilbert Murray speaks of the growth in the later Im-perial period of mysticism and pessimism. There was,he says," a loss of self-confidence, of hope in this life,and of faith in normal human effort . . . an indiffer-ence to the welfare of the state . . . a failure ofnerve/' Nerve and the failure of nerve! These twophrases characterize Rome in its periods of achieve-ment and decline. Characterize, but do not explain.We have still to explore the causes behind these de-scriptive phrases.

Each of these two long eras has its own subdivi-sions. The little shepherds' settlement near the mouthof the Tiber had become a thriving market town. Forthe first two hundred and fifty years after it had over-thrown its early kings it was busy with the unifica-tion of Italy. It achieved this task, as later it roundedout its vast empire, with no set purpose, but haphaz-ard, as conditions arose that seemed almost to force itto extend its frontiers. In the get-rich-quick era ofrapid territorial expansion that followed, lastingnearly a century and a half, social bitterness and gov-ernmental incompetence developed to a point wherethey threatened to destroy the state. This led tonearly a hundred years of civil war and the revolutionin which the decaying Republic collapsed before aseries of military dictators. Their successor, Augus-tus, founded the Empire and inaugurated the GoldenAge of two centuries of the Roman peace. The death

40


of Marcus Aurelius, A.D. 180 — or, more exactly, thebeginning of the military anarchy a half-century later— marks the division between the Imperial splendourand the final long decay.

As the Roman settlement emerges into the light ofhistory, its people show substantial qualities ratherthan brilliance. They are simple farmers, rude andunlettered. Certain traits stand out. They have afierce energy controlled by common sense. They sub-mit readily to discipline. This discipline, combinedwith courage and persistence, makes them successfulsoldiers. The stern old New England virtues of thePuritan fathers characterize the early Romans. Theyhave seriousness, self-restraint, industry, persever-ance. As they develop they are distinguished by ahard-headed practicality, immense organizing ability,and a sense of justice.

As we are concerned primarily with the interven-tion of government in the economic life of the peo-ple, it is interesting to observe for a moment the prac-ticality of the Romans in contrast with the moretheoretical qualities of their brilliant neighbours theGreeks. In their attitude we are reminded of the atti-tude of the French toward the Germans and theGermans toward the French between the last twogreat World Wars. With their devotion to things ofthe spirit, the French looked with dread toward thepowerful mechanical civilization to the northeast.

41


They feared this great juggernaut might some day rolldown over them, crushing out all that made lifeworth while. The Germans, for their part, admiredFrench culture and esprit, but deplored what they re-garded as the French lack of order and precision, anddeficiency in organizing ability. It will not do to pressthe analogy too far. We recall German music andFrench thrift and practicality. But the parallel illu-mines some aspects of the ancient world.

The Greeks were a highly endowed people. Drivenby endless curiosity, they produced a philosophy, lit-erature, and art to which the modern world is pro-foundly indebted. They failed in the field of politicalorganization, administration, and law. The Greeksalways were involved in bitter squabbles betweencommunities. As someone has said, they seemed to bechildren in a world of action. They regarded the Ro-mans as boors. In turn, the Romans looked down onthe Greeks as clever, but slick and unsubstantial. Cic-ero in his Tusculan Disputations makes a discrimi-nating analysis of the two peoples. In learning andall branches of literature, he says, the Greeks are su-perior. But the Romans excel, he thinks, in morality,in dignified family life, in law, in government, and inthe art of war.

Rome constantly borrowed from Athens andadapted Greek culture to its own ends. Such obliga-tion was felt to the older civilization that in the sec-

42


ond century before Christ, in an outburst of what hasbeen called " sentimental politics," Rome went to therescue of the Greek cities from an oppressor. It wasa crusade in something of the same sentimental spiritin which the United States intervened in Cuba in1898. At the end of the war, to the astonished delightof the Greeks, the Roman army withdrew, as theUnited States withdrew from Cuba, although laterRome was forced to return.

The extreme practicality of the Romans proved ahandicap to their higher development. Their lack ofinventiveness stood in the way of progress. A peoplethat despised pure mathematics could not reap thepractical results of the extension of mathematicaltheory.

At the same time, in their human and political re-lations, this same practicality helped them organizethe world in a way that was essential for preservingthe work of the Greek genius for modern times. Com-mon sense, directed by experience, guided them intheir liberal treatment of the Latin communities thatearly came under their control. The conquered citieswere allowed local self-government. The loyalty thuscreated proved the salvation of Rome in the ordeal ofthe great war in which Hannibal, the brilliant com-mander of Rome's chief rival, Carthage, threatenedthe conquest of Italy.

Another shining example of Roman practicality was

43


the development of law. By the middle of the thirdcentury before Christ, traders were putting in at Ro-man ports. Friction arose from the lack of under-standing by foreign merchants of the Roman law ofcontracts. So Rome set up a special court for foreign-ers in which the practices of other nations were rec-ognized. For the first time the Roman Republic re-alized that its procedure failed to take into accountsome of the wider interests of commerce. This was ajolt to local complacency. But under its stimulus theRoman courts directed their efforts to searching outgeneral rules of equity on which decisions might bebased. They became convinced that there was a"natural law" whose principles might everywherebe applied.

It was not until two centuries later that Cicero for-mulated the Roman practice in words that have hada far-reaching influence upon European history." True law," he wrote, " is right reason consonant withnature, world-wide in scope, unchanging and ever-lasting. . . . We may not oppose or alter that law, wecannot abolish it, we cannot be freed from its obliga-tions by any legislature, and we need not look outsideourselves for an expounder of it. This law does notdiffer for Rome and for Athens, for the present andfor the future, but one eternal and unchanging lawwill be valid for all nations and all times. . . . Hewho disobeys it denies himself and his own nature."

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Here was laid down the principle of natural rights,so familiar in the eighteenth century, to which Jeffer-son appealed in the Declaration of Independence. Inpractice, the principle has proved its value throughall the long struggle for human freedom. This para-graph from Cicero, Professor Frank says, "haswrought greater progress in jurisprudence for nearlytwo thousand years than any other statement of thesame length/' Without the Roman law the RomanEmpire could not have carried on.

The unification of Italian life and culture had notbeen completed when Rome stumbled into war withCarthage, the first of a series of wars which were des-tined to give it control of the whole Mediterraneanbasin. In the span of one lifetime in the second cen-tury before Christ was wrought one of the miraclesof history, the conquest of the larger part of theknown world by the vast energy of the Italian farm-ers.

The repercussions upon Rome were tremendousand unexpected. According to the custom of thetime, war captives were sold as slaves. Plunder fromthe conquered provinces, including hundreds of thou-sands of slaves, poured into Italy. With exploitedwealth, the stream swelled to a torrent. The powerof the landed aristocracy was challenged by the newrich, the mercantile and money-lending plutocracy.As always in the break-up of a social system, there

45


was great hardship and suffering. Elective office ac-quired a high commercial value. Government be-came an instrument for private gain. Unscrupulousmen now had the money to buy elections from themasses of unemployed who thronged the capital.Upon a city-state controlled by corruption fell thecrushing burden of governing the world — a burdenwhich it was wholly unprepared to carry.

At a time when Rome seemed likely to collapsefrom internal dissensions, from the struggle betweenthe oligarchy of the rich and the masses of the wretch-edly poor, including slaves, it was again menaced byformidable external wars. From these it was saved bya succession of great commanders. Their brilliantsuccesses proved fatal to the Republic. The old citi-zen armies with which Rome had won the World Waragainst Carthage no longer were available. The gen-erals were obliged to raise and train their own armies.The soldiers' loyalty was no longer to the civil gov-ernment. It was ta the commander who was able toreward them with bonus payments and land grants,which the Senate for various reasons failed to offer.

As the Republic passed into the shadows, Romewas governed by generals whose ambitions led to de-structive civil wars from which the proverbial strongman came to the front in Julius Caesar, the forerunnerof Augustus and the Empire.

Thus after five hundred years the great experiment

46

A TOUR OP ORIENTATION

in self-government failed. It failed because of the in-capacity of the people to deal with new and complexproblems of politics, economics, and national defence,just as the liberal experiment failed in large sections ofEurope in the twentieth century under the impact ofthe problems left by the first World War. It was suc-ceeded by a military autocracy veiled under republi-can forms, just as the democratic governments of Italyand Germany were succeeded by military dictator-ships in which democratic forms were preserved aftertheir life had departed.

To the Roman world, however, an enlightened au-tocracy brought the two hundred years of the Romanpeace. A relatively complex agricultural-commercialsociety had now developed, with a degree of indus-trialization. This society was based on slave labour.We begin to recognize typically modern problems.The unemployment which had followed the wars ofthe Republic was now regarded as chronic, to be dealtwith on a permanent basis. In the last half-century ofthe Republic and the first half-century of the Empirewe find boom years succeeded by years of depressionculminating in panics, which called for governmentintervention. The problem of parity prices for agri-culture developed. Italian agriculture and industrywere faced with severe competition from new landsand the growing industrialization of the provinces.

Then came the closing scene. The Roman peace

47


was succeeded by a half-century of military anarchyin which business was disrupted and wealth redis-tributed. To meet the demands of the soldiers andof the growing bureaucracy, the government resortedto repeated devaluation of the currency, accompa-nied by increasing taxation. The energetic middleclass was hard hit and the poor were further impov-erished. Finally there was complete regimentation ina totalitarian state. The heart had gone out of the peo-ple, and the Empire crumbled.

Each of the periods just outlined is strikingly dif-ferent from the one preceding in political, social, andeconomic aspects. While we are to be chiefly con-cerned with the economic, there were many otherforces in Roman history. No narrowly economic in-terpretation is adequate. Among the factors affectingthe Republic and the Empire were the problems ofoverrapid territorial expansion with the failure to sub-ordinate the military to the civil authorities; politicalinexperience in facing new and difficult conditions;the clash of personal ambitions; the influx of a largeslave population, an uprooted population, as theFrench say, and so a population without character;the destructiveness of wars and great plagues; the" roaring chaos " of the barbarian world beyond thefrontiers. All these affected the destiny of Rome. Butthere is one thread that runs through the entire thou-sand years and helps explain the course of events.

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A TOUB OF ORIENTATION

From the early days of the Republic down throughthe fatal third century and beyond, there is a persist-ent struggle that bursts out, is suppressed, and againbursts out. It is the struggle between the Haves andthe Have-nots. The fortunate classes were corruptedby wealth that largely was unearned. The less fortu-nate were corrupted by their poverty, which Romenever was able to cure. This situation played a largepart in the conquest of culture by the ignorance ofthe submerged masses, including the barbarians wholong had been drifting in and finally came in waves." At first," Professor Lot writes, " the barbarians hadbecome Romanized, but at the end the Romans be-came barbarized."

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i&>&5\3\5&3^^

CHAPTER IV

EARLY NEW DEAL EXPERIMENTS

THE TOUR of orientation of Roman history that wehave just made prepares us for a fuller considerationof those instances of government intervention in socialand economic affairs which became such a conspicu-ous development of the New Deal in America. Inthe first epoch of which I spoke, from the beginningof the Republic through the two and a half centuriesrequired for the unification of Italy under the leader-ship of Rome, the chief recorded domestic issues haveto do with the efforts of the mass of the people to gaina larger share in a government which had been mo-nopolized by the aristocracy. But it is perfectly evi-dent that a desire to right economic injustices was atthe bottom of Roman politics throughout this periodof comparatively simple country life. This was the

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beginning of that long conflict, to which I have re-ferred, between the rich and the poor. Writing of theearly period of the Republic, Livy speaks of a yearwhen there was a "short interval of peace." Thereader can almost hear the sigh with which he ends:" But as usual it was marred by the struggle betweenthe aristocrats and the common people."

Driving past the Capitoline we may see a pair ofwolves in a den carved in the base of the hill. Theyare kept there in memory of the legend of the found-ing of the city in 753 B.C. by the twins Romulus andRemus — or, rather, by Romulus. All Remus had todo with it was to get killed. Most of us have a dimremembrance of the famous story: how the twin ba-bies in line for the Latin throne were exposed besidethe Tiber by order of their usurping wicked great-uncle; and how they were suckled by a she-wolf thatheard their cries. The early history of Rome aboundsin legends, some of them preserved to our advantageby Macaulay in his stirring Lays of Ancient Rome.Livy, who wrote many centuries after the events, isour best source.

His point of view is significant of his age. In hisvery modern preface he speaks of the importance ofrecording the annals of " the foremost world power."Writing at the end of a terrible century of disorder,when Rome seemed to have lost its earlier virtues, hethinks it essential to recall the great days of old. The

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dawn of Roman history, he admits, can be seen onlythrough a mist. The primitive traditions might seembetter fitted for poetry than for historic records. Hedoes not pretend, he says, to distinguish the authenticfrom the fanciful. That task he frankly leaves to thereader. But the old standards are slipping away. Thefuture seems dark with heavy problems. "We canbear," he writes," neither our diseases nor their reme-dies," since luxury has brought " avarice and self-in-dulgence." Therefore he desires to stress the ancientqualities upon which Rome was built. We, as well ashis contemporaries, are indebted to his moralistic in-dustry.

Fascinating as this legendary period is, we mustpass it over to begin with the independent farm-mar-ket town that threw off the domination of foreignkings in 509 B.C., with an enduring hatred of mon-archy and devotion to the self-government of the Re-public. Thus originated the great republican tradi-tion that had immense influence upon the history ofEurope down to the fanatical republicans of theFrench Revolution and beyond. Only a few yearsago there was an old French teacher at Toulouse whoalways removed his black skull-cap when he rever-entially mentioned " la Republique" The early Ro-mans would have appreciated his gesture. The sturdyfarmers of the city on the Tiber gradually expandedinto adjoining communities by conquest. For their

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time they showed amazing moderation and a real in-stinct for statesmanship in devising leagues foundedfinally on voluntary co-operation rather than force.The same instinct for wise moderation was shown indomestic difficulties. Even bitter disputes were set-tled without violence for a period more than twicethat covered by the life of the American Republic.Modern history affords no parallel to this record ofnearly four hundred years. In self-discipline, reason-ableness, readiness to compromise, the early Romansset an example for all time. These were the qualities,as was suggested earlier, through which Rome sur-vived while the more brilliant Greek civilization,for lack of them, disintegrated. They were finallyswamped, as Livy believed, by the growth of luxuryand selfishness. This phase of Roman history carriesuneasy implications for modern America.

To understand the development of the social andeconomic problems that led the Romans to their earlyNew Deal experiments we must glance at their formof government. Like the British, they were a practicalpeople, and their Constitution, like the British, wasgradually hammered out of hard experience to meetchanging conditions. The Romans, Polybius wrote,did not achieve their Constitution by mere thinking,but after many struggles and difficulties they chosewhat seemed the best course in the light of actual ex-perience with misfortune. The system they evolved

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was marred by contradictions and absurdities thatwould have outraged a logical mind. One assemblyof the people was set up beside another with overlap-ping functions. The relation of the upper to the lowerhouse was vague, if we may call a town meeting alower house. There was nothing tidy about the gov-ernment. But the early Romans, in the philosopher'sphrase, were " politically minded animals." The con-servatives were not reactionaries, the liberals were notfanatics. So the system worked.

When the Republic emerged five hundred years be-fore Christ, Roman society already was divided intotwo classes, aristocrats and commons. The old landedfamilies of warriors were the patricians, the aristo-crats. With them dwelt the more numerous humblefolk, the plebs, the commons. These were largelycomposed of war captives and aliens who had settledin Rome: traders, manufacturers, workmen. Onlygradually were the commons admitted to citizenship.

Certain procedures of the earlier monarchy werecarried over into the Republic and strongly influencedthe political institutions of the new regime. The Ro-man kings were not hereditary monarchs like those ofthe Orient. Tradition represents them as elected bythe popular Assembly. Modern research indicatesthat tradition was wrong. The king was a militarychieftain, ruling through his command of the army.He may have designated his successor — as was done

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by the Roman emperors — in consultation with hiscouncil of elder statesmen, the Senate, made upfrom the aristocracy. The choice probably was rati-fied by the Assembly, which was identical with thearmy. The last King, Tarquin the Proud, seizedpower by murdering his predecessor, and governedas a tyrant. His rule was magnificent, as is often thecase with the rule of tyrants. But his oppression ledto the revolution of 509 B.C., and left the legacy of bit-terness to which I have just referred.

The aristocratic Republic which replaced the mon-archy was administered by two consuls of equal au-thority, chosen annually by the Assembly. Thus onecould act as a check on the other and their short termwas expected to curb the ambition of either magistrateto build himself into a king. The Senate was retainedas a council of state. Final control in enacting lawsand electing magistrates rested with the Assembly.The Assembly also was made the court of last resortin criminal cases. No power but the people had theright to pronounce the death sentence on a Romancitizen.

Two assemblies eventually developed, but for prac-tical purposes we need not distinguish between them.Here the big landowning nobles put something overon their fellow citizens. They were outnumbered bythe commons ten to one. But it was arranged that thevoting in the Assembly be done by groups, a majority

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of the groups controlling. By an ingenious gerry-mander a minority of the groups were heavily packedwith commons, while the nobles were scatteredsparsely through the majority, and thus usually wereable to dominate the decisions of the Assembly. Asomewhat similar system exists in the United StatesSenate today, where a population of 100,000 in Ne-vada has the same representation as a population of13,000,000 in New York.

For other very human reasons the senatorial ma-chine became the dominant factor in the governmentof the Republic. The senators were ex-magistrates,mostly from the landed aristocracy. They had a lifeterm. So the Senate was a body of competent expertsand experienced administrators, bound together by acommon economic interest. It met often and, with itsmembership of some three hundred, was a smallenough body to permit free debate. The Assemblywas summoned infrequently by a magistrate whodominated its proceedings. It used to be complainedthat " Czar " Reed and later " Uncle Joe " Cannoncontrolled the House of Representatives. But in theirheyday they had nothing like the power of the mag-istrate who presided over the Assembly. It couldconsider only what he brought to its attention. Thisbody was simply a mass meeting of citizens to whichbills were presented, customarily after they had beenapproved by the Senate. Then it broke up into

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groups for voting. A house with many thousandmembers cannot be a deliberative body. Most of themembers of the Roman Assembly could not hear whatwas under consideration. They were lucky if theyknew what they were voting on.

It may be recalled that the Republican nationalconvention of 1920 was controlled by a little group ofhalf a dozen senators who were referred to as " theelder statesmen." Perhaps a dozen Republican gov-ernors were at the convention. They had no influ-ence. A newspaper correspondent spoke of this con-trast to a governor. " How can we governors acteffectively? " was the reply. " We don't even knoweach other by sight. These senators have been work-ing together for years. They call each other by theirfirst names."

The same sort of advantage rested with the RomanSenate. It was a continuing body, while the magis-trates held office only for a year. The Senate chosethe generals, conducted wars, made peace treaties,decided on alliances, and thus became the arbiter offoreign policy. Most of the time for several centuriesit did an excellent job. Naturally, however, the sena-tors looked upon public questions from the standpointof their own class and its social and economic inter-ests. This attitude led to the clashes that were fre-quent in the history of the Republic. The voting wasdone in Rome. It was possible for an energetic popu-

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lar leader to line up the Assembly against the Senate,especially if he could stir up the farmers to go tothe city to vote. At such times the senators wereoften able to play for delay by inducing one of thestate officials with veto power to annul the Assembly'saction. But if the people were really aroused theycould finally have their way and the Senate wouldyield, sometimes to return later to the attack.

Social and political rights were of slow growth. Inthe early days intermarriage between aristocrats andthe commons was forbidden. The snobbery was car-ried into the field of religion. It was the aristocratictheory that the gods would deal only with aristocratsin matters affecting the state. When the common peo-ple finally won their fight to be admitted to the officialchurch board of augurs, as they won their right tomarry outside their class, Livy reports great indigna-tion among the nobles. Not that they minded, hesays, but they feared the gods would mind, and theyonly hoped and prayed no disaster would befall theRepublic. Roman high society was taking itself prettyseriously.

Economic difficulties, however, were more impor-tant than the social and religious disputes that re-sulted from class distinctions. In this period the diffi-culties centred on debts, interest, and the Romanequivalent to the growth of big business — the ab-sorption of small farms into large estates. In all these

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matters it was possible for government to intervene,and the common people believed, with reason, thatthey would not get a square deal until they had rep-resentation in the high offices of state. The questionof debt had been especially pressing from the earlyyears of the Republic. Small farmers in a year of cropfailure might have to borrow from their richer neigh-bours. Wars were frequent, and when a farmer wascalled to military service he often had to get a loan tomaintain his family in his absence. When he returnedhe had to have help to put his farm in shape after ithad grown up to weeds, to replenish his stock, and tobuy new farm implements. There were so many in-terruptions by military campaigns and production atbest was so small that a farmer once in debt had littlechance of getting out. The creditors who controlledthe government saw to it that the laws concerningdebts were extremely harsh. A debtor might be im-prisoned, enslaved to his creditor, or sold " beyondthe Tiber " into slavery.

A vivid illustration of what was happening is givenin a story of the period told by Livy. A dishevelledold man suddenly appeared in the Forum. He wasrecognized as a former military officer, distinguishedfor valour. To a crowd that gathered he explainedthat while serving in war not only had he lost theproduce of his land through depredations of the en-emy, but his farmhouse had been burned, his prop-

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erty plundered, his cattle driven away. On this ru-ined soldier-farmer a war tax had then been imposedand he had gone heavily into debt. The debt hadbeen vastly increased through extortionate interestcharges and he had lost his father's and grandfather'sfarms and had been enslaved by his creditor.

To dramatize the struggle that developed betweenrich and poor we may introduce the original Romanstandpatter and economic royalist, Gaius Marcius,later given the additional name of Coriolanus, whichfurnished the title of Shakespeare's play. Here wefollow the story told by Plutarch to show Roman feel-ing in a period of class conflict early in the fifth cen-tury B.C. The common people, Plutarch says, werecomplaining of inhuman treatment by money-lend-ers. An invasion was just then threatened by one ofRome's enemies. The commons refused to join thearmy and began to hold pacifist meetings. Alarmedover the prospects, some of the moderate aristocratsurged the Senate to make concessions and " mitigatethe extreme rigour of the law " against debtors. Suchweakness was denounced by Gaius Marcius. Money,he said, had nothing to do with the case. It was amatter of principle; of law and order. If there wereany yielding the common people would be encour-aged to open revolt against the law. How familiar itall sounds!

At this the people staged a general strike. They

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marched out of town to emphasize their refusal to domilitary service. There was no violence, but Plutarchreports they were heard to say that anywhere in Italythey could find air and water and a place of burial,which was all they could expect in Rome, " unless itwere, perhaps, the privilege of being wounded andkilled in war for the defence of their creditors." Thisattitude would never do. So the aristocrats overrodetheir die-hard leader and compromised by allowingthe people to elect tribunes, magistrates who had theright to intervene in any proceeding against a com-moner. Later the tribunes so developed their powerthat they became possible instruments of revolution-ary movements.

While Plutarch's story is not authentic history, itprovides a human setting for certain events of the pe-riod, especially for the peaceful general strike bywhich the commons won their right to be repre-sented among the magistrates. On other occasionsthe people forced concessions by a resort to the samebloodless weapon of the general strike.

Now that the commons had obtained protectionthrough the tribunes against arbitrary action by offi-cials from the upper class, they began agitating forfurther reform. The lives and activities of Roman citi-zens were subject to what might be called the com-mon law, an unwritten mass of customs, as well asjudicial decisions. The commons believed they often

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were victims of injustice because of the uncertaintyof the unpublished law and their ignorance of it.Within a few years they had forced the codificationand publication of the law in the famous Twelve Ta-bles, 451 B.C. While the law of the Twelve Tableschiefly embodied existing practices, it recognized im-portant safeguards for personal liberty and forbadethe death penalty except by sentence of a competentcourt. On this foundation Roman law was developedso that by the middle period of the Republic a citizenwas not subject to arrest in his home, there was noarbitrary action in criminal cases, and the writ ofhabeas corpus " ran hard and fast."

Useful as the law of the Twelve Tables proved tobe, it contributed little to alleviate distress due to badeconomic conditions. The insolvent debtor still couldbe sold into slavery, although he could obtain a shortstay of execution to give him the chance to raisemoney to meet his obligations. Agitation for eco-nomic relief went forward.

We have just considered the most conspicuous ofthe early Roman standpatters. We now turn to thefirst of the New Dealers of the Roman world. Licin-ius Stolo, a tribune, first elected in 376 B.C., was theproduct of a depression — a depression considerablymore prolonged than the one that ushered in the NewDealers in the United States. For more than a cen-tury Rome had been suffering an economic decline

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because of the dislocation of trade by wars. As a cli-max the city was captured and burned by the Gauls.Layers of ashes from that ancient fire have been dis-covered in modern excavations. The conquerors fi-nally were induced to depart by the payment of aheavy ransom. This transaction gave rise to a phrasethat has had a malignant influence on history.

As the gold was being weighed out, a tribune pro-tested that the Gauls were using a false weight in thebalance. Whereupon the Gallic leader threw hissword into the scale, exclaiming: " Vse victis!" " Woeto the vanquished! " — "a phrase," says H. G. Wells," that has haunted the discussions of all subsequentransoms and indemnities down to the present time."

Crops and houses had been destroyed and the ex-pense of rehabilitation was heavy. People were bur-dened with debt, and again protests rose against thesevere punishment of helpless debtors. Roman farmswere small and there was a strong land hunger amongthe farmers. Much public domain had been acquiredby conquest. But the more energetic and prosperousfarmers had taken over a good share of this for a nom-inal rental from the state. The little fellows werecrowded out. Here was another farm grievance.

Fourteen years after the Gallic invasion Liciniusand a colleague came forward with a New Deal pro-gram that included several proposals. The most im-portant was a moratorium on debts. Interest already

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paid could be deducted from the principal and thebalance made payable over a period of three years.There was a Small Holdings Act under which there-after no single individual could hold more than threehundred acres of the public domain. Help was of-fered the unemployed by a provision requiring land-lords to employ a certain proportion of free labourerson farms with their slaves. It was proposed also thatat least one of the two consuls, the highest magistratesof the state, be a commoner. There is a touch of hu-man nature in the gossip related by Livy that Liciniuswas spurred on by his wife, daughter of a nobleman.Her sister was married to a man of her own rank, andit burned up the wife of the tribune, who was a com-moner, to think that because of her marriage she wassocially inferior to her sister.

These proposals evoked bitter protests from theold aristocracy. Anyone familiar with current proce-dure in Congress cannot fail to be impressed with thesimilarity of technique in ancient Rome. In the longstruggle the aristocratic leaders recognized they werein a losing fight. But they thought that if they couldget the various measures separated and introduced asindependent bills, there would be a chance to dosome trading. They would agree to let certain meas-ures through without longer delay if their opponentswould ditch the other reforms. But Licinius and hiscolleague were clever enough to insist on an omnibus

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bill; take it or leave it. On this platform they ran yearafter year and were elected. As tribunes they wereable to block routine legislation desired by their op-ponents. Finally after a ten-year struggle Liciniuswon. Another great political victory had been carriedthrough without bloodshed.

An unpleasant incident growing out of the Licin-ian laws should not shock a generation in Americathat grew accustomed to politicians in the prohibitionera who drank wet but voted dry. A few years afterthe adoption of the Small Holdings Act its sponsor,Licinius, was fined $125 for violating his own law. Itwas found that he was carrying an extra three hun-dred acres of land in his son's name.

While the aristocracy had sourly bowed to the in-evitable and permitted the highest office in the stateto be opened to a commoner, some of the grandesdames refused to be reconciled to this deplorable tri-umph of the lower classes. Shortly thereafter theytore society in the capital wide open by barring fromthe fashionable charity ball the nobly born wife ofa high plebeian official. Her shocking mesalliance,while now legal, made her socially impossible. If wewish to be meticulous we will call it the Festival of theGoddess of Chastity, although it was the ancientequivalent of such a social event as a modern charityball. There was a dreadful commotion in the best cir-cles. The outraged lady refused to swallow the insult.

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She had enough influence to start a rival organization.Henceforth separate aristocratic and plebeian God-desses of Chastity were worshipped in Rome.

But the nobles had sense. After this breach in theirranks they saw the necessity of making further con-cessions. In the next century the Senate no longerwas an exclusive club. If an energetic commonercame stamping up in hobnailed boots and kicked onthe door, he was admitted. He might not be welcome,but he was not barred out. In modern times the Brit-ish nobility adopted the same wise procedure and soavoided building up a powerful opposition with a so-cial and political grievance. The Roman commonerthus admitted to the ruling class soon adopted itspoint of view. Livy quotes a popular leader of thesecond century before Christ as complaining that" the plebeian nobles have all been taken into campby the old aristocrats. When they no longer arelooked down on by the old nobles, they begin to lookdown on the plebeians."

But to get back to the economic features of theLicinian legislation. In the year 367 B.C. we havethree typical New Dealish measures for the relief ofthe underprivileged — a debt moratorium, a SmallHoldings Act, and a Farm-Labour Act. The resultsdid not come up to the campaign promises. The debtmoratorium was useful as far as it went, but it failed tomeet the needs of many hard-pressed debtors. As for

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the other measures, we hear the familiar and not sur-prising complaint that they lacked teeth and were notenforced.

There were enough debtors who could not makethe grade to constitute a formidable pressure group,with a cause that appealed to the public as just. In352 B.C. the government set up a Federal Land Bankworking in conjunction with a Farm Debt Concilia-tion Committee. In this attempt to deal with the farmdebt problem Rome used precisely the method thatwas adopted twenty-three hundred years later in theperiod of the New Deal at Washington. In the longdepression many American farmers had becomehopelessly involved in debt. Under " an Act to Es-tablish a Uniform System of Bankruptcy," machinerywas provided for establishing a Farm Debt Concilia-tion Committee in every rural county. Five men ofstanding in each county were drafted for service. Tothis committee distressed farmers would bring theirmortgages and all their other evidences of indebted-ness, except of taxes. In each case the committeewould decide how much the farmer might reasonablybe expected to pay, and it would then allocate the to-tal amount among the various creditors. Almost in-variably they would accept its judgment and scaledown their claims in accordance with the allocation.A Federal Land Bank would then take a new and rea-sonable first mortgage on the property and in addition

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make what was virtually a second mortgage loan.This cash from the Land Bank would be distributedamong the creditors and the farmer would make afresh start, with his indebtedness reduced to manage-able proportions.

This procedure was followed in Rome, even to thenumber of members of the Debt Conciliation Com-mittee. Livy says the newly elected consuls in 352" made the discharge of debts a concern of the state."They appointed five commissioners of high standing,two nobles and three commoners, who opened officesin the Forum. Debts long in default were brought be-fore them, which they dealt with " in one of the fol-lowing ways: either they paid them out of the treas-ury, taking security for the people first" (that is, theFederal Land Bank made a new loan to the debtor,taking a mortgage on his property as security); orthey settled them upon a valuation at fair prices ofthe debtor's effects (inducing the creditors to scaledown their claims). " And so, not only without injus-tice, but even without complaint from either side, avast amount of indebtedness was cleared off." Pre-cisely. The plan proved as conspicuous a success inhelping American farmers as it proved in helping thefarmers of Rome.

But in Rome imprisonment for debt still was legal.When this was abolished a quarter of a century later

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there was " a new beginning," the historian says, " ofthe liberty of the common people/'

Meanwhile the government found it necessary tointervene by setting maximum interest rates. Shortlybefore the Farm Debt Conciliation Committee startedwork the rate was limited to a trifle above eight percent. There was still complaint, and ten years later,under pressure of the debtors, the governmentadopted what seemed the obvious remedy and cutthe rate in half. Then a politician, who doubtlessconsidered himself a monetary expert, got through alaw abolishing interest altogether. Also, doubtless tohis surprise and the surprise of his supporters, themeasure failed to work. People who needed moneyfound nobody would lend. The law became a deadletter, and the old eight-per-cent rate was restored;restored but not observed.

A half-century later came the final triumph of de-mocracy in Rome. There had been various irritations,including more trouble over debts. One of these ir-ritations is so modern that it deserves a word. In oneof the wars for the unification of Italy a hard-bitten,bullying old aristocrat, Postumius, who happened tobe consul at the time, took command of the army.Thereupon he detailed two thousand soldiers to workon his own estate cutting brushwood. These soldierswere small farmers who had left their own farms to

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fight for their country. They were outraged at beingset to work for their general without wages. It is asatisfaction to know that he was prosecuted and finedat the end of his term. Unhappily abuse of power isnever outmoded. As I write this paragraph I read ofthe fining of a Missouri mayor for using the labour ofmen on work relief in his private business.

As a result of accumulating resentment there wasanother and final general strike of the commons ofRome. This enabled them to force the adoption of alaw formally recognizing the Assembly as the funda-mental authority. Its resolutions were made bindingon the whole community. In Latin the commons werethe " plebs." The resolution of the Roman House ofCommons was a " plebiscitum." From this comes theEnglish word " plebiscite." This law, called from itsauthor the " Hortensian law/' adopted in 287 B.C., wasregarded as the culminating victory of the commons.It made Rome safe for democracy until the stream ofwealth from conquered lands to the east upset theeconomic balance of Italy.

Throughout all the two hundred and fifty years,while the Roman people were struggling over domes-tic questions of popular sovereignty, they were pro-ceeding systematically with the unification of Italy.For many years the city on the Tiber was assailed bythe highlanders and other adjoining neighbours whocoveted the richer land of the plains. Its existence re-

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peatedly was threatened. But after one hundred andfifty years of almost incessant warfare Rome hadbeaten back all the invaders and in the next hundredyears had established her rule over the entire penin-sula. There is reason to believe that land hunger wasresponsible for some of these conflicts. But only de-fensive wars were constitutional. Rome's insistencethat she had brought all Italy under her control with-out an offensive war was only in accordance with whathas become the best modern practice.

The unification was finally sealed early in the thirdcentury by the failure of an ambitious Greek king, asecond cousin of Alexander the Great, to defend thelast hold-out city. Tarentum, in the heel of Italy'sboot, invited Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, to come to itsrescue.

This episode has a current interest because it in-volves a conspicuous early pacifist. Plutarch relatesthe incident. Cineas, he says, a man of " very goodsense," was a valued court counsellor. When Cineaslearned Pyrrhus was preparing for an Italian cam-paign, he found an occasion for tactful remonstrance.After Pyrrhus had made himself master of the world,what would he do then, Cineas inquired.

" We will live at our ease, my dear fellow, and drinkall day and divert ourselves with pleasant conversa-tion.

" And what hinders us now, sir," Cineas asked, " to

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be merry and enjoy this conversation without goingthrough blood, labour, and infinite hazards? "

It was a reasonable argument and it " rather trou-bled Pyrrhus," who was really a very decent chap.But of course he ignored it and started on a series ofcampaigns, in which he finally was killed. The sup-ply of good advice is always so in excess of the de-mand!

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:^ l̂̂ J\J\£ô\̂ 9Î^>JÎ^ \̂>o^3\>^^y>^

CHAPTER V

THE GET-RICH-QUICK ERA

THE ITALIAN peninsula is a natural political unit. Theunification so painfully won in the earlier half of theRepublic lasted, with interruptions, for a thousandyears. It finally dissolved in the anarchy that fol-lowed the death of Charlemagne. Not until morethan a thousand years later, in the nineteenth cen-tury, was Cavour able to start the movement thatmade Italy again a nation.

With the unification of the peninsula under Romanrule the Republic took its place among the world pow-ers. Its larger interests inevitably came into conflictwith the interests of other great nations. The resultwas a series of wars that made Rome supreme in theMediterranean world. But war and the opening ofnew lands brought their problems. These were com-

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plicated by the vastly increased use of money thatonly a short time before had been introduced intothe Roman economy. It was a get-rich-quick era.The New Deal experiments of the next two centuries— resettlement administration, work relief, the evernormal granary, poor relief, anti-hoarding measures,the scaling down of debts — were responses to themany social and economic ailments that such an eraproduces.

The most significant of these foreign conflicts wasthe second war with Carthage. In its importance andfar-reaching effects it is comparable to a modernworld war.

It was deliberately brought on by the restless mili-tary genius of the Carthaginian Hannibal as a war ofrevenge. His father had been defeated and humili-ated in the first war between Rome and Carthage.The son was determined to avenge his memory.Here, again, we have a blazing instance of pacifisticcommon sense overridden by jingoism. Hannibalhad begun military operations in Spain, and Romehad sent a delegation to the Carthaginian Senate toprotest. There Senator Hanno alone supported theRoman position. Hannibal, he said, had a spirit thatcould not rest. " You have sent to the Spanish army,"he continued," a young man who is consumed with apassion for power. He believes the only way to reachit is to live surrounded by armed legions and perpetu-

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ally to stir up fresh wars." Now he was undertakinga war in violation of Rome's treaty rights that waslikely to end in disaster for Carthage. When Hannosat down, no senator rose to second him. He was re-garded as pro-Roman and ignored.

In the first part of the long war that followed,everything went Hannibal's way. He won a series ofbrilliant victories. The tactics of Cannae are stillstudied in military schools. When the CarthaginianSenate was rejoicing over a successful campaign, aleader of the war party recalled the original warningsof Hanno and asked him whether he still disapprovedthe war. The old senator did not weaken. In replyhe pointed out that in spite of the victories Rome wasstill far from beaten. He urged that advantage betaken of the existing favourable situation to nego-tiate peace. Otherwise he feared the worst. " Butvery few," says Livy, " were influenced by Hanno'sspeech." The war dragged on and the superior re-sources of Rome finally crushed Carthage. Livy's ac-count might have been profitable reading for some ofthe modern militarists.

With the military aspects of the protracted strugglebetween Rome and the greatest military genius of theage we are not here concerned. Until the end Han-nibal outmatched every general sent against him.But like England, accustomed to losing every battleexcept the last, the Republic doggedly muddled

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through. The conquest of Carthage, 202 B.C., leftRome mistress of the whole Mediterranean basin.Within the next two generations " the peasants of theTiber " had come to dominate most of the land bor-dering on the sea, and in less than another centurythey had filled in the gaps and added Gaul.

On the eve of her first important foreign war, 264B.C., Rome controlled an area about the size of that ofthe combined states of Ohio and Kentucky. Beforethe end of the first century B.C. its domain would havecovered the entire United States east of the Missis-sippi. A brilliant English historian compares the ex-pansion of Rome with that of the British Empire,which is said to have developed in a fit of absent-mindedness. Not quite in a fit of absentmindedness,says Mr. Fisher, but " half reluctantly and of no setplan/' Successive stages of conquest were forced bythe necessity of quenching turbulence upon the fron-tiers. Undoubtedly the purpose of protecting con-quered territory animated both Rome and Britain.After the exhausting conflict with Carthage the peo-ple loathed the idea of war with the shortlived inten-sity of twentieth-century Europeans. It was withthe greatest difficulty that the Senate was able topersuade them to honour the blank cheques Romehad signed for its allies in the East and to consolidatethe gains in the West. For a considerable time theproblem of administering conquered territories ap-

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palled the ruling class. Not enough capable admin-istrators were to be found in the senatorial aristoc-racy, and the nobles of the second century hadbecome as reluctant to admit new men to theircharmed circle as the British peers of the nineteenthcentury were to allow the House of Lords to bepacked with new members.

On the side of further expansion, however, was thepowerful motive of prestige and later of profits. AnyRoman senator would have understood the formerGerman Emperor's insistence that his government beconsulted on every matter of international interestand Hitler's belief that Germany had the divine rightto impose its rule upon the world. So it was themission of Rome to bring order, law, and justice tobackward or frivolous nations.

But the thought of profits was increasingly present.Under the later Republic certain rich provinces wereregarded as fair loot for the influential classes. A con-sul expected the governorship of a province as a re-ward so he could reimburse himself for the heavy ex-penses of the campaign. Cicero cleared $110,000 asGovernor of Cilicia by perfectly legal methods and,like Lord Clive in India, was astonished at his ownmoderation. Any conquest was expected to yield arich booty in captives, who were sold as slaves. Aprofitable commerce developed within the Empireand later a cynical observer, the elder Pliny, wrote

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that campaigns had been undertaken in order thatRoman ladies and gentlemen might have a betterchoice of perfumes. Evidently there was constantpressure at home for bringing additional territory un-der Roman control. Resisting this, as has previouslybeen suggested, was strong conservative opposition tothe policy of expansion. After a survey of the evi-dence Professor Frank writes in his Roman Imperial-ism, that the Roman people " stumbled on f alteringlyand unwittingly into ever increasing dominion." Jul-ius Caesar, who conquered what is now France in themiddle of the first century B.C., he regards as " the firstcandid imperialist of Rome."

A turbulent century and a half followed the mo-mentous struggle with Carthage. In this period theTiber peasants scaled the dizzy heights and saw thekingdoms of this world spread at their feet. Onthe whole, the Empire, especially after the centralgovernment had organized decent administrationunder Augustus and his successors, was a great civil-izing influence. But under the corrupting stress ofwar the Romans became a hard and ruthless peo-ple. An atrocious affair is reported in a perfectlymatter-of-fact way by Livy. After the conquest ofMacedonia early in the second century B.C., the com-manding general organized a punitive raid with suchperfection of detail that at a set time on one dayseventy towns were plundered and their inhabitants

78

THE GET-RICH-QUICK

were sold into slavery. It was not until a century ofpeace had done its civilizing work that a voice ofprotest was lifted by Plutarch. He figured that eachsoldier received a trifle more than two dollars as hisshare of the booty. "So that men could only shud-der/' he wrote," at the issue of a war when the wealthof a whole nation thus divided turned to so little ad-vantage and profit to each man."

In the same spirit his disillusioned contemporary,Tacitus, writing of the conquest of Britain, puts inthe mouth of a Scottish chieftain a tremendousindictment of commercialized imperialism. "Vainhope," he says to his followers, whom he has ralliedagainst the legions, "vain hope to evade the Ro-mans' clutches by obsequious submission. The wholeworld is to them a prey. They have ransacked thecontinents, and now they must search the seas. Iftheir foe be rich, they are ravenous for gold; if he bepoor, for glory; and neither East nor West can satean appetite, unique in this, that plenty or dearth isalike to them a lure. Empire is the name they giveto a policy of plunder, bloodshed, and rapine; andwhen they have created a desert they call it ' peace/ "

In the era of rapid expansion power and wealthflooded into Rome. But the governing class had notyet learned how to use power, and unearned wealthis demoralizing. When it includes slave labour it isdevastating. Rome's was not a wholesome and bal-

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anced prosperity that comes from the production ofnew goods and services. It was chiefly a parasiticprosperity based on the consumption of the accumu-lated savings of the East and the exploitation ofslave labour in mines and on farms.

"For Rome," Paul Louis, a French economist,writes, "humanity laboured, toiled in the mines,wrested fine pearls from the sea, netted the purplefish which supplied the precious dye, wove the woolof Asia Minor, blew the glass of Egypt, smeltedThracian iron and Cyprian copper. For Rome, gangsof slaves threshed grain in the plains of Palermo,upon the plateaus of Numidia, along the damp banksof the Nile; for Rome, ships ploughed the seas fromIndia and even from China and the Somali coast tothe misty littoral of the Veneti and to the Cimbricpeninsula."

From the standpoint of the outlying regions, how-ever, it should be remembered that the people hadbeen exploited under their native rulers, and thatRome gave them order and a larger measure ofjustice than had previously been theirs. In Sicily, forinstance, under Roman rule taxes actually were re-duced. Later Rome made increasing contributionsto the welfare of its possessions outside of Italy. Thecity, it has been said, " exported brains." The capitalitself was perhaps the greater sufferer in the periodof expansion, although no one would have admitted

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this at the time. Only a comparatively small classbenefited from the conquests, and society was moreand more sharply divided into what the great Ger-man historian Mommsen calls " the world of beggarsand the world of the rich." The bitter fruits of thisdivision were to ripen in the next century.

Contact with the older civilizations of the East, andespecially with that of Greece, had a deep effect bothmaterially and spiritually. " Captive Greece," Horacewrote, " took captive her fierce conqueror." Therough farmer-soldiers learned what luxury was at atime when the spoils of conquest and the money-making opportunities of the new lands enabled themto pay for it. The swift rise of the standards of livingof the more fortunate is indicated by a Roman of thefirst century B.C. who wrote of his boyhood as a for-gotten age. " For me, when a boy," he said, " theresufficed a single rough coat and a single undergar-ment, the coarsest of shoes, a horse without a saddle.I had no daily warm bath and but seldom a river-

i • "dip.In Rome of the second century B.C, as in other na-

tions later, the contact of the ideas of a lower culturewith those of a higher produced mixed results. Underthe influence of Greece the interests of the Romanswere enriched and their horizon widened. But theimpact of Greek philosophy and rationalism uponmen who were not mentally prepared to give up

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traditional beliefs was often demoralizing. Polybrus,a sympathetic Greek observer of the Roman scene,wrote that a powerful influence in holding the Ro-man commonwealth together was fear of the gods.This, he said, was carried to extraordinary lengthsand he believed it was deliberately used by the upperclasses " as a check upon the common people." There-fore he looked with apprehension upon the evidenceof growing scepticism that he saw around him. Themoderns, he insisted, were " most foolish " in banish-ing belief in the " terror of hell."

One other disturbing ferment of the second cen-tury must be mentioned. This was the greatly in-creased use of money. The coinage of money was acomparatively new invention for Rome. A half-cen-tury before the final unification of Italy the capitalhad reached a stage in its economic developmentwhen it no longer could do business with the primi-tive coinage of which the unit was a chunk of bronzeweighing a pound. As someone has said, with thismoney a housewife's journey to market must havebeen as fatiguing as her return. Coined money hadbeen invented in the eastern Mediterranean worldperhaps seven hundred years before Christ. It hadbeen circulating for two hundred years in the Greekcities of southern Italy before the growing demandsof trade brought it to Rome. It was not until 269 B.C.that a mint for the coinage of silver was set up in

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the temple of Juno Moneta on the Capitoline hill." Moneta " soon came to mean " mint" and then wasconnected with the coins produced by the mint togive us our words " money " and " monetary."

But even the bronze coinage that was used beforeRome began issuing silver invited the disturbances offunny money that have been with the world in allages. A tradition of the first century after Christ wasthat during the first great war of Rome with Carthagethree hundred years earlier, the resources of the com-monwealth were inadequate to meet its expenditures,and by a reduction of five-sixths in the weight of thebronze coins the public debt was virtually cancelled.This statement is extravagant. But when Hannibalwas threatening Rome in the second war with Car-thage near the end of the third century B.C., the diffi-culty of financing the war and especially of meetingthe soldier's pay led to a financial crisis. By vote ofthe Assembly the bronze coin was halved in weightand the silver coin, the denarius, worth something lessthan the English shilling, was cut fourteen per cent.Gradually, however, the currency was stabilizedand for several centuries Rome provided the worldwith a sound monetary system which enabled tradeto develop on a satisfactory basis. Wild inflation didnot appear until the anarchy of the third centuryof our era.

With the rapid expansion after the second war

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with Carthage, money came into general use withgrowing velocity of circulation. The whole Romaneconomy was upset. The United States knows whatit is to have a great new credit machine run wild,as bank credits ran wild to produce the boom yearsof the 1920's. But America had had experience withcredit inflation during the war, from which it mighthave learned. Rome's experience had been slight.People flocked to borrow the convenient new moneyfor speculation. In the barter economy under whichItalian farmers had largely operated, there was stronginducement for the farmer to live on his land. Withmoney available it was possible for him to receivea cash income while living in Rome. Wealthy menin the capital could buy up distressed farms at a bar-gain, sell them at a profit, or operate them in largetracts with slave labour. With banking offices spring-ing up in the Forum there always was a temptationto adventuresome men to go in debt in order to makea killing in the new lands that were being opened up.Working men constantly were attracted away fromRome by the prospect of cheap land in Italy and theprovinces. With both capital and labour absorbedelsewhere, industry did not develop at this time asan attractive field for investment. As the Empiregrew, it failed to solve the problem of a balancedfarm-industry economy.

Speculators had their chance also in the jumpy and

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uncertain prices resulting from a primitive monetarysystem. There were no reserve banks and the valueof money, and consequently prices, would be affectedby the arrival of silver from the Spanish mines or lootfrom the provinces. By the second century B.C. Romewas rocking with the results of its wild discovery.Money, command of the Mediterranean, plunderfrom the provinces, slavery, and contact with the lux-uries and philosophies of the East were to combine totransform Roman character as well as to create a newworld.

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$355*3^5353*33353553^

CHAPTER VI

THE FARM PROBLEM EMERGES

IN America rapid westward expansion and the open-ing of new lands created an acute farm problem. Inthe West there was overproduction. In the East farmvalues sank. With the growth of population and theEuropean demand for farm exports, the problem waseased. Later it was aggravated or assuaged in ac-cordance with the state of world markets. Productionwould be greatly overexpanded under the stimulus ofabnormal European demand. The drying up of thisdemand would depress the farm industry. At thesame time the rapid mechanization of the farmbrought new difficulties.

In the Roman Republic we find strikingly similarconditions. Throughout its early history Italy was aland of small farmers. Wheat products were the

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staple food, as they are in Italy today. The RomanEmpire, it has been said, was won by armies on a dietof porridge. With the extensive conquests of foreignwars the wheat farmers of western Italy faced a crisis.They met disastrous competition from new lands,just as the wheat farmers of the Atlantic seaboard inAmerica met disastrous competition from the newfarm regions of the West. To complete the parallel,Italian farmers encountered the equivalent to mod-ern farm mechanization in the hordes of war captiveswho were imported for farm labour. These captiveswere sold as slaves and treated as machines. Thecapital required for farming under the new condi-tions was beyond the reach of the small operators.The little fellow began to be crowded to the wall bythe big commercial farmer. The new system was aneconomic success but a social failure.

The farm problem was one of the chief disturbingfactors that threatened to wreck the Roman Republicafter its long period of successful wars of expansion.It was an effort to solve this problem that broughtto the front the two great liberal statesmen of thelatter part of the second century B.C., the brothersGracchus. Included in their New Deal measures wasa back-to-the-land movement. It was their purposeto discourage large-scale commercial farming and tore-establish the small farmer with farming as a wayof life rather than as a commercial enterprise. If they

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had succeeded the history of Rome might have beendifferent. Possibly the Republic might have been pre-served. But the obstacles in their way were too great.

The first important new land that brought the Ro-man farm problem to the front was in the island ofSicily, which lies just off the toe of Italy's boot. Likethe state of Kansas for America today, Sicily was thegreat surplus-wheat area for mid-republican Rome.When it came into the Roman orbit it rocked thefarm structure of central Italy. Wheat could be pro-duced more cheaply in Sicily and the natural eco-nomic competition of Sicilian wheat would have beensufficiently severe. But state intervention made thecompetition ruinous. Rome was collecting taxes fromSicily in the shape of wheat which it used to feed thearmy. Any surplus was dumped on the market, withdisorganizing effect. The taxes were collected byRoman corporations under government contracts.Their profits came from the sale of wheat that theycollected in excess of what was due the government.Water transportation was cheap, and they sold theirsurplus to the Italian coastal cities for what it wouldbring. It was regarded as the duty of the state tokeep down the cost of living in the capital, whichwas the great centre of population. In time of war,when wheat prices went up, the governmentwould go into foreign markets, buy wheat, and sellit at a loss. Under normal foreign competition prices


were low in peace times, while the farmer was pre-vented from recouping from the natural rise in pricesduring the emergencies of war. The Italian farmbloc lacked the political power of the farm bloc inCongress.

Land transportation was expensive. There were in-land districts that were little affected by competitionfrom abroad, but in the important coastal area thesmall wheat farmer could not maintain himself.

There were other troubles. The farmer draftedinto the army and sent abroad on long campaigns wasobliged to leave his farm in the care of his familyand perhaps a few slaves. When he came back hefound his tools gone to pieces, his farm deteriorated;and he lacked the capital for its rehabilitation.

There is a legend that a farmer-general of a Ro-man army in Africa wrote home asking to be relievedof his command. The manager whom he had left incharge of his small farm had died, the hired man hadrun away with the farm tools, and the farm lay deso-late. If the owner were not allowed to return, hiswife and children would lack the bare necessaries ofexistence.

Many farmers, of course, did not come back. In thelong campaigns against Hannibal, Rome lost perhapsa third of its citizens, and their small farms were avail-able to buyers with ready money.

What happened is recorded in connection with the

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long struggle with Carthage. The state had had toresort to loans. The final large Liberty Loan was tobe repaid in three instalments. When the second in-stalment came due, the state was short of cash. Livysays the cry of many creditors was: " There are plentyof farms for sale and we want to buy." These farmswere doubtless distressed land that had come on themarket as a result of the conditions just described.The state effected a settlement by arranging with itscreditors to take their second instalment in landfrom the public domain. Four years later the thirdinstalment was paid in cash. The capitalists who werebuying up distressed farms and acquiring land fromthe public domain were thus building large estateswhich supplanted the small holdings of the inde-pendent farmers.

New conditions promoted this process. By a lawenacted near the close of the third century B.C. therich senatorial class was forbidden to take part inforeign trade. As the Senate was in charge of foreignpolicy it was perhaps felt that its members shouldbe clear of foreign business entanglements. But aswealth was coming into Rome in the second centuryfrom its conquests abroad, the effect was to concen-trate senatorial investments in large estates in Italy.These investments were facilitated by the recent gen-eral use of money, which made absentee landlordismpracticable, and by the advent of hundreds of thou-

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sands of the war captives just mentioned, who couldbe used like farm machinery to operate big planta-tions and ranches. The long-run results of slavelabour were bad, but in the earlier years it producedlarge and quick returns. Another factor favourableto the growth of big estates was the remission of alldirect taxes in Italy early in the second century, in-cluding the land tax. The government had come tobe supported by levies from the provinces and byincome from the public domain. The absence of aland tax encouraged speculation in land by largeoperators. Finally, as wheat farming in extensive re-gions became unprofitable because of the competitionof wheat from the new lands, the raising of livestockand the growing of vineyards and olive trees tookits place. These were all branches of agriculture thatrequired more capital than the small Roman farmercould afford, and he was impelled to sell to specula-tors or to operators with cash reserves.

In his little book on Moral Duties, addressed to hiswild son, Marcus, away in college at Athens, Ciceroquotes that stern old farmer-magistrate Cato onfarming. "When he was asked what was the mostprofitable feature of an estate, he replied: ' Raisingcattle successfully/ What next to that? ' Raisingcattle with fair success/ And next? ' Raising cattlewith but slight success/ And fourth? ' Raising crops/And when his questioner asked: ' How about money-

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lending? ' Cato replied: ' How about murder?'" Itmay be added that Cato was another conspicuousman who failed to live up to his precepts. He evadedthe law against senators' engaging in foreign tradeby organizing a company in which he held stock inthe name of a freedman, and thus, his biographersays, made large profits with little risk.

The acute farm problem now developing cannot beunderstood without some consideration of the im-portance of slavery in the economic and social struc-ture of Rome and Italy. In the ancient world slaverywas taken for granted. That war captives should besold as slaves seemed as natural as that conqueredcities should be looted. In his treatise on farm man-agement Cato advises that the owner should orderthe sale of " worn-out bulls, blemished cattle, blem-ished sheep, wool, hides, any plough that is old, oldtools, old slaves, slaves who are diseased, or anythingelse which is useless." The casual classification of oldslaves with old tools gives a vivid idea of the brutaloutlook of the age.

In the earlier years of Rome, in the days of smallfarms and simple households, the slaves were Italiancaptives or debtors who became virtually members oftheir owners' families. But in the conquests follow-ing the war with Hannibal conditions changed. Onehundred and fifty thousand captives were taken ina day by a series of raids back from the Adriatic coast

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across from Italy. A single victory by Caesar in Gaulyielded 53,000 slaves, and it is estimated, probablywith exaggeration, that in nine years he sent back400,000 slaves to Rome. The island of Delos becamethe great slave mart for the East; there is a recordof the sale of 10,000 slaves there in one day.

At a time when the population of Rome was undera million, the slave population was estimated at 200,-000. Prices ranged from fifty dollars up. Many well-educated slaves were acquired in the East. Onetrouble with Roman education was that wealthy menthought they could buy it in the slave marts. Mr.Fisher, who as warden of New College, Oxford,should be informed on educational practice, writes:" The Eton master of the eighteenth century floggedhis boys. The Roman youth of the second and thirdcenturies flogged his masters," for the masters wereslaves.

The institution of slavery had a brutalizing effectupon the owners. It also had a far-reaching effectupon farm life and later on factory development. Inthe Southern states of America slave labour couldnot be used effectively in the cultivation of smallfarms. It could be used on the big cotton plantations.So in Italy the abundance of slaves tended to pro-mote the establishment of large cattle ranches, withwhich the small farmer could not compete.

One important difficulty was that the free farmer

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was liable to conscription for military service fromwhich slaves were exempt. Wars followed one an-other in rapid succession and it is estimated that formany years one-tenth of the population always wasin the army. Even when a farmer had sold his landto a rich neighbour, his liability to military servicehandicapped him in getting a job as a farm hand. Sohe went back to the legions or became a wanderer.

Up to the time of the foreign wars in the first halfof the second century B.C. life in Rome had beencomparatively simple. But with the newly acquiredwealth the whole tone of society changed. Official lifewas affected. Many of the magistrates sent out togovern the conquered provinces were demoralized bythe lack of supervision. Repeated laws against extor-tion show the existence of a growing group of Romanswho were becoming rich at the expense of the subjectpeoples. Speculators, too, did not overlook the op-portunities in the new lands. Luxuries were lavishlyimported, but only the lucky few could afford them.The landless farmers drifted to the big city. Unfortu-nately no industries had developed there in whichthey might have found employment. For various rea-sons banking, foreign trade, and the management oflarge Italian estates had proved more attractive to en-terprising Romans than manufacturing. Few jobswere to be had in a city where slaves were doing alarge share of the work. Social snobbishness was an

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important obstacle to progress. This was due partlyto the natural contempt that a landed aristocracy al-ways feels for men " in trade," partly to the effects ofslavery. The feeling dominated society. Cicero, atypical representative of the middle class, wrote tohis son in his Moral Duties about occupations inwhich a gentleman might engage. Tax-collectors andmoney-lenders, he says, are exposed to public con-tempt. Manual labour is vulgar. So, too, is retailselling and the work of mechanics. It isn't respect-able to engage in occupations having to do with food,such as those of butchers, cooks, and poulterers.Dancers and actors are out. Medicine, architecture,and teaching are dignified professions. " Trade, if itis on a small scale, is vulgar, but if wholesale and on alarge scale is not to be greatly disparaged." Agricul-ture, however, is considered the most proper of allgainful occupations.

With little chance to find work, the immigrant farm-ers lived in poverty in the slums on the low groundand looked with envy upon the mansions that werebeing built on the heights. The men who were ableto stay on the farms, barely keeping their heads abovewater, also were embittered. In Sicily the brutal treat-ment of slaves on the big plantations led to uprisingsthat reached the stage of civil wars. It is significantof the growing bitterness that in these revolts the smallfarmers joined with the slaves in burning the villas of

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the owners of the big estates. The rich landlords werehated by all the less fortunate, by free men as well asby slaves.

Thus by the beginning of the last century of theRepublic Rome and Italy were divided into two bit-terly hostile camps, a governing oligarchy of wealthymen, and an impoverished mass of poor people andslaves. At this time Tiberius Gracchus was elected atribune. He came of a family distinguished for publicservice. His father was an honest old aristocrat whohad made a reputation as a military commander aswell as a civil magistrate. His mother, Cornelia, wasthe daughter of one of the most celebrated of Romangenerals, Scipio Africanus. A great lady she was, cul-tured, high-minded, public-spirited. Her salon, fre-quented by all the clever people, was a centre of intel-ligent and witty conversation. It probably was asdistinguished as any of the famous seventeenth- andeighteenth-century salons of Paris. Here Tiberius andhis younger and more brilliant brother, Gaius, un-doubtedly heard serious public questions discussed.

With his family connections and his own fine qual-ities, the young Tiberius was regarded as the catch ofthe town. At a dinner party the head of one of thefirst families, by discreet inquiry, found the youngman was interested in his daughter. Then and therethe engagement was arranged. When the old gentle-man returned home he greeted his wife with the

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news. " Antistia," he exclaimed, " I've found a hus-band for Claudia! " Before he could tell her the luckyman's name she exploded. Why hadn't she been con-sulted? There was only one boy in their set that shewould stand for. That was Tiberius Gracchus.

The incident indicates a social standing that wouldopen a political career to any ambitious youngster inRome. Tiberius was elected to the tribunate withgeneral approval when he was only thirty. But likemany another generous-spirited young man he wasmoved by the evils that he saw around him to deserthis class. In the end his friends turned on him withall the savageness that often is visited on a man whois regarded by his former associates as a traitor to theircommon interests. In his travels on official dutiesTiberius had been shocked by the depopulation of thecountryside and the growth of big estates operated byslaves. In Rome he saw a great mass of unemployed,many of them dispossessed farmers, constantly on theverge of starvation. His indignation flamed high.One of his speeches has been preserved.

" The savage beasts in Italy," he exclaimed, " havetheir dens, their places of rest and refuge. But themen who fight their country's battles have nothingbut air and sunlight. They wander homeless withtheir wives and children. Their generals appeal tothem to fight in defence of their homes, but they havenone. They fight and are killed to maintain the lux-

97

THE NEW DEAL IN OLD ROME-

Ury of others. They are called the masters of theworld. But they haven't a foot of ground to call theirown."

This sort of language horrified the best circles. Hisold associates had looked on him as a harmless par-lour pink. They were not prepared for such an out-burst as this. Really, he was going too far. ButTiberius proceeded with his program. The remedyseemed obvious. It was to set up a Resettlement Ad-ministration, an R.A. He proposed to move the cityunemployed out to farms in the country. The gov-ernment still owned a large public domain, much ofwhich had been pre-empted by wealthy landlordsat a small rental, which they had long since ceasedto pay. Gracchus undertook to revive the old LicinianSmall Holdings Act, which had become a dead letter,and once more restrict the amount of public landheld by one person to three hundred acres. Publicland thus taken back by the government was to beallotted to landless citizens in small holdings. Thegovernment was to retain title so that the land couldnot be immediately bought up by speculators.

"What Gracchus had in mind in proposing themeasure," the historian Appian wrote, " was notmoney but men." But the arguments he presentedto the hard-headed Roman landed aristocracy werenot based on sentiment. His appeal was on morepractical grounds. Rome had won its empire by ar-

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mies made up of small farmers. If these were de-stroyed how was the Empire to be defended? Butthe big landowners were obdurate. The evils set forthby Tiberius were obvious and the governing crowdin the Senate had long agreed that something shouldbe done. But it always had found objections to everyproposal oifered. The Gracchan program shockedthe landlords because it threatened to deprive themof part of their profitable holdings of the public do-main. It antagonized the bankers because it attackedthe security of their mortgages. The question washow to prevent the popular tribune from putting hismeasure through the Assembly, which was the law-making body. His senatorial opponents found a con-stitutional method.

In order to prevent hasty legislation by a one-cham-ber house, it had been provided that any one of theten tribunes could exercise the veto power. Then thewhole matter would go over until the next election sothat it could be given further consideration and bepassed upon by the people. A tribune was found toveto the consideration of Tiberius's bill. At that timethe anti-second-term tradition as to the tribunatewas so strong as to be regarded as part of the law ofthe land. A tribune could not run for re-election. Ti-berius believed he must get his measure throughwithin his year of office or it would die, as other some-what similar measures had died in the past. So he in-

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troduced the principle of the " recall." At his requestthe Assembly deposed the objecting official andelected a Gracchus man in his place. The law wentthrough and a commission was appointed to super-vise its operation.

Here we come upon another phenomenon familiarto modern politics. Appropriations had to come fromthe Senate. It hampered the work of the commissionby refusing to appropriate money for its necessaryexpenses. This same method of putting brakes onembarrassing activities of committees has repeatedlybeen resorted to in Washington.

Just at this time came what Gracchus must have re-garded as a providential windfall. The monarch ofthe Asiatic kingdom of Pergamum died and be-queathed his kingdom, including accumulated treas-ures, to the Roman people. Tiberius at once proposeda bill appropriating the funds derived from the Per-gamum treasury to the use of the land commission.The money was to be distributed among the new set-tlers to finance them in erecting houses and buyingnecessary farm equipment. This was a blow at theSenate's provincial authority and its control of thepurse. The tribune's action increased the bitternessof the conservatives.

As his year of office expired Tiberius determinedto run again in violation of precedent. There wasmuch still to be done that he felt could not be en-

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trusted to others. But he had assailed the dominantcrowd in a vital spot. The brilliance of Roman societywas supported primarily by income from the big es-tates upon which he had laid his hands. Vested in-terests were threatened. They would not surrenderwithout bloodshed. Besides, Gracchus had attackedthe Senate's authority both at home and in the prov-inces. The senatorial machine did not propose totake another chance with this brash young reformer.A bitter campaign followed. Stories were circulatedthat Tiberius intended to make himself dictator andthat he proposed a general redistribution of wealth.The tenant farmers and farm hands with Roman citi-zenship had flocked to town to vote when his landmeasure was before the Assembly. But when elec-tion time came it was summer, the farmers were busyin their fields, and the old families had great influencewith the city voters. Nevertheless, when the votingbegan, it was going in favour of the popular youngtribune. A die-hard leader of the Senate proposedthat martial law be decreed. The presiding officer re-fused to put the question, whereupon the die-hardsorganized a riot. Tiberius and more than three hun-dred of his followers were killed. For the first time inits long history Rome had seen an issue settled by vio-lence instead of by peaceful compromise.

The work of the land-distribution commission wastoo popular to be destroyed with the death of its origi-

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nator. It went forward for several years and perhapsseventy-five thousand families were settled on smallfarms. Later, when Gaius Gracchus was elected trib-une, a further impetus was given to the project. Nev-ertheless its permanent results were small. The fun-damental causes of the farm problem had not beenreached. The independent small farmer could nothave been restored to his old position without abol-ishing slavery. On a commercial basis many of thenew farmers could not compete with the ownersof the big slave-operated estates and ranches. Thebrothers doubtless hoped that there were still manydispossessed farmers who would be glad to be re-established to practise farming as a way of life withno expectation of making money. The number ofthese proved disappointingly small. As soon as amodification in the law made it possible, many of thesettlers sold their holdings and moved back to thecity. Still, in the next century the Resettlement Ad-ministration project in modified form was revived totake care of ex-service men, as was done in the West-ern American states after the Civil War. Some Qvehundred thousand allotments were made. The re-sults were fairly satisfactory and the farm problemdid not again become acute until the end of the firstcentury after Christ.

The methods to which Tiberius resorted to carrythrough his program left lasting impressions upon the

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Roman political structure. Heretofore the Assemblyhad been theoretically the supreme legislative body.Practically, it had been controlled by the old families,just as the House of Commons was long dominated bythe British aristocracy. Tiberius had demonstratedthat under an energetic leader the Assembly couldrun the government. Within a few years the tribuneswere legally declared eligible for re-election and inthe next century the recall of elective officials was oc-casionally employed. Unwittingly the first of theGracchi had prepared the way for Big Business to en-ter politics.

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,9\>O\9\iXIX>*I>OsiN>^>*9\!>s9v£^^

CHAPTER VII

BIG BUSINESS IN POLITICS

THE POLITICAL machine is familiar to Americans.While it may lead to gross abuses experience showsthat some sort of behind-the-scenes organizationmay be useful to the functioning of democratic insti-tutions. Such an organization may hold diverse ele-ments of the population together and provide con-tinuity of policy through all the shifting personnelof official life.

In Rome through the greater part of the existenceof the Republic, the senatorial machine ran the show.The magistrates might change every year; the ma-chine carried on. It represented the landed aristoc-racy. The big landowners had common economicinterests. They had their personal ambitions and dif-ferences. They might disagree on foreign policy; on

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domestic affairs they stood together. The senatorialmachine was the instrument through which they op-erated. It ran smoothly and efficiently in managingthe unification of Italy and the expansion about theMediterranean basin. In its great days the RomanSenate probably included a larger number of compe-tent and experienced public men than any subse-quent legislative body. Its members were reared un-der a stern code. They were proud, courageous,resolute, never daunted by defeat. But the unearnedwealth that Rome drained from the provinces in thelast century and a half of the Republic sapped theolder virtues. The Senate gradually lost its ability tomeet new situations and became rigidly reactionary.Then came Tiberius Gracchus, forerunner of theAmerican Boss-Buster.

To be sure, this turbulent insurgent had finallybeen disposed of by the ruthless machine, but thegathering forces he had represented still remained.The slums of Rome housed a mass of embittered vot-ers. They could be handled in various ways by thesenatorial organization. But another element in thepopulation had come to the front in the second cen-tury. Business men, bankers, and traders had foundgreat opportunities for making money in the newlands that had been added to the Empire. Oftentheir interests differed from those of the old aristo-crats. By the time of the death of the elder Gracchus

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it was apparent that under competent leadership theChamber of Commerce crowd might unite with thepoorer voters to take charge of the government.

Rome set the example to modern Germany of mak-ing war profitable. It is calculated that in the half-cen-tury following the fall of Carthage fifty million dol-lars in tribute and plunder drained into Rome. Thissum, huge for its day, gave a great opportunity to en-ergetic men with the acquisitive instinct. As the sen-ators were barred from foreign trade by law, an im-portant plutocracy of business men developed. Theywere impatient of the restrictions that a group of theelder statesmen, who still cherished the old-fashionedRoman ideals of honesty and fair dealing, had beenable to impose upon the exploitation of the provinces.

With the foundations of political revolt thus laid,ten years after the death of Tiberius Gracchus hisbrother, nine years his junior, returned from a minoroffice in Sardinia to Rome and crashed the gate of theruling class. Against machine opposition he waselected tribune.

Gaius Gracchus was a young man of thirty, vigor-ous, intelligent, passionate, a great natural leader.Behind the burning words that could sway a popularaudience was a cool, calculating intellect. He com-bined traits not often found in one man: ability asan orator and unusual administrative capacity. Plu-

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tarch gives an attractive picture of him after he hadcome into the tribunate and was immersed in its du-ties. His office was crowded with officials, militaryofficers, contractors, work superintendents, scholars.A competent and just executive of immense industry,the biographer says, he was always dignified, cour-teous, scrupulously honest.

The older brother was high-minded and sincere.He believed life is organized on a purely rationalbasis and that men can be persuaded by argument tosurrender selfish interests. On one occasion he hadtaken his case before a Senate that was packed againsthim. Apparently he was surprised that it would notlisten to the voice of reason. Gaius Gracchus had en-tered public life completely disillusioned by hisbrother's experience. He was driven by the same pas-sion to correct the obvious evils that were threateningthe very life of the state, supplemented by a humandesire to avenge his brother's death. But he had a flairfor politics that his brother lacked. He would havebeen perfectly at home in the White House in theWashington of the twentieth century. His brother'sappeal had been to one class. Patiently Gaius set towork on a program that would appeal to all the im-portant classes in the state. Against the senatorialmachine he proposed to organize a coalition thatcould be fused into a real democratic party. This

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party he hoped to make an instrument for public serv-ice to carry out reforms that could not be obtainedfrom the entrenched interests in the Senate.

We can only guess at his motives. But to anyonefamiliar with the working of the political mind, theimplications of the Gracchan policies are obvious.There were four important groups of voters whomight be united against the senatorial machine.There were the small farmers who wanted access tothe public domain for themselves and their children.Tiberius had made a good beginning in this direction,but his land commission in the hostile atmosphere ofRome had bogged down. There were the unem-ployed who lived in abject poverty. There were smallshopkeepers and business men. Finally there werethe bankers, contractors, and large commercial op-erators who constituted Roman Big Business.

In the program of Gaius there were measures thatappealed to each of these groups. For the farmer herevived and revamped his brother's legislation for theallotment of land from the public domain. For theurban poor he provided the sale of wheat by the gov-ernment below the market price. For the little fellowwho wanted larger business opportunities he pro-posed the establishment of trading centres in Italyand one in the territory of Carthage in North Africa.Allotments of land were to be made in these centresto selected colonists of good character. For the big

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business men he provided contracts for great ware-houses for the storage of grain, for an extensive sys-tem of farm-to-market roads, and for the collectionof taxes in the province of Asia, in western Asia Mi-nor. At the same time he recognized their importancein the state by transferring to them the right to makeup the juries that tried provincial governors for extor-tion, hitherto a prerogative of senators. There wereother measures, not of an economic character, in-tended to curtail the power of the old senatorial ma-chine.

Most of these measures may be classed as NewDeal experiments. Perhaps it would be imputing tothe Rome of the second century B.C. modern eco-nomic ideas to suggest that Gracchus intended to re-lieve unemployment. Nevertheless there is reason toregard the building of roads and other public worksas projects designed to provide employment at gov-ernment expense and to stimulate business, as well asto reflect credit upon the responsible official. Land-distribution and the founding of colonies were theequivalent of the modern Resettlement Administra-tion. The warehouses may be considered the instru-ment for carrying out the modern Ever Normal Gran-ary idea, with an important difference. The EverNormal Granary is intended to stabilize wheat pricesat a fairly high level for the benefit of the producer.Gracchus desired to stabilize prices at a low level for

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the benefit of the consumer. In the ancient worldtransportation difficulties were responsible for fam-ines and for wild fluctuations in wheat prices. Grac-chus proposed that the government procure an ade-quate supply of wheat to be sold at a low and fixedprice to everyone who was willing to stand in lineonce a month at a warehouse. The prevalence of lo-cal famines in antiquity had forced governments toresort to similar methods to keep their people fromstarving. But now Gracchus was transforming anemergency measure into a permanent system. Thewheat was sold for thirty-two cents a bushel, whichwas below the normal price; in the absence of Boardof Trade figures we do not know how much below.Historians rather generally have guessed that thirty-two cents was about half-price. To judge from thescreams of the conservatives of that day and later,this guess may be right. In America we have seenwheat sell as low as twenty-five cents a bushel on thefarm, and as high as three dollars. In ancient Italyprices ranging from ten cents to four dollars are men-tioned. Thirty years before the Gracchan Ever Nor-mal Granary plan was adopted the normal price wasapparently regarded as about sixty cents. Fifty yearsafter this legislation the same figure is recorded. Inany event, thirty-two cents represented a sharp cut.

The idea that the state should tax its richer citizensto take care of the unfortunate on a permanent basis

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was shocking to the old Roman ideas of self-reliance.An illuminating tale has come down to us that showsthe attitude of the sincere conservatives of the time.Cicero tells the story in his Tusculan Disputations. Aconsul, Piso, had fought the proposal. After the lawhad been enacted Piso appeared in the throng stand-ing in line to get the low-price grain. Gracchus sawhim there and inquired about his consistency in tak-ing advantage of a law that he had opposed.

" I shouldn't like it, Gracchus," the old gentlemanreplied, " if the bright idea should come into yourhead to divide up my property among all the citizens.But if you should do it, I would be on hand to get myshare."

The plan that Gracchus put into effect was reallythe two-price system discussed by farm leaders inAmerica. Under such a system food is sold at themarket price to the bulk of consumers. Those unableto pay this price may buy at a reduction food subsi-dized by the government. In Rome the two-priceprogram proved the beginning of what soon becamedirect relief. By any humane standard this grain sub-sidy was needed to mitigate the evils of unemploy-ment. Presumably the unemployed were able to getoccasional odd jobs and they could sponge on therich. But undoubtedly low-price wheat was a greathelp. Gracchus was a keen business man. He mayreasonably have calculated that if the grain which the

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government could collect as tribute from the prov-inces was not enough, more could be bought when theprice was low and that in the long run the cost to thetreasury would be less than under the existing sys-tem. As it was, when a shortage of grain caused thecost of living to rise above a certain point, the gov-ernment had to sell grain at a heavy loss till the crisiswas passed. But a man as politically minded as Grac-chus could not possibly have overlooked the politicalimplications of the policy. It is a fair assumption thathe figured, with a modern American director of relief,that " ninety per cent of these people are naturallywith us." In starting the project he was thinking ofvotes as well as of human needs.

As this is one of the most famous pieces of sociallegislation in antiquity, we may here summarize itsdevelopment and later history. Events proved howdangerous a necessary public subsidy may becomeunder political pressure. There was no means test.Anyone willing to stand in the bread line could takeadvantage of the low price. There were perhaps fiftythousand who applied at first. But the number keptincreasing.

Unfortunately, in the absence of government re-ports the record at times is hazy. When the senatorialmachine regained control after the death of Grac-chus, it dared not abolish the sale of cheap wheat, butit modified the law in the interest of economy.

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Twenty years later a leader with large ambitionssought popularity by proposing to reduce the priceto four cents a bushel. If this proposal was adopted itwas soon annulled. Later as part of the budget-bal-ancing activities of a conservative government underSulla, who had an army at his back, the cheap wheatwas withdrawn.

This economy could not be maintained in the faceof public pressure. Shortly afterwards in a period ofgreat unrest the government restored cheap wheatand 200,000 persons appeared as purchasers. Thena smart politician named Clodius ran for tribune ona free-wheat platform, and won. A decade laterwhen Julius Caesar came to power he found 320,000persons were on grain relief. He had plans for tak-ing care of at least part of the unemployed througha large-scale Resettlement Administration. As dicta-tor he no longer needed the votes of citizens on thedole. To promote migration of the unemployed hebrought pressure on those who were unwilling toleave the exciting life of the capital, by ordering therelief rolls cut to 150,000 with a means test. Eightythousand citizens were sent overseas. The fact thatas a result of these measures some ninety thousandpersons were left unprovided for and that there areno reports that any of them starved may have a cer-tain significance. It is a fair assumption that peoplewere going to the government for relief who might

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have got on without it. Such imposition has beenheard of even in modern times.

Under the Empire the rolls were maintained andfinally food relief was greatly extended and madehereditary. The progress of direct relief in Rome isa conspicuous example of the menacing possibilitiesof pressure groups.

As for Gracchus, his vision extended beyond Rome.He was the first really Italian statesman. A grievancewas cherished by the Italian cities that had foughtwith Rome against Carthage and in the subsequentwars. They had not been put on a political equalitywith Rome by the grant of Roman citizenship.Shortly before Gracchus came into office one of theimportant central Italian cities had revolted againstthis injustice and had been destroyed. The tribunesensed the growing discontent which only a fewyears later was to lead to a civil war that cost thou-sands of lives. He was not satisfied with having cre-ated, at least temporarily, a democratic party. Hedesired to continue to make the party an agencyof progress. He took the statesmanlike view andbecame the champion of the wronged Italiancities. Success would have averted the future bitterstruggle.

The proposals of Gracchus to extend Roman citi-zenship gave his eager enemies an opening. As trib-une he had to stand for election every year. His

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opponents resorted to a political trick that is familiartoday. They put up a candidate against him whopromised impossible gifts of colonial land to the peo-ple and appealed to the hundred-per-cent Romansentiment against sharing citizenship with outsiders.The people deserted their leader and he was de-feated. In a riot that followed, the great reformer waskilled. His biographer gives a moving account of thecircumstances of his death. With a sprained anklehe had escaped across the Tiber, his enemies in hotpursuit. As he limped along, those whose championhe had been encouraged him and wished him success," as standers-by may do to those who are engaged ina race." But nobody in that stolid throng would fur-nish him the horse for which he asked. In a littlegrove in which he finally hid he was overtaken andmet his death.

The influence of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus didnot die with them. " At every turn in the paths of po-litical life," says the English historian A. H. J. Green-idge, " the Roman statesman was confronted by twofigures whom fear or admiration raised to giganticproportions. . . . The youth, the brotherhood, themartyrdom of the men were the very elements thatgave a softening radiance to the hard contour of theirlives. The Gracchi were a stern and ever present re-ality; they were also a bright and gracious memory.In either character they must have lived; but the com-

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bination of both presentments had secured them animmortality which age, wisdom, experience and suc-cess have often struggled vainly to secure."

The devotion of Cornelia to her sons has become alegend. It was she about whom the famous story istold that when a lady showed her jewels to Corneliaand asked to see Cornelia's, the mother brought outher sons, saying: " These are my jewels." The spiritin which she took their death is described by Mr.Greenidge in a passage of classic beauty. "Thatstrange feeling," he writes, " which a great and beau-tiful life has often inspired, that it belongs to eternityrather than to the immediate past, and that it has fewpoints of contact with the prosaic round of presentexistence, had almost banished from Cornelia's mindthe selfish instincts of her loss, and had perhaps evendulled the tender memories which cluster round thefrailer rather than the stronger elements in the char-acters of those we love. Those who visited her in hervilla at Misenum, where she kept her intellectualcourt, surrounded by all that was best in letters, andexchanging greetings or gifts with the potentates ofthe earth, were amazed at the composure with whichshe spoke of the lives and actions of her sons. Thememory drew no tear, her voice conveyed no intona-tion of sorrow or regret. She spoke of them as thoughthey were historical figures of the past, men too distantand too great to arouse the weak emotion which dark-

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ens contemplation. Some thought that her mind hadbeen shaken by age, or that her sensibility had beendulled by misfortune. ' In this they proved their ownlack of sensibility,' says the loving biographer of theGracchi. They did not know, he adds, the signs ofthat nobility of soul which is sometimes given bybirth and is always perfected by culture, or the rea-sonable spirit of endurance which mental and moralexcellence supply. The calmness of Cornelia proved,as well, that she was at one with her children aftertheir death, and their identity with a mind so pure isas great a tribute to their motives as the admiration orfear of the Romans is to their intellect and theirdeeds. Cornelia deserved a memorial in Rome forher own intrinsic worth; but the demeanour of herlatter days justifies the legend engraved on the statuewhich was to be seen in the portico of Metellus: ' ToCornelia, the mother of the Gracchi/ "

The younger Gracchus, as I have said, set out tochallenge the authority of the senatorial machinewith his coalition democratic party. For a brief timehe succeeded. Appian makes the acute observationthat under Gracchus "political power was turnedupside down. The power was in the hands of BigBusiness. Empty honour was left to the Senate." Thecoalition soon went to pieces. But the business lead-ers had learned that their group held the balance ofpower. They adopted the policy so successfully used

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in the American labour movement by Samuel Gom-pers. Under Gompers, organized labour supportedwhichever party seemed to offer the greater induce-ments. Big Business joined the Popular party of smallbusiness men, farmers, and reliefers to obtain its ob-jectives. When the Popular party swung too far tothe left, the important business leaders allied them-selves with the conservative senatorial machine. Fora good share of the last republican century Big Busi-ness was able to exert a strong influence on the poli-cies of the government.

The chief policies in which the business group wasinterested had to do with territorial expansion andthe exploitation of the conquered provinces. Theconservative senators shrank from the annexation ofadditional territory. This presented governmentalproblems which they were not ready to undertake.But new lands brought under Roman control gave thebusiness men opportunities for profitable invest-ments, for handling government contracts, for lend-ing money, and for opening new markets for trade.Rome became the banking centre and clearing houseof the world. Cicero boasted that not a single trans-action could take place in southern Gaul without anentry in a Roman account-book.

The history of the contracts that were let for tax-collections belongs to the seamy side of Roman expan-sion. The Republic had no permanent civil service

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for provincial administration. Following a commonpractice, it let five-year contracts to business syndi-cates. These paid the taxes in lump sums and the gov-ernment was relieved of all trouble. But in certainprovinces the syndicates would extort enough taxesin the five-year period above what was due Rome toenrich their members. The evil reputation of the op-pressive tax-collectors, the puhlicani, has come downto us from the New Testament references to " publi-cans and sinners." "Wherever the publican pene-trates," wrote Livy, "there is no more justice orliberty for anyone." With the backing of troops tax-collecting frequently became organized plundering.These conditions were not universal. There wereparts of the Empire in western Europe and northernAfrica where taxes were not farmed. These were gen-erally free from extortion and the condition of theirpeople was much improved under Roman rule. Itwould be a distorted picture that presented Rome'scolonial government as everywhere oppressive. Nev-ertheless provincial extortion had become a glaringevil.

In connection with provincial dealings and con-tracts there were many opportunities for shrewd busi-ness men to pick up money on the side. They couldhold Asiatic grain that they had collected for taxesand sell at high winter prices. They could speculatein land that went on the market at distressed prices

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during unsettled times, knowing that values wouldadvance under the Roman peace. They could lendmoney to cities at high rates of interest, running tofour or five per cent a month.

Marcus Junius Brutus, one of those grim republi-cans who murdered Julius Caesar, was a man univer-sally respected for his integrity. Yet he saw nothingout of the way in lending the city of Salamis a largesum of money at forty-eight per cent a year and thenbringing pressure on the provincial Governor to usetroops to collect the debt. It was in the judicial pro-ceedings for trying provincial governors for extortionthat one of the Gracchan laws proved an instrumentof oppression, wholly contrary to the purposes of thereformer who obtained its adoption. In the time ofGracchus governors accused of extortion were triedby juries made up of senators, men of their own classand naturally sympathetic with them. To avoid thisabuse, Gracchus substituted business men for sena-tors. But an unforeseen evil developed. If an honestgovernor tried to protect the provincials from exac-tions from a tax-collecting syndicate, its stockholderscould frame up charges against him and have himtried by a jury whose members might be financiallyinterested in the syndicate that he had antagonized.The make-up of these juries became one of the im-portant issues between the senatorial machine and

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the big business operators. So often do reforms pro-duce unhappy consequences!

How the business group intervened in politics isapparent in several incidents. There was a civil warin northern Africa in which a considerable numberof representatives of Roman commercial houses werekilled. The Senate was reluctant to prosecute a puni-tive war which might bring Rome a new province togovern. An expeditionary force was conducting ahalf-hearted campaign when the business crowd in-tervened. It stirred up the Assembly in defiance ofthe Senate to investigate the conduct of the war andfinally to send a new general, Marius, of humble ori-gin, to replace the dilatory aristocratic commander.

Another incident was in connection with the dep-redations of pirates in the Mediterranean. Rome hadbeen too preoccupied with other matters to police theseas, and the pirates had multiplied and become aserious menace to commerce. While the Senate fi-nally sent forces against them, it never was particu-larly concerned about trade. The campaign was al-lowed to drift. The business men were outraged, andwhen pirate raids threatened the capital's grain-sup-ply public sentiment reacted against senatorial in-competence. The Senate's dignity could not prevailagainst the soaring price of wheat. A magistrate pro-posed to the Assembly that Pompey, a competent mid-

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die-class general, be given extraordinary powers todeal with the situation. The Senate strenuously ob-jected to such a surrender of its authority. A tribunewas found to interpose a veto and announce that thenew command would be set up only over his deadbody. But the magistrate who had proposed the billnow invoked the principle of the recall, which Ti-berius Gracchus had used. As the vote proceededand it was apparent that the obstructionist would beremoved from office he withdrew his veto and the billpassed. Pompey was allowed three years for the task.But he acted with such energy that within threemonths the pirates had been virtually swept from theseas.

Still another instance of business intervention in thefield of government had to do with Asia Minor. Thishad proved a profitable field for Roman business, es-pecially for the tax-collecting corporations. Mithri-dates, an able native ruler of a kingdom beyond theRoman province, had raised the cry of " Asia for theAsiatics " and invaded Roman territory. I have al-ready referred to the sudden massacre of the unpop-ular Italian business men instigated by him. Thewar to expel the invader dragged along. Dividendsin Asiatic stocks widely held in Rome were sus-pended. Finally the business men forced a transferof the command from the senatorial general to Pom-pey, who they believed was sympathetic with their

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policy of expansion. They depended on him, notmerely to end the war, but to find excuse for annexingadditional territory to which government contractsfor taxes and public works might be extended.

The feverish business and speculative activity thathad sprung up in Rome with the great era of expan-sion continued to enrich the few at the expense ofthe many. The situation would have been differentif the new capital could have been used to developindustries whose production would have been dis-tributed in wages and salaries to the benefit of thewhole community. But such a use requires a degreeof industrialization that was wholly lacking in ancientItaly. The wealth that flowed in was concentrated ina comparatively few hands. It was spent on luxuriesfrom abroad, on maintaining large slave establish-ments, on big country estates, and sometimes on in-vestments in the provinces. It created few new jobs.There was little chance for the poor man to get ahead.In spite of the primitive economic ideas of the time,these significant facts did not escape contemporaryobservers. One of them wrote that "conquests en-riched the wealthy and impoverished the poor."

Reckless speculation induced by easy money hadthe usual consequences. Business men became over-extended. The panic of 86 B.C., and a severe depres-sion less than a quarter of a century later, testified tothe unhealthiness of the economic situation.

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Civil war in Italy, which Gaius Gracchus had triedto prevent, led to a slump in the value of real estate,the chief form of investment in Rome. A few yearspreviously the government had attempted to meet ex-travagant expenditures by devaluing the currency.This had added to the uncertainty. As Cicero re-marked, no one was able to tell what he was reallyworth. Then came the shock of extensive losses inAsia. In this emergency the government dominatedby the Popular party enacted a bankruptcy law bywhich debts were scaled down by seventy-five percent. The financial stringency was relieved by spoilsfrom the Asiatic provinces. But the lesson of thepanic was soon forgotten. Within a few years thegambling spirit again permeated Italian society andwild land speculation became general. Looking backnear the close of his life, Cicero wrote of conditionsin the year 63 B.C. that at no time in his recollectionwas the world so heavily involved in debt. " Never,"he said, " were measures for the repudiation of debtsmore strenuously agitated. Men of every sort andrank attempted with arms and armies to force theproject through."

An explosion came in the famous conspiracy ofCatiline in the very year to which Cicero referred. Itis worth examining briefly for the light it throws onthe bitterness between the oligarchy of wealth andthe submerged masses that flared up under the strain

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of the depression. Catiline has come down to us fromaccounts written by his bitter enemies as a villain ofpurest ray serene, an upper-class gangster, the unsuc-cessful leader of a dangerous conspiracy. But fouryears after his death the populace strewed flowersupon his tomb. He must have had redeeming quali-ties. An enigmatical fellow, this Catiline; embitteredby political failure, heavily in debt, courageous, dash-ing, magnetic, driven by combined ambition andsympathy for the forgotten man. Our accounts ofhim are based chiefly on the writings of Sallust andCicero. Sallust had been proconsular Governor ofNumidia. " Thereafter he retired from public affairsand lived in great splendour, having acquired hiswealth, it was said, by extortion in his province." Cic-ero was Rome's leading lawyer, with a $175,000 man-sion on the Palatine and several country estates. Tohim the Popular party was made up of the " scum anddregs of the town," the " miserable starveling rabble."In their attitude toward Catiline these men probablywere no more objective than modern industrial lead-ers would be in discussing issues in a bitter labourcontroversy today.

Vituperation was even more common and moreextreme in Roman controversies than it is in moderncampaigns in America. The " smearing " attacks byAmerican politicians are not taken seriously by dis-interested observers. Reading the violent language

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used against Catiline we are constantly reminded ofgutter politics at home. In the light of American ex-perience we cannot be sure of the facts in this ancientconspiracy case, especially in the prelude. Certainlywe have abundant reason to discount some of thecharges made. A century later accusations on a sim-ilar scale were circulated against the Emperor Tibe-rius. They no longer are believed.

What has completed the damnation of Catiline inthe eyes of historians is a letter he wrote to an agedaristocrat, an old friend, just before he left Rome tojoin the rebel farmers who had been attracted to hiscause. He is determined, he says, to publish no de-fence of his course, but he feels he owes an explana-tion to a friend. He has suffered injuries and indigni-ties. Robbed of the fruit of his exertions, he has beendefeated for the honour of the consulship, which hehad fairly earned. So, he adds, " I have undertaken,as is my wont, the public cause of the distressed."

Anyone who condemns Catiline as merely a self-seeking demagogue on the strength of this letter isunfamiliar with the political mentality. In an ac-quaintance with American political leaders coveringmany years, I do not recall a single one who did notcombine personal ambition with a desire, in varyingdegrees, to serve the public. Indeed, without thepersonal motive a man does not become a successfulpolitician. In the heated Bull Moose campaign of

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1912, Theodore Roosevelt on one occasion franklyavowed that he would show the Republican bossesthat" they can't do this to me," referring to the steam-roller methods used to prevent his obtaining the Re-publican nomination for President. I knew ColonelRoosevelt fairly well, and I recognized his faults. Butthere is not the slightest question in my mind thatdesire to be of public service in the troubled yearspreceding the World War was dominant with him, al-though it was mixed with a human determination toget back at his political enemies. In his letter to hisfriend, Catiline merely shows himself a typical poli-tician.

Undoubtedly Catiline was a man of violent nature." If a fire is lighted against me," he is quoted by Cic-ero as saying," I shall put it out, not by water, but bypulling down the roof of things." That he regardedhimself as the leader of the helpless masses is shownby another remark that Cicero has preserved." There are two bodies in the state," he said. " One isfeeble with a feeble head " (here he was referring tothe oligarchy). "The other is strong but headless.While I live this strong body shall never lack a headwhile it deserves one." This boast might have comefrom any turbulent leader of the cause of the op-pressed in recent times — from John Brown of Osa-watomie, for instance.

A speech of Catiline to his followers, quoted by

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Sallust, shows the underlying bitterness among thepeople, to which he was appealing. "Everything,"he says, " is monopolized by a proud and insolent oli-garchy; power, riches, honours are in the hands of thefew, or scantily dealt out among their creatures, attheir will and pleasure. To us they have left nothingbut disgrace, contempt, and danger, the terror ofprosecutions, and the pangs of gripping poverty. . . .We have beggary at home, a load of debts abroad;desolation before our eyes, and not the smallest hopeof relief to assuage our misery. In a word, the breathwe draw is all that is left for us."

A case may be made for Catiline on the assumptionthat he turned to conspiracy and violence only afterhe had lost hope for reform through political actionas he became convinced that he never could win aconsulship.

In his campaign for consul in the summer of 63 B.C.his formal program is not clear, and it is quite possiblehe had none. It has been suggested that he urged thestock left-wing proposal of the time — cancellation ofthe general indebtedness, which Cicero mentioned,called in Rome the "clean-slate" policy. But thiswould not have reached the mass of the people. Itseems more likely that he was appealing to all thediscontented elements while pledging himself tonothing in particular. But if he did not declareopenly for the clean-slate policy, he soon was sus-

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pected of intending this and perhaps even more vio-lent measures.

In any event his campaign was disturbing enoughto frighten business men and precipitate the panic of63 B.C. The foundation for it had been laid by thespeculation in land and the widespread indebtednessjust mentioned. Loans were generally called andthere was a flight of gold from Italy. The discontentfrom the depression had given Catiline his chance.The panic caused his defeat. It rallied all the con-servatives against him. The government acted vig-orously to stop the flight of gold, as the United Statesgovernment acted under similar circumstances inMarch 1933. An embargo was put on gold exports.At the same time the help of Q. Considius, one of theleading financiers of Rome, was enlisted. He held aposition in the financial world very like that of thefirst J. P. Morgan in Wall Street. His outstandingloans at this time were in the neighbourhood of three-quarters of a million dollars. An announcement fromhim that he would extend credit at easy rates was im-portant enough to receive a vote of thanks from theSenate. The combined action of government and fin-ancier allayed the panic.

The parallel to what happened in the United Statesin the panic of 1907 is close. Frenzied speculationhad led to a severe financial strain. In October ofthat year when the Knickerbocker Trust Company of

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THE NEW DEAL IN OLt) ROME

New York failed and the National Bank of Americawent down, a wave of fear swept the country. In theNew York Stock Exchange there was a day of terrorand nobody would lend. The interest rate shot up to150 per cent. President Theodore Roosevelt sent hisSecretary of the Treasury to confer with the leadingNew York bankers. J. Pierpont Morgan sat at thehead of the table. While we have no record, we mayguess that the same thing happened in the RomanForum in 63 B.C., with Considius taking charge. Un-der Morgan's direction a pool of twenty-five milliondollars was raised to be lent at 10 per cent. Gradu-ally the situation was worked out and the panic sub-sided.

Doubtless the disappearance of Catiline contrib-uted to the reassurance of business. Defeated in theconsular election, he had planned an armed revolt.Evidence was difficult to obtain. His followers wereheld by a strange magnetism. A reward of ten thou-sand dollars offered by the government failed to pro-duce a traitor who would betray the plot. But thenet was closing around the conspirators. Catiline leftRome and joined a band that had rallied to his stand-ard north of Florence. It was made up of evictedfarmers and distressed ex-service men; some threethousand under arms. Here early in 62 B.C. he fell ina battle with government troops sent to quell the in-surrection. So desperate were his men that not a sin-

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gle free Roman among them survived. " A fine manwasted," is the verdict of a sober English historian,W. E. Heitland.

The panic left its aftermath of trouble. Presum-ably in Rome as in New York there were concernsthat were too heavily involved to survive. But a fewmonths later Roman conditions were greatly relievedby large additions to the gold reserve. Pompey camehome with millions in precious metals that he had ex-propriated in his successful campaigns in Asia. As aresult of the easy money now available the situationbecame normal.

Meanwhile a revolutionary change had been takingplace in one arm of the government. Its significancenobody had understood, least of all its originator. Itended the Republic and brought in the Empire. Theold citizen army was replaced by a semi-professionalarmy on a new basis. At the close of the second cen-tury B.C., Italy was threatened with invasion fromthe north. Marius of North African fame was re-peatedly elected consul to deal with the danger,which he did with complete success. As consul hewas empowered to raise the necessary troops. He re-alized the difficulty of conscripting enough soldiersfrom the depleted farms of Italy and of whippingthe raw farmers into a disciplined armed force. Hecalled for volunteers. Veterans, unemployed, andunattached men flocked in, attracted by the prospect

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of adventure and the rewards that a liberal generalmight offer from successful campaigns. Thus wascreated a volunteer army of mercenaries who lookedto their commanders rather than to the state. There-after until the reorganization of the army under Au-gustus, the government bowed to the general whocould control the soldiers.

In Rome's situation, large armies were required forthe frontiers and no civil power could long standagainst an ambitious commander of the legions. Inthe last years of the Republic the young Octavian,whom we know better by his later title of Augustus,insisted that the Senate authorize his election as con-sul while he was still under legal age. Objection wasraised. But the officer who bore the commander'smessage threw off his soldier's jacket and showed thehilt of his sword. " This shall do the deed if you willnot," he exclaimed. The Senate temporized and thenyielded when it learned that Octavian was marchingon Rome with eight legions. Nearly two thousandyears later another Roman government was to capitu-late before another march on Rome headed by theman who was to become the Duce, Leader, as Octa-vian was to become the Princeps, First Citizen.

For eighty years and more the business interests,except for short intervals, had more or less dominatedthe government. Under their direction Rome hadbeen defended from fierce attacks from without, and

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as a result of pressure from them its boundaries hadbeen extended. They had proved much more suc-cessful in foreign affairs than in domestic. Today wemay recognize, as contemporaries could not, two ma-jor defects in their administration. While the capital,in spite of outbursts of savagery in the civil wars, hadbecome increasingly a centre of civilized living, thiswas confined to the well-to-do. The condition of theimpoverished masses had been ignored except forthe providing of relief and free amusements. Doubt-less, and perhaps naturally, the average Roman busi-ness man felt that these provisions fulfilled the state'sfull duty to the less fortunate. The second defectproved speedily disastrous to the Republic. Theproblems involved in creating the new mercenaryarmy were not appreciated. Even if they had been,the men in control lacked the statesmanship for theirsolution. With Marius and the succeeding holders ofhigh commands, the supreme authority was passingto the master of the legions. Out of the conflictingambitions of military leaders emerged a great soldierand administrator. It was the destiny of Julius Cassarto bring western Europe into the orbit of civilizationand to prepare the way for the Empire. On Janu-ary 11, 49 B.C., when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, thelong history of the Republic was approaching theend.

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i>s9s7s>yJv2\9N£N3\iN9sJv^>s>s>s^^^

CHAPTER VIII

THE REPUBLIC COULDN'T STANDPROSPERITY

IT was under the Republic that Rome marched far-thest, although its expansion continued into the sec-ond century after Christ. When Caesar came intopower the little settlement of shepherds on the Tiberhad extended its dominion around the basin of theMediterranean and over western Europe from Gi-braltar to the Rhine. A tremendous job it had been." It was such a toil," wrote Virgil, " to found the Ro-man race."

This vast achievement that affected the whole fu-ture of the Western world had been carried out underthe direction of a city that had gradually grown froma village to a great cosmopolitan centre. In the lastyears of the Republic, Rome was not yet the magnifi-

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THE REPUBLIC COULDN T STAND PROSPERITY

cent city it was to become under the Empire. But forthe rich it was a centre of luxurious living. They hadgreat mansions on the hills. A rich aristocratic dema-gogue paid $740,000 for his estate on the Palatine.Much of the value probably was in the land, whichhad become expensive with the growth of the city.Caesar later paid $5,000,000 for land which he boughtfor the expansion of the Forum. It was fashionableto have country estates as well as town houses. Be-sides his establishment on the Palatine, Cicero hadeight country villas to which he liked to retire fromthe bustling life of the city. The lovely bay of Naples,two days' journey from Rome, was a favourite resort.Its shores were studded with villas. The living in thegreat houses was on an extravagant scale. Anyonewith the slightest pretensions to social standing musthave at least ten slaves, and a well-to-do family mighthave two hundred. A skilful cook cost five thousanddollars.

The absence of modern transportation facilitiescaused a concentration of population. The poor livedin wretchedly built flats which often were swept bydestructive fires. One of the big business men of thecapital became notorious for the way in which hetook advantage of the frequent fires for makingmoney. At this time there was no fire department inRome. When there was a fire he would appear on thescene with a large staff of trained slaves. He would

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find the owners of the burning building and of build-ings that were threatened, and make them distressoffers which they were glad to accept. Then his pri-vate firemen would go to work to save the property.

Rentals for quarters in the slum districts werecheap. Young Sulla, who was to be heard from later,paid $12.50 a month for his flat. The man who livedin the flat above him paid $8.50. We read of onebachelor in comfortable circumstances who paid $125a month for his apartment. The poor, of course, hadthe dole, public baths open at a nominal fee, and theelaborate entertainments of races, wild beast huntson a temporary platform built in the Forum, and thebrutal gladiatorial combats. These last were a sur-vival from the primitive religion of the Etruscans,Rome's immediate neighbours to the north. After anobleman's death his retainers and slaves killed eachother in fights at his funeral so he would have a properescort in the lower world. The combats introducedinto Rome in the middle of the third century B.C. wereregarded as exciting spectacles, no more shocking tothe spectators than a modern bull fight.

In the Roman world, trade followed the flag andRoman bankers and brokers were established in theprovinces wherever business was to be transacted.Offices were set up in the Forum. Bankers acceptedchecquing accounts as well as accounts bearing in-terest. They were prepared to furnish bills of ex-

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change and letters of credit. Luxuries imported fromthe provinces met the interest on foreign investmentsor were paid for out of the spoils of conquest.

Rome had been demoralized by its own success.Problems arising from the extension of slavery, theconcentration of wealth, the farm problem in Italy,and the unemployment problem in the capital werethreatening to wreck the Republic. Sudden wealthhad gone to men's heads. We often see the effectin America today. The new rich frequently becomearrogant. Their children as often are both snobbishand worthless. It was so in Rome of the first century.Cicero wrote that moral sense was depraved bywealth. As for the unemployed who flocked to thebig city, their character was weakened by idleness.The Gracchus brothers saw clearly the evils. Tibe-rius tried to deal with the farm problem. When hefailed, Gaius attempted to organize a democraticparty as an instrument of public service. But thepopular Assembly proved no more competent thanthe decadent Senate to govern a city that, in turn,governed a vast empire. The wretchedly poor peo-ple, who constituted the majority of the voters, werelargely for sale. It is hard, as Benjamin Franklin ob-served, for an empty sack to stand upright.

The business crowd, whose political manoeuvringwas traced in the last chapter, was naturally con-cerned with Imperial defence. It was this group that,

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against the protests of an unwilling and stupid aris-tocracy, forced the elevation of the competent sonof a small Italian farmer to the supreme command.Marius has been described as " a peasant of genius,slow-witted, inelastic, a good soldier but a blunder-ing politician/' Organizing and drilling his volunteerarmy, he threw back invaders from the north so ef-fectively that it was five hundred years before Romewas again threatened.

With no aptitude for political life, he might haveretired at the end of the war, but he was forced intopolitics to make sure that his soldiers received therewards he had promised them. As he had sprungfrom the people and had won his command over theopposition of the senatorial machine, he naturallybecame the leader of the democratic, or Popular,party. In this position he was surrounded by cleverermen who knew exactly what they wanted. Theyprofessed allegiance to the program of Gaius Grac-chus. But they lacked the character and the abilityof that great leader. Their turbulent regime alien-ated the powerful business group that naturallywanted law and order in Rome. It turned to thesenatorial machine, and the coalition persuadedMarius to use his troops to crush his former friends.

Meanwhile, as Gracchus had foreseen, the Italiancities grew increasingly restive because of the denialto them of the advantage of Roman citizenship.

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When a conservative reformer, who had become theirchampion, was assassinated, the discontent flamedinto revolt. In the violent civil war that followed, abrilliant young aristocrat, a former lieutenant ofMarius's, demonstrated again his military ability.Sulla, whose cheap bachelor quarters have been men-tioned, came of a distinguished though impover-ished family. His success as a soldier led to hiselection as consul. Another war had broken out inthe East, and the Senate awarded him the Asiaticcommand. Marius was jealous of the younger manand a violent conflict followed in which civil gov-ernment virtually disappeared in the clash of armedforces. Here was set the evil precedent of the purgeof the opponents of the regime in power that wasfollowed in the modern dictatorships. In Sulla's ab-sence Marius took delirious vengeance on his aristo-cratic enemies. After the death of Marius, Sulla re-turned with his legions from his Asiatic assignmentand carried out a massacre that left a lasting stigmaon his memory.

The new dictator was a Tory aristocrat, genial andgay in his lighter moods, but ruthless in carrying outhis policies. His biographer describes his blue eyes,keen and glaring, made the more forbidding by hiscomplexion, white, covered with red blotches —" like a mulberry sprinkled with meal," a verse-writersaid. His anger was directed chiefly at the rich busi-

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ness men who had backed Marius. In spite of hisenergy he longed to retire from public life and be-come a gentleman sportsman. It has been surmisedthat his purge had a double purpose. He wanted toget rid of every individual who might be a menaceto him in his retirement, and he was determined tocollect enough money from the estates of those heproscribed to give satisfactory rewards to his soldiers.The story of the hunting down of those on his deathlist, as recorded by later writers, makes sickeningreading.

In one of the fragments of his autobiography thathas been preserved he gave his principle of action."All my most happy resolutions," he wrote, "havebeen the result, not of reasoning, but of momentaryinspiration." Statesmanship was hardly to be ex-pected from such a source. A natural reactionary, heplanned to revise the Constitution and set up a con-servative government free from the menace of popu-lar control. He did this and then retired. Upon histombstone he had engraved an epitaph that set forththe rest of his philosophy of life. It ran: " No friendhas ever served, no enemy has ever wronged mewhom I have not repaid in full."

The Sullan Constitution gave the senatorial ma-chine its last chance. It lacked the old capacity tomake the machine work. Besides, the careers ofMarius and Sulla had demonstrated that the control

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of the government had passed to any able army com-mander who was ambitious enough to seize it. Sucha man had been developing in this disturbed periodin a rising young politician. Julius Caesar, whoseaunt, Julia, was the wife of Marius, founded his careeron a famous remark of his uncle's. " The law," Mariushad said, " speaks too softly to be heard amid thedin of arms." This appealed to the realism of hisbrilliant nephew. In view of the record, he must haveseen that he could not go far in politics without anarmy at his command. Meanwhile it was necessaryto get popular support. All his affiliations were withthe Marian Popular party. In the reaction againstthe excesses of Sulla, it was coming back to powerand Caesar naturally identified himself with it, al-though there is no reason to suppose he had theslightest confidence in any government dominatedby the Assembly.

Caesar was a dashing young aristocrat. His biog-rapher describes him as tall and good-looking, withkeen black eyes. He was fastidious in his dress andhe hated growing bald. He used to comb his hairforward to cover the bald spot, and later he greatlyvalued the privilege of wearing a laurel wreath whichthe Senate voted him, because it hid his baldness.He combined a superb intelligence with the bornexecutive's quickness of decision and action. Cicerothought him a most effective speaker and he became

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a popular idol. His soldiers, whom he called " com-rades/' adored him. The spell he cast upon men wasshown at the time when, as a young man, he was cap-tured and held prisoner by pirates. Although his lifewas in danger for a month before he was ransomed,he used to joke with his captors. When he wanted tosleep he would send word to them with supreme non-chalance not to make so much noise. Occasionallyhe would call the pirates together to hear him reciteverses he had written. Those that seemed bored hewould denounce as illiterate barbarians and he wouldthreaten to come back and crucify them. They tookit as good clean fun. But after his release he kept hisword. He got together some armed men on ships,surprised the pirates, and put them all to death.

The sort of exuberant conversation that charmedhis friends, as well as the pirates, is illustrated in aremark he made when deeply in debt. He needed, hesaid, something more than a million dollars " in orderto have nothing at all." The young man's debts werethe talk of the town. But they were not the usualdebts of the young spendthrifts of the time. Theyrepresented a coolly calculating investment in poli-tics. When he was appointed Governor of FartherSpain he was so deeply involved that his creditorsthreatened to seize his baggage and refused to lethim depart until he had arranged with his richbacker, Crassus, to satisfy them. In Spain he re-

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couped himself from the proceeds of campaignswhich resulted in confiscations and the sale of cap-tives — all part of the unhappy game of conquest.

Caesar returned from Spain to be elected consul.He was getting on in the world. He had a colleague,Bibulus, theoretically with equal authority. Butwhere Macgregor sat, there was the head of the table.Bibulus was stubborn and stupid. Jokers began tosign legal documents: "Done in the consulship ofJulius and Caesar." In furtherance of his political am-bition Caesar had made an alliance with his formerangel, Crassus, and with Pompey, now Rome's mostdistinguished general. Pompey had been disap-pointed in not being able to persuade the Senate toprovide proper compensation for his veterans in theform of land allotments. He had too much respectfor the Constitution to summon his ex-service mento intimidate the Senate, or perhaps he lacked thenerve until the new consul bucked him up. Caesarhad no scruples in meeting what he regarded as un-scrupulous opposition and he had all the courage inthe world. What followed is interesting not merelyfor what it shows of Caesar's tendencies, but also forits disclosure of a Roman filibuster in operation. Therecord is confused, but it seems to have been essen-tially this:

Caesar proposed a bill for the purchase of land tobe distributed among Pompey's veterans and the

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urban poor. The conservatives in the Senate did notespecially object to the provisions of the measure.They did object, however, to any bill that might in-crease the popularity of Caesar, whom they distrusted.Unwilling to reject the bill outright, they resorted toa filibuster. In the United States Senate a group ofsenators occasionally bands together to talk a bill todeath. The Roman senators attempted to do thesame thing to the land bill. They discussed the bill atsuch length that Caesar found it impossible to bringit to a vote. However, in Rome the Senate's consentwas not necessary to a law, and Caesar finally tookhis bill direct to the Assembly, disregarding the Sen-ate. In the Assembly Bibulus met the bill with a flatveto and constitutionally this should have ended thematter. Caesar, however, had few constitutional scru-ples and he met obstruction with violence. Bibu-lus was driven from the Forum by the mob, whichprobably included many of Pompey's veterans. Thenthe bill was illegally passed. In theory the Senatehad the right to declare it null and void, but prudencewas so plainly the better part of valour that no actionwas taken.

After this experience the obstructionists took ad-vantage of an old religious custom. If one of themagistrates announced that he had observed an un-favourable omen, the Assembly was automaticallyadjourned. The omens had long since come to be

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THE REPUBLIC COULDN'T STAND PROSPERITY

used for political purposes. Bibulus had failed tostop Caesar's land bill, but he had made its passageillegal. He was resolved to do the same for all othermeasures of Caesar or his friends, but he did not careto face the mob again. So he shut himself up in hishouse and announced unfavourable omens on everyday on which the Assembly could meet. At the mo-ment the Senate was too frightened to do anything,but Bibulus doubtless hoped that its courage wouldrevive in the future.

Having won the first round, Caesar went rapidlyahead with his program, and a second land law wassoon brought before the Assembly. There was stilla considerable tract of public land in Campaniawhich had survived the Gracchan legislation. Caesarproposed to distribute this among the ex-service menand the fathers of families with at least three chil-dren. This was passed with no organized opposition.In the interim Caesar had been voted a provincialgovernorship that carried with it authority to re-cruit three legions. He got busy at once. Frank BurrMarsh suggests that the fact that Caesar's troops werecamped outside the city may have had somethingto do with the fading of opposition to the second bill.

Then, animated by what one of his contemporariescalled his " inbred decency," Caesar drove through alaw intended to end abuses in provincial administra-tion. At the same time he won the support of a big

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tax corporation which had overbid the possibilitiesof tax-collections and was asking for relief. He in-duced the Assembly to remit one third of the sum thesyndicate had contracted to pay and advised it to bemore careful in its bidding in the future.

During his consulship he had obtained the pro-vincial command just referred to. It included north-ern Italy and the eastern shore of the Adriatic. South-ern Gaul was afterward added. The command wasfor five years. Later this period was extended. Nowhis career was opening. It is needless to assume thatCassar at this time had planned his future. He was amagnificent opportunist who would have sympa-thized with Theodore Roosevelt in saying: " I knowwhat I want to do now, and I know what I want to donext, but after that I don't know." Caesar appreciatedthe fact that the Roman Republic was only a shell;that it was at the mercy of any general at the headof an army that was loyal to him; that the Galliccommand gave him the chance to create such anarmy. As a young magistrate on official duties in theWest he had come in contact with the Gauls and mayhave learned of the divisions among them whichmade their conquest possible. Whether he appre-ciated the importance to the Empire of the provincehe was to conquer can be only surmised. His famousMemoirs, through which the American student is in-troduced to Latin literature, are so objectively written

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that they give no clue to what was in his mind. In anyevent, in a long series of brilliant campaigns he laidthe foundations of modern France and proved him-self among the great captains of history.

Up to the last decades of the Republic the Romanworld had been primarily a Mediterranean empireand civilization. Spain, indeed, had been taken overafter the defeat of Carthage. But until the time ofCaesar, it has been said, Europe had not come intoexistence. The peoples of what are now France andsouthern Germany had been ignored by Romanstatesmen except on those rare occasions when theyhad become a military menace and it was necessaryto drive them back. But Julius Cassar, as a recentwriter, Christopher Dawson, puts it, by his personalinitiative and military genius " dragged western Eu-rope out of its barbaric isolation and united it withthe civilized society of the Mediterranean world."His legacy has lasted to the present age.

During his long absence from Rome on these cam-paigns his enemies were busy. The aristocrats, nowin alliance with the wealthy business men, regardedhim as a dangerous radical. They feared a new Grac-chan reform program if the successful commanderwere allowed to come back in an official capacity.He might propose a redistribution of wealth, thewiping out of mortgages, the cancellation of debts.As the time drew near when he proposed to return

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and run again for consul, the Senate ordered him todisband his troops and declared martial law. Caesarknew better than to trust himself undefended in acapital controlled by his enemies. He responded tothe senatorial edict by crossing the Rubicon, the littlestream a few miles south of Ravenna that separatedthe province under his command from Italy proper.He had with him a brigade of five thousand men.Four days later the news reached Rome, to the dismayof the dominant plutocracy. Pompey, the generalupon whom the Senate had depended, had brokenwith Cassar. His boast was that he had only to stamphis foot and all Italy would flock to his standard. Tothe dismay of the senators, the foot-stamping failedto work. Instead word came that the Italian townswere going over to his rival. Pompey fled to Greecewith such troops as he could gather and a large num-ber of raw recruits. In Greece he was later defeatedby Caesar. Escaping to Egypt, he was treacherouslykilled as he was landing from the boat.

In the financial panic that followed the news of theRubicon there was a collapse in real-estate values anda flight of capital. The Appian Way was blocked bywealthy refugees, taking all their movable propertywith them. They had misjudged their man. Caesarwanted prosperity for Rome and for the Empire. Inthe few months that he had for work in the capitalin the intervals allowed him by civil and foreign

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THE REPUBLIC COULDN'T STAND PROSPERITY

wars, he showed himself a statesman wi.th an Im-perial outlook, of the Gracchan breed. He began adrastic reform of provincial administration and theextension of Roman citizenship to the provinces. Athome he met the crisis, not by confiscation, but byliberal bankruptcy laws. Debtors were allowed toturn in their property to their creditors at its pre-warvalue, with deduction for interest already paid.This amounted to scaling down debts by abouttwenty-five per cent.

To prevent hoarding, stop the export of capital tothe provinces, and at the same time bolster the real-estate market, Caesar limited holdings of cash to threethousand dollars and decreed that investors put atleast two thirds of their funds into Italian real estate.I already have referred to his reducing the reliefrolls from 320,000 to 150,000, and settling 80,000veterans and urban poor in towns in the provinces.To help provide work on the farms he enacted alaw under which one third of all ranch hands must befreemen. Further to relieve unemployment and atthe same time to stimulate trade, he planned to im-prove the harbour of Ostia and to cut a canal throughthe Isthmus of Corinth. There also was a proposalto drain the Pontine marshes and Lake Fucinus inorder to add to the farm land of Italy.

" His aims," says an English historian, Rice Holmes," were to reconcile partisans and induce them to co-

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operate with him for the common weal, to improvethe machinery of government, to ameliorate socialconditions, to minimize crime, to purify the admin-istration of justice, to invigorate the moral tone ofthe rich, to stimulate manufacture and trade, to exe-cute public works, to promote self-education, to in-troduce municipal reform, to remove the evils of pro-vincial taxation, and to make the provincials feel theyshared in the greatness of Rome."

, Caesar had grown with responsibility. The daringyoung political demagogue had developed into astatesman with a world conception for the Empire.He was familiar with the mismanagement of Italy andthe provinces by the influence of pressure groupsupon the government of the Republic. From his ac-tions we may infer his reorganization plans. Therewas to be a strong central government combined witha large measure of local autonomy built on self-gov-erning cities. He believed he was the only disinter-ested man in Rome with the vision and ability toprovide such a central government. This had to takethe shape of a military autocracy supervising an ex-pert civil service. Without such a powerful centralauthority there would be nothing to prevent a con-tinuance of civil wars.

In this great program he never was able to obtainthe co-operation of the influential old families whostill cherished the dream of an aristocratic republic

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such as had built the Empire. The senators wereproud of their dignity and position. They might havesubmitted sullenly to becoming rubber stamps of adictator. But when they saw him flooding the Senatewith new men they rebelled.

Caesar was the first great Roman internationalist.His plans indicated a purpose to extend Roman citi-zenship throughout the provinces. Apparently it washis desire to make the Senate representative of theEmpire. He began adding to it, not only rising newmen from Italy, outside of the old families. He evenbrought " semi-barbarous Gauls," as the senatorscalled them, into the exclusive circle. He was in-creasing the number of magistrates who eventuallywould become members of the Senate and thus beelevated to the nobility. The House of Lords was be-ing swamped with new peers. It was intolerable!

In contrast to Sulla, Caesar had shown mercy to hisenemies. The Senate was crowded with them. " Younever forget anything," said Cicero to Caesar,"except injuries." These personal opponents werereinforced by honest conservatives who believedunder the ethical standards of the day that theywere justified in killing a tyrant. That Caesar hadbecome an autocrat no one could doubt. That hehad exercised his power tyranically was untrue.As a preliminary to carrying out his larger plans ofImperial organization he had made himself supreme

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in Rome. His command of the legions was the basisof his authority. Using the familiar forms, he had hadhimself repeatedly elected consul. He was given thetribunician power. This carried certain privileges,including personal inviolability. Finally he wasmade dictator. The dictatorship was an ancient Ro-man office, but it was conferred only for an emer-gency not exceeding six months. Caesar was madedictator for life. With these powers he had becomethe uncrowned absolute monarch of Rome and theEmpire. He was in charge of finances, public works,and civil and criminal jursdiction. He supervisedmunicipal administration. He was commander of allland and sea forces.

His accumulation of personal authority made iteasy to organize a coalition of opponents to get rid ofhim. More than sixty conspirators joined the plot.Assassination cut short the career of the greatestgenius Rome so far had produced.

His genius had not saved him from blunders. Inhis last years Caesar did not show his customary keenand balanced judgment in dealing with complexproblems. His fine gift of lucid thought that noemergency could confuse was blurred by his longseries of triumphs. It is often the fate of great mento fall victims to their own success. Events so longhave marched at their command that they expect themarch to continue. They forget that events marched

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only because the road had been cleared by rigor-ous planning, by taking account of human moodsand motives, by careful timing. At the end Caesarmisjudged the temper and the power of the Romanoligarchy. In enlarging the Senate he made it a mobof unworkable size. He flouted the ancient sentimentagainst monarchy. Impatiently he drove for the endswhich he believed essential, without realizing thenecessity of carrying public opinion with him. LeonHomo, French historian, has grounds for the remarkthat" with his own hands Caesar made the conspiracythat killed him."

I have said that the failure of the Republic wasdue to the creation of the new army that no longerwas subject to the civil authorities. It is difficult tobelieve that this situation would have developedwithout the deterioration in character of leaders andpeople that resulted from the get-rich-quick era. Atthe top of the social scale were the snobbish and in-competent aristocrats, at the bottom were the slaves,former slaves, and people permanently on relief. Re-publican Rome was overwhelmed by the glitteringprosperity that had abruptly swept over it.

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CHAPTER IX

DRIFT TO DICTATORSHIP

WITH the assassination of Caesar the conspirators as-sumed that the Republic would be automaticallyrestored and would function as of old. They werewrong. Their victim himself had predicted the con-sequences of his death. His biographer wrote thatCaesar had said that if anything happened to him theRepublic would have no peace but would relapseinto civil war under worse conditions than ever. Thescene in the Forum immediately after the murderforecast the difficulties ahead. The plotters, Appianwrites, hoped to bribe part of the people and to winthe support of the rest " from love of liberty andlonging for the Republic." But, he continues, therehad been a great admixture of foreign blood fromthe slaves and their descendants, and the dole had

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attracted to Rome "the lazy, the beggars, and thevagrants of all Italy." Besides, many of Caesar's veter-ans were in the city waiting for their bonus in theshape of land allotments. The crowd listened silentlyto the defence of the assassination. So the conspira-tors hurriedly decided to make terms with Caesar'slieutenant, Mark Antony, who was in a position toget military backing.

At this juncture Cicero came to the front. Thisgreat patriot was a sort of combination of DanielWebster and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He came fromthe middle class, which he had called " the true Ro-man people." First as an eloquent advocate at thebar, and then as senator, he had been able in his dayto sway men by his oratory. His essays on politics,philosophy, religion, and humane living have influ-enced civilization for two thousand years. But he wasa moderate in an age of extremists, an academic lib-eral rather than a realist. He dreamed of uniting thebest people of all classes to maintain the Republic towhich he was deeply devoted. He had the outsider'scurious respect for the closed circle of those aristo-crats who looked down on him as an upstart. He didnot appreciate their short-sighted selfishness as it wasappreciated by Caesar, who belonged to them bybirth. Blinded by his prejudices, he did not under-stand why the most substantial men in Rome, to saynothing of the mass of the people, should have been

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distressed by the assassination. A business friend hadwritten him: " If Caesar could not find a way out ofour difficulties, who can? " The old republican wassure that he could. When it became apparent thatAntony had no notion of restoring the Republic butwas ambitious to become another Caesar, Cicero ledthe fight against him in a series of denunciatoryspeeches that we may still read. But his eloquence,it has been said, could not prevail against swords.

Meanwhile a young man had come to Rome whowas to be a far more formidable opponent to the plansof the republicans than Antony. The future Augus-tus, then called Octavius and later Octavian, grand-nephew of Caesar, was a boy of eighteen at the timeof the assassination. His grandfather had been anItalian banker, his father a Roman magistrate. Hismother was a daughter of Julia, Caesar's sister. AfterCaesar had returned from his campaigns he was at-tracted by the keen mind of his young grand-nephewand kept him with him as much of the time as wasconvenient. Undoubtedly the boy heard discussionsof the plans for imperial reorganization. He was fin-ishing his education in a little sea-coast town acrossthe Adriatic when news came of Caesar's death. Hismother wrote him that his grand-uncle had beenkilled by " his enemies." " The time has come," sheadded, " when you must play the man, decide, andact, for no one can tell what may happen."

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When the young man reached Italy he found thatunder Caesar's will he had been adopted as the dicta-tor's son and had been made heir to three fourths ofhis huge fortune. Now came a great political game inwhich the boy cautiously felt his way. The cardsseemed stacked against him. Antony was a distin-guished soldier, a man twice his age, and he wasalready consul. But Octavian's cool intelligenceproved more than a match for his bluff soldier an-tagonist. He saw, as Caesar had seen, that the Repub-lic could not stand against armed force. But for themoment he played in with Cicero and the republi-cans. As the situation developed he gradually jock-eyed himself into the position of champion of theSenate against Antony, who had become Governor ofnorthern Italy, a position that brought him commandof an army. The disturbances that followed gave Oc-tavian a chance to make a deal with Antony underwhich eventually the older man was assigned to rulethe rich Eastern provinces while Octavian tookcharge of Rome and the West. Before this arrange-ment was carried out, however, the two leaders, witha third who was taken in for convenience, decided ona purge to rid themselves of possible trouble-makers.In making up the list Antony insisted on including hismost formidable enemy, Cicero. Octavian after someobjection acquiesced.

The man thus condemned is one of the most ap-

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pealing figures of all time. After his death nearlyeight hundred of his letters were published by hisfriend Atticus and his secretary Tiro. They were notintended for publication and were written informallyin all sorts of moods. Today we may pick them up inthe Loeb Library translation and read at random withdelight. All his faults are laid before us — his lack ofscruples in attacking an adversary at the bar or inpolitics, his indecision at critical times, his domesticdifficulties, his little vanities. A pleasantly human let-ter is one he wrote to a historian who was expectingin due course to deal with Cicero's consulate. " Can'tyou play me up? " he asks. " I really think I deserveit. And now that I've gone so far I might as well gothe limit. I wish you would lay it on a bit thick, evenif you should have to stretch the truth a trifle/'

Cicero was making a futile fight to bring back thepast. But his essential humanity shines through hiscorrespondence and at the last he knew he was risk-ing his life for principles in which he believed. Hemet the final sword-stroke without flinching. Threequarters of a century after his death an old cavalryofficer, Velleius Paterculus, sat down to write a his-tory of Rome. He admired Augustus and exonerateshim from responsibility for Cicero's death. He wasoutvoted, the writer says, by his two associates. An-tony he holds chiefly responsible. Then he explodes."You accomplished nothing, Mark Antony," he

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writes, " — for my indignation compels me to speak— you accomplished nothing by the murder of thisgreat man who once had saved the state. You tookfrom Marcus Cicero a few years of old age, but youdid not rob him of his fame and the glory of his deedsand words. He lives and will continue to live inthe memory of the ages, while your deed will beexecrated."

His acquiescence in the murder of Cicero is one ofthe conspicuous stains on the reputation of Octavian.It has been argued on his behalf that he felt deeply re-sentful toward Cicero for siding with the murderersof Cassar, whom Octavian idolized; that in the ma-noeuvring after Caesar's death Cicero had been will-ing to use Octavian's popularity; but that their friend-ship was political only and that Cicero had let it beknown that he intended to discard the young man assoon as he had served the purpose of helping the Sen-ate re-establish itself. Another factor should be con-sidered. At the time of the purge Antony was a hard-boiled and experienced soldier of forty. Octavianwas an inexperienced youth of twenty. It seemsdoubtful whether the boy could have overridden thepassionate hatred of the older man even had he ear-nestly desired to do so. Whether he so desired we donot know.

Writing more than a century later, Plutarch re-counts a story that had been handed down about Oc-

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tavian when, as Augustus, he had become the undis-puted ruler of the world. " I have been told," he says," that Augustus one day found one of his grandsonsreading a book of Cicero's. The boy tried to hide it.But his grandfather took it from him and stood forsome time looking over the pages. Then he handedit back saying: 'A great man, my boy, and one wholoved his country/ " Whether a flicker of remorsestirred that iron soul as he said these words we do notknow. Certainly they express the judgment of pos-terity.

With his passion for order Octavian made the mostof his authority over the West. His rule was so en-lightened and efficient that he won the solid supportof business and the middle class, which, whenaroused and united, was the dominant influence inRome. He was fortunate in two of his boyhoodfriends who became his chief lieutenants. Maecenas,known later as the great patron of literature, a borndiplomat, became virtually prime minister. Agrippadeveloped into a brilliant commander and executive.His achievements in the improvement of the capitalincreased the popularity of the regime.

Meanwhile Antony, a true soldier of fortune, hadbeen completely captivated by Cleopatra, Queen ofEgypt, a competent and designing young woman.Disturbing rumours reached Rome that she had beenproclaimed " queen of kings," that Antony had as-

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signed Roman provinces to her sons, and that she in-tended to " dispense justice on the Capitol." As in-dignation rose against Cleopatra's ambitious plans,Octavian with characteristic shrewdness took advan-tage of the public feeling to get rid of his one rivalwithout attacking him. He had the Senate depriveAntony of his command and declare war againstCleopatra. The resulting conflict was regarded bythe Romans not as a struggle for power between tworivals, but as a war of the West, and all that Westerncivilization had come to mean, against the alien civ-ilization of the East. The war ended with the greatnaval victory of Actium in 31 B.C. It was like theEnglish victory over the Spanish Armada. The tow-ering ships of Antony were outmanoeuvred and de-feated by the light Roman cruisers under the dashingAgrippa. Cleopatra fled back to Egypt, followed byher lover. A few months later he died by his ownhand and Cleopatra killed herself when she foundher stern conqueror would not fall for her as Antonyhad.

The next two years Octavian spent in reorganizingthe kingdom of Egypt as a Roman province, improv-ing its vital irrigation system, and inspecting the east-ern part of the Empire. When he returned to Rome,a new era had begun. A clue to his plans is given bythe remark he made about the familiar story of Alex-ander the Great, who wept because there were no

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more worlds for him to conquer. " I am surprised,"he said, " that Alexander did not regard the right or-dering of the empire he had won a heavier task thanwinning it." Under his new title of Augustus, " HisMajesty" (literally, "The Revered"), voted by theSenate, he was to become the supreme organizer ofancient, and perhaps of modern, times.

The new ruler was a typical middle-class Italian.Already as Governor of the West he had proved hisdevotion to the material welfare of the city. If he hadnot been head of the state he might have been a won-derful president of the Chamber of Commerce or citymanager. In fact eventually he became just that. Abigger and better Rome was his slogan. The aristo-crats accepted him because he stood between themand the anarchy with which they had just had suchlong and costly experience. The commoners recog-nized in him one of themselves.

Augustus put up no front. His comfortable houseon the Palatine did not compare in magnificence withsome of the palaces of the nabobs. He had no elabo-rate offices. His workshop was on his top floor. Whilehe had formal dress for state occasions, everybodyknew he liked to go about carelessly dressed in com-mon clothes that looked as if they had been made bythe loved ones at home, as indeed they had been. Hewas a sports fan, a fact that endeared him to a sports-crazy city, and he loved to relax with games that cor-

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responded to craps and poker. He writes a relativeabout playing all of one day in the March holidaysand apologizes for coming out a thousand-dollarloser.

In modern presidental style he enjoyed fishing. Heliked to have literary men about him, especially Vir-gil and Horace. Standing at the foot of the Palatine,I have imagined I could see Augustus, the fastidiousMaecenas, millionaire politician, and the pudgy Hor-ace coming down the steps in earnest conversation;Augustus in his famous broad-brimmed hat and shoesthat were built up to increase his height. He used tojoke Horace on his ample paunch. He tried his handat writing, but he knew when the results were nothappy. Someone once asked him what had becomeof " Ajax," a tragedy on which he had been working." My Ajax fell on his sponge," he replied, with thesurprise word " sponge " instead of sword, implyingthat the book had been wiped out. His health neverwas robust and he had to be careful with his diet. Be-fore going to a state dinner, or after the dinner, hewould eat a light supper so as not to have to touch therich food on the table — a practice followed byAmerican cabinet members today. His old-fashionedideas appealed to the solid men and women of Rome.His daughter and granddaughters were taught tospin and weave. He insisted on chaperons for boysand girls who went out to entertainments at night.

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Affectation in speech he detested. He used to say theflowery Mark Antony talked like a crazy man, andhe wrote to a granddaughter admonishing her not towrite or talk affectedly. His sententious remarks werewidely quoted — " more haste, less speed "; " that isdone quickly enough which is well done." He wasapproachable. When someone timidly presentedhim a petition he said: " Come, come. You're hand-ing me this as if you were handing a penny to an ele-phant." Yet he felt the immense dignity of his posi-tion. He was pleased that with his "clear brighteyes " he could stare a man into confusion.

An immensely complicated political situation con-fronted the new ruler. Events after the assassinationof Caesar had convinced Augustus, if he needed con-vincing, that his great-uncle was right in his beliefthat under the conditions of the time a strong centralgovernment was necessary to manage the Empire.Yet the Republican tradition was still powerful. Thedazzling Julius had paid with his life for brusquelyignoring it. The problem was how to set up such acentral government under constitutional forms. Herethe patient far-sightedness of Augustus, his deep un-derstanding of human nature, his indifference to theforms and show of power, his ability to work out suc-cessful compromises, served him better than morebrilliant qualities had served his predecessor.

Augustus has been criticized for lack of originality.

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But a recent writer, G. P. Baker, gives a just estimateof the man when he says: " His was the subtlest andrarest of talents — the ability to embody in practicalmeasures the vague aspirations, the impatient wishesand the insistent hopes of other men. Mankind wasenchanted with his gracious aspect. It did not realizethat Augustus was a mirror in which it beheld its ownfeatures."

The city-republic of Rome, Augustus believed, wasgone. The ancient world had experimented with rep-resentative government. But the long discipline re-quired to make it work was lacking outside of Italy,and the results had not been impressive. Besides, theEmpire was too vast, the population too diversified,communication too slow, current information withoutnewspapers too deficient, to give representative insti-tutions a chance. An empire on the British model,based on parliamentary institutions in the homeland,with self-governing dominions and crown colonies,would have been out of the question, even if by a mir-acle the pattern could have been invented. In Italythe displacement of the small farmers by absenteelandlords operating big estates by slave labour wouldhave made it difficult to develop parliamentary gov-ernment on an Italian basis. In Rome itself the ex-perience of the first century B.C. had shown that self-government in the capital no longer was possible.With the hard-working shopkeepers and artisans who

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had to compete with slave labour was the horde ofdispossessed farmers who had migrated to the capitalto go on relief. Besides these, as Sallust says, " youngmen who had maintained a wretched existence bymanual labour in the country, tempted by public andprivate doles, had come to prefer idleness in the cityto a steady job." Continued idleness, of course, wascorrupting. Many of the more enterprising Italianfarmers had gone to the provinces where farming onnew land was attractive. Ex-service men and busi-ness men had joined in the migration. Their placeshad been taken by a large slave population. It hadbecome so numerous that the proposal to requireslaves to wear a distinctive dress was defeated be-cause, Seneca wrote, the Senate feared the slavesmight become dangerous if they came to realize theirgreat number. As the slaves became old, many ofthem were freed and put on relief so their mastersshould not be burdened by their support. Many oth-ers bought their freedom. The freeing of slaves be-came such a problem that the government repeatedlyprohibited it by laws that were as repeatedly disre-garded. The freed slaves and the descendants ofslaves became another difficult element in the popu-lation of Rome and Italy. By an ingenious study ofthe names inscribed on tombstones and of other data,Professor Frank estimates that ninety per cent of thepopulation permanently resident at Rome in the Im-

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perial era was of foreign stock. It is not necessary toassume that one stock is superior to another. Cer-tainly Romans of Asiatic origin had no tradition ofself-government. Roman culture was foreign to themand to the large Greek element, and they had thecruel handicap of a slave background. In time theymight have been assimilated. But time was lacking.

Rome was called the " inn of the world." Cicerohad spoken of the common people as " the cesspool ofRomulus." Juvenal added the equally bitter phrase:" the rabble of Remus," and wrote that the waters ofthe Orontes, a river in Syria, had poured into the Ti-ber. We need not accept at face value the sweepingand contemptuous expressions of the Roman FourHundred to realize the problem. Modern Marxistwriters with no bourgeois prejudice refer to a largesection of the Roman people as the " Lumpenprole-tariat," a technical term defined as " that portion ofthe proletariat whose income, although of proletariandimensions, is not the result of actual labour, but ofcharity and extortion." It was a demoralized popu-lation.

In the later days of the Republic candidates forelective office had been compelled to cater to thismoronic underworld. The great Marcus Tullius Cic-ero had a younger brother, Quintus Tullius Cicero.When Marcus was running for the consulship hisbrother Quintus evidently thought he was not a prac-

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tical politician. Accordingly Quintus wrote a Hand-book of Politics which embodies principles and prac-tices that are familiar to every politician in Americatoday.

Quintus analysed his brother's situation as a can-didate in an extremely modern way. Marcus was asmall-town man who did not belong to the inner cir-cle of the blue-blooded aristocrats and they resentedhis intrusion into politics. Quintus thought he mightas well charge them off. But there were conservativeswho did not belong to the old families. Marcusshould set out to convince them that he shared theirviews, and while he was despised by the aristocrats,he was no left-winger. There were other large groupsthat he might win over. The Chamber of Commercecrowd could be counted on, for he was a member ofit. As leader of the Roman bar he had had many cli-ents who might be reminded of his services. Citizensin outlying communities could vote at the capital. Nomatter what the trouble and expense, Marcus hadbetter make the circuit and shake hands with hiscountry constituents. Of course he must not neglectthe voters in Rome itself. He must go around andbecome acquainted with them. Every voter was en-titled to the satisfaction of being personally solicitedfor his vote.

" One has great need," Quintus wrote," of a flatter-ing manner, which, wrong and discreditable though

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it may be in other walks of life, is indispensable inseeking office." He added this piece of practical ad-vice: Marcus must not be overscrupulous. He mustbe lavish in his promises to people who asked him forfavours that he could grant if elected. " Human na-ture being what it is," said Quintus, " all men prefer afalse promise to a flat refusal. At the worst the man towhom you have lied may be angry. That risk, if youmake a promise, is uncertain and deferred, and it af-fects only a few. But if you refuse you are sure tooffend many, and that at once."

Quintus knew his brother's scruples. He wrote thatthe rival candidates, of course, would resort to brib-ery. Marcus's conscience and reputation would pre-vent his doing that. But there was another weaponthat he hoped his brother would not be too pure touse, since it was customary in Roman campaigns." Contrive, if possible," he said, " to get some newscandal started against your rivals for crime or im-morality or corruption, according to their characters."

This last suggestion appealed to Marcus as quitepractical. As his rival, Catiline, was resorting to brib-ery, Cicero came back at him in a speech in the Sen-ate in which he charged him with murder, adultery,marriage with a daughter whom an adulterous mis-tress had borne him, attempted incest, and attemptedmassacre — in short, with every crime he could layhis sharp tongue to. As Catiline was regarded by all

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the best people as a Bolshevist, Cicero's charges fellon hospitable ears and Catiline was defeated. Prob-ably Cicero would have been surprised to know thathis election charges would be taken seriously byposterity.

Large-scale bribery had become what a Missouripolitician once called "a conventional crime." Atabout this same time Julius Caesar ran for the higheststate religious office. When he kissed his mothergood-bye on election morning, he told her he hadspent so much money that if defeated he could notface either her or his creditors. He won. Successfulcandidates spent beyond their means to carry elec-tions because they expected to recoup themselveslater by plundering the provinces.

In general the people had become indifferent topolitics. When Cicero said of the mass of the voters:" They demand nothing, they desire nothing/' he wasspeaking a devastating truth. Listlessness is fatal toself-government. Less than a century after the Re-public had faded into the autocracy of the Empire,the people had lost all taste for democratic institu-tions. On the death of an emperor the Senate debatedthe question of restoring the Republic. But the com-mons preferred the rule of an extravagant despotwho would continue the dole and furnish them freeshows. The mob outside clamoured for " one ruler "of the world.

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Augustus showed sympathy for the hard-workingpoor and those who were willing to work, and triedto improve their lot. But it was evidently impossibleto build a decent and stable government on the votesof loafers who spent their time at the games. With aremarkable flair for political possibilities the newruler worked out the famous Augustan compromise.Briefly, he restored the old Republican forms, withthe Senate, popular Assembly, and magistrates. Heaccepted the consulship for a time, and the furtherpower that had been won by the commons in theearly days for their tribunes. He took the honorarytitle of " Princeps," First Citizen. " Emperor " has be-come the more familiar title. Technically the systemhe established was a principate, not an empire, al-though " empire " is the word commonly used. It wasan experiment in government that Augustus was be-ginning. If the Senate should develop the old capac-ity to govern he was willing to see it succeed. If itfailed he was prepared to take full charge. He stillcommanded the army although he reorganized andhandled it in such a way that except for one brief in-terval it did not menace the civil government formany years. In effect, the regime that he created wasa far-reaching central authority with a large degreeof municipal home rule.

The general plan was not new. Pompey had had adream of working out the scheme and had reached a

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point where Cicero had written and spoken of himwith the identical word," Princeps," that was appliedto Augustus. But Pompey had not the ability nor theSenate the lessons of bitter experience to develop theplan on a workable basis. Julius Caesar had discardedthe idea and had taken a short cut to monarchy thathad ended in disaster. In the new ruler the man, thetime, and the place had come together.

Augustus needed the services of experienced sena-tors and business men for local and provincial admin-istrators. His policy was conciliatory. He abandoned,if he had ever cherished, the internationalism of Jul-ius Caesar in his political organization. So far as pos-sible he provided the provinces good and honest gov-ernment, and he extended to them the great Romanjustice. But he did not offend the sensitive feelingsof the Senate by bringing in outsiders. Instead hepurged it of unworthy members and treated it withthe deference of which his impetuous predecessorwas incapable.

Perhaps he was going a little far when he wrotenear the end of his life that he had " handed over theRepublic to the control of the Senate and the peopleof Rome." But certainly for the first half of his longreign the regime was a sort of partnership of Emperorand Senate, with the Emperor as senior partner. TheSenate was given a free hand in running the dozen

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older provinces, while the Emperor took charge of or-ganizing the turbulent frontier.

As the plan worked out, the government of theprovinces was put on an efficient and substantialbasis. A great tradition was established of competentand upright provincial Roman governors, which wasrespected even by unworthy emperors. The generalauthority over a province was in the governor's hands.He was in charge of finances, public works, and civiland criminal jurisdiction. He supervised municipaladministration. Finally, he was the chief military offi-cial of the district.

During the earlier part of the Augustan partnershipthe Republican forms were carefully observed. Somewarm election contests are recorded. But Augustusincreasingly had to draw on former magistrates forEmpire service. This required him to take an inter-est in the selection of candidates. Gradually impor-tant departments of the government of the capitalwere turned over to the Imperial authority for moreefficient operation. Before his death the Senate hadbecome chiefly a consultative body. The real author-ity lay with the Emperor. Tacitus accurately de-scribed what happened when he wrote: " By degreesand almost imperceptibly he drew into his own handsthe authority of the Senate, the functions of the mag-istrates, and the administration of the laws." But the

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Senate remained a dignified chamber, linking theEmpire to the Republic, and at intervals exercisingmany of its old powers. As for the Assembly, it con-tinued to be in theory the fundamental authority ofthe state, although it became only a rubber stamp forthe executive.

The successor of Augustus abolished most of itsshadowy power. But it was still allowed to meet andratify the choice of each succeeding emperor. Thestrength of Roman sentiment is shown in one practicethat persisted for nearly a thousand years. In theearliest days of the Republic the Assembly was in thehabit of meeting under an organization by " centu-ries," as they were called. The centuries included allthe men of military age. During their meeting awatch was maintained on the Janiculum hill, beyondthe Tiber, to see that no enemies approached whilethe men were busy voting. A red military flag wasdisplayed from the hill so long as all was well. If theenemy were seen the flag was lowered as a call toarms to the men in the Assembly. This custom lastedfar into the Imperial period. " The stately forms ofthe Republic were preserved," says Mr. Greenidge," and when the Centuries assembled the red flag stillflew from the Janiculum." Modern England has thesame liking for ancient forms. In the House of Com-mons today notice of adjournment is carried throughthe halls by the old cry of the policemen: " Who goes

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home? " In Washington adjournment is announcedby an electric buzzer.

One deficiency, indeed, there was in the set-up ar-ranged by Augustus. He saw no way to provide forthe Imperial succession. Rome was still sensitiveabout forms. It was not ready for a king or a heredi-tary monarchy of any sort. Augustus had recognizedthis fact in refusing to become king or emperor andin calling himself merely " first citizen." He alwaysemphatically insisted that he had accepted no officethat was " contrary to the usage of our forefathers,"and that it was only in his personal experience anddignity that he took precedence over his colleagues.Theoretically the succession was left to the freechoice of the Senate and Assembly. In contrast to theBritish maxim that " the king never dies/' it has beensaid that the Roman principate died with the death ofeach princeps. Augustus met the difficulty by asso-ciating with him in the latter years of his reign hisable stepson, Tiberius. At his death Tiberius was atonce accepted as his successor by the Senate andAssembly. Sentiment was strongly attached to thefamily of Julius Caesar and Augustus. Any noble whosought the highest office, as was theoretically pos-sible, would have encountered the jealousy of hiscolleagues. So the succession continued in the Cae-sarian line through Tiberius, an exceptional ruler,and the next three emperors, who were men of

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mediocre ability and distressing personal character.When the last of these, Nero, finally killed himselfto avoid death in a revolt against his excesses, therefollowed the " year of the four emperors" whenit was revealed that emperors could be made bythe legions elsewhere than in Rome. Late in thecentury the Senate had its first free choice of anemperor and selected Nerva, one of its own num-ber. Thereafter for nearly a century each emperoradopted an able man as his son and successor. Butthe system finally degenerated into a series of mili-tary dictatorships. The results indicate that evenif Augustus had devised some method of succes-sion it would have been wrecked eventually by theclashes of mutinous soldiers. It was not, however, un-til near the end of the third century, under Diocletian,that all democratic forms were discarded and theruler emerged as an Oriental despot. The hazards inthe Roman system are evidenced by the fact that thecompetent Tiberius was followed by three rulers whohave been described as " a madman, a pedant, and amonster." For intervals through a generation the Ro-man aristocracy lived under a Reign of Terror, al-though an efficient civil service carried on the busi-ness of the Empire, and probably life went on as usualwith the mass of the people. The longest period inhuman history of an uninterrupted succession of be-nevolent and able dictators was the eighty-four years

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from the accession of Nerva, A.D. 96, to the death ofMarcus Aurelius in 180. In this period of the " fivegood emperors " the Empire reached its zenith in ex-tent and well-being.

What Augustus did was to establish autocracy un-der Republican forms. In time this paralysed the hu-man spirit. But it is difficult to see what else he couldhave done in the conditions that faced him. The fatalfailure had come unrecognized after the second greatwar with Carthage two centuries before. It was thefailure of Republican statesmanship, and especiallythe failure of the people, leaders and masses alike,to realize and meet new responsibilities. An econo-mist has written of the United States that if it hadnot been for the importation of a great mass of cheaplabour in the second half of the nineteenth century,"we would have had fewer millionaires and noslums." In Italy the same blindness to long-run wel-fare brought in cheap slave labour, increased thegulf between rich and poor, allowed the military tosupersede the civil authorities, and helped createthe situation that confronted Augustus. Perhaps thegreatest evidence of the genius of the first Emperoris the fact that he so organized the government andmade such a start on the Imperial civil service thatthe Empire was well managed even when incom-petent and vicious men headed the state in Rome.

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^S^S^S&S&j;^^

CHAPTER X

BOOM AND DEPRESSION

THE GREAT achievement of the government thatAugustus organized was the Roman peace. Underhim and his successors for nearly four hundred yearsthe Empire kept at bay the hordes that threatenedto destroy Western civilization. During this time theGreco-Roman culture became so firmly establishedand so widespread that it was able to survive the dis-integration of the Empire that had been its guardian.The legacy of Greece and Rome was thus handeddown to become the foundation of the life of themodern world.

By his contemporaries the advent of Augustus waswelcomed as something new and glorious that hadhappened to mankind. After a century of cruel tur-moil humanity seemed to be awakening from a long

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BOOM AND DEPRESSION

nightmare. The cynical Tacitus, who still cherishedthe Republican dream, says that the new ruler had" allured the minds of men by the blessings of peace."Velleius Paterculus, the defender of Cicero, tells whatAugustus did " for the Republic, the Roman people,and the world." " The civil wars," he says, " wereended after twenty years, foreign wars suppressed,peace restored, the frenzy of arms everywhere lulledto rest. Validity was restored to the laws, authority tothe courts, and dignity to the Senate. . . . Agricul-ture returned to the fields, respect to religion; to man-kind freedom from anxiety, and to each citizen hisproperty rights were now assured. Old laws were use-fully amended and new laws passed for the generalgood."

This same feeling was given lasting poetic formby Horace and Virgil. Apparently the enthusiasmfor the regime expressed in the city of Rome per-meated the Empire, and with reason. A large degreeof home rule was bestowed upon the provinces,crown colonies, and dependent kingdoms. " Thegreat benefit," F. E. Adcock writes, " which the Prin-cipate had bestowed upon the Mediterranean worldwas freedom to live its own life, to retain its ownvariety of customs and institutions. . . . The key-note of the period [of the Imperial peace] was loyaltyto Rome, not merely because this loyalty had no rival,but because Rome deserved to receive it." It is sim-

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pie fact, in the words of John Buchan in his Augustus,that in many parts of the Mediterranean basin — inSyria and Palestine, in Asia Minor, in Thrace andMacedonia — there was a standard of comfort andsecurity under Augustus which is not reached today.In the latter part of the era we have the tribute ofthe slave-born Epictetus: " Caesar [Augustus] haswon for us a profound peace. There are neither warsnor battles, robbers nor pirates, and we may travelat all hours and sail from east to west." We may stillread the inscription of a little town in Asia Minorcelebrating Augustus as " ruler of land and sea; bene-factor and saviour of the whole cosmos." The gossipybiographer Suetonius tells of the final voyage ofAugustus down the coast to Capri. The old man wascheered by hearing the shouts from a ship just arriv-ing from Alexandria that" by him they lived, by himthey sailed, by him they enjoyed their freedom andall the riches they had."

This enlightened reign lasted for forty-five years.It was as if Grover Cleveland, inaugurated in 1885,had continued in office with increasing power untilthe early part of the administration of HerbertHoover in 1930. People assumed the Empire wouldlast indefinitely. The poet Tibullus coined the endur-ing phrase: "the Eternal City." A few years laterRoman coins carried the motto: " JEternitas" and aninscription found in Asia Minor speaks of a decree

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guaranteed "by the eternity of the Empire of theRomans."

Here a qualification must be made. We speak ofthe Roman peace as dating from the reign of Au-gustus. Probably it did not seem peace to the respon-sible head of the government. Frequent military ex-peditions were required to subdue unruly peoples.There was frontier fighting in rounding out theEmpire. A revolt in the Balkan peninsula a few yearsbefore his death proved so formidable that the wearyruler, now advanced in years, is reported to havecontemplated suicide. This was followed by a dis-astrous campaign against the Germans beyond theRhine in which the Roman general, Varus, lost threelegions and took his own life. It was a terrible blowto the pride of Augustus, and his Roman biographertells how for months thereafter he would walk backand forth crying out: "Varus, give me back mylegions." The effect of the defeat was far-reaching.The army retired behind the Rhine, and the Emperorleft a solemn warning to his successors not to advancebeyond that river. There were reasons for this policyon grounds of economy and the Empire's need ofpeace to organize and absorb the turbulent provincesalready acquired. These reasons appealed with espe-cial force to a disillusioned old man who had lostboth the taste and the energy for further adventure.But it is fascinating to speculate on what might have

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happened if Rome had advanced to the Elbe at Ham-burg and then to the Vistula at Danzig. It wouldhave had to defend a frontier of only eight hundredmiles from the Baltic to the Black Sea, instead of aboundary of twice that length from the mouth of theRhine on the North Sea to the mouth of the Danubeon the Black. Such an expansion to the east wouldhave brought Prussia under the influence of theRoman civilization. Then Prussia might have beenmade European as south Germany and Austria weremade European by Rome, with consequences reach-ing to the present day.

In spite of these outlying wars, Italy always waspeaceful, along with most of the Empire. The worldhas not yet learned how to maintain peace with any-thing like the success of the early Roman emperors.The contentment of the people under Roman ruleis an immense tribute to the justice and efficiency ofthe government set up by Augustus. In Gaul, forinstance, with the extensive road system constructedin the time of the early Empire, commerce rapidlydeveloped and the people became prosperous. Thetribute paid to Rome was light in comparison withthe cost of the old tribal wars. It is significant thatafter Britain had settled down in the second centuryas a Roman province, the only troops needed therewere to protect it from invasion. The colonials wereproud to be citizens of the Empire.

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" Throughout the world," writes a German scholar̂Professor F. Oertel, in the Cambridge Ancient His-tory, " there was an interpenetration, a smoothingout of differences to an extent undreamed of before.. . . If we contemplate the facts from the standpointof the empire, our verdict must be that, in spite ofall the dangers that an exaggerated capitalism haslatent in it, industry, trade and commerce accom-plished the task which Augustus set them, the taskof welding the empire into a unity, thereby renderingpossible its survival for centuries to come."

The prosperity associated with Augustus naturallycontributed to the prestige that invested his name.Business had been terribly handicapped by the gen-eral disorder of the last years of the Republic. Withthe establishment of a firm peace under honest andcompetent government, and with virtually free tradethroughout the Empire — for small port dues werenot protective duties — a business revival was boundto follow. But when Augustus returned to the capitalafter Actium he found Rome impoverished and itseconomic structure disorganized by the civil war. Inorder to relieve the situation he turned to a policywith which the United States became familiar in the1920's. To meet somewhat similar conditions theCoolidge administration resorted to the expedient ofeasy money. Interest rates were kept artificially lowto encourage borrowing and keep business on the

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up-grade. This policy led to extravagant expansionof bank credits that made possible the wild boomthat culminated in the panic of 1929 and the subse-quent depression. On a more modest scale Augustusadopted an easy-money policy. The results wereidentical with those under Coolidge. The policy pro-moted an inflationary boom followed by deflationaryhard times and the panic of A.D. 33. In both instancesthe boom started in one administration while itsfruits appeared in another.

Any investigator of the economic history of Romemust resign himself to the baffling handicap of theabsence of government reports and business statistics.Information has to be patiently collected from chanceand often exasperatingly indefinite remarks of con-temporary writers who had scant interest in eco-nomics. Even such an unpromising source as Cicero'streatise on Moral Duties has to be searched for inci-dental illustrations referring to some economic policyof the past. Fortunately the methodical Augustusleft an exceedingly helpful record of his financialtransactions. A few months before his death he pre-pared a summary account of his administration, aFarewell Address, which was read to the Senate, withthe request that it be inscribed upon bronze tablets,to be set up before his mausoleum. These tabletshave disappeared, but the document was copied onthe walls of many temples throughout the Empire.

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The best copy that has come down to us is knownas the Ancyrean inscription — "queen of inscrip-tions/' Mommsen calls it. This was found in bothLatin and Greek on the walls of a temple at Ancyrain Asia Minor, to which I have referred in describingthe Augustan exposition. From it we may trace hugegovernment expenditures that contributed tempo-rarily to the prosperity in Rome that naturally fol-lowed the establishment of the Roman peace.

During his first twenty years Augustus spent lav-ishly. He had Caesar's fortune to draw on, and thiswas supplemented by the rich treasure confiscatedin Egypt. As Suetonius puts it, " When he broughtthe royal treasures of Egypt to Rome, money becameso abundant that the rate of interest fell and the valueof real estate rose greatly." From another authority,Dio, we learn that interest rates fell from twelve percent to four, and "the price of goods rose" — thefamiliar effects of easy money.

Taxes in Italy were low. Augustus wanted a landtax, but the influential opposition of real-estate own-ers caused him to abandon the plan. He was able,however, to impose a one-per-cent tax on auctionsales, a four-per-cent tax on the sale of slaves, a five-per-cent tax on the freeing of slaves, and a five-per-cent inheritance tax on indirect legacies above fivethousand dollars.

His expenditures are given in detail in the An-

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cyrean inscription. He paid thirty million dollars forland for his ex-service men. Repeatedly he made giftsof money to the poor, perhaps in the hope of tidingthem over while they looked for jobs. In addition heinstituted great public works, partly for work relieffor the unemployed, partly because of his natural loveof the magnificent. His public works repaired all theroads in Italy and the streets in Rome. He aided manycities by gifts of aqueducts, baths, temples, and publicbuildings. Work relief was taken so seriously that inthe latter part of the first century the government re-fused to use a new invention to move large columnsinto Rome because it was feared the labour-savingdevice would throw men out of jobs.

In four years, Professor Frank estimates, fifty mil-lion dollars in new money flowed out to the public.All Italy shared in the prosperity. Extensive privateas well as public building operations went on in thecities. " Doubtless many of the new fortunes of theperiod had their source in the increasing real-estatevalues and in the rapid expansion of cities due toeasy credits, increased circulation, and the sense ofsecurity in property-holding that came with the re-establishment of peace." All this is curiously likewhat happened in the boom years in America.

A further parallel is found in the money policy ofAugustus, which recalls the Coolidge policy of keep-ing bank credits abundant and cheap. The govern-

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ment owned gold and silver mines. The product wasavailable for coinage. During the first twenty yearsof the regime several mints were opened in Spain, alarge one at Lyons in Gaul, and there was heavy coin-age in the mint in Rome. Undoubtedly this policycontributed to the expansion of business and theboom.

One class of the population failed to share in thegeneral prosperity. The Roman failure to make anadequate industrial development, and the presencein the city of a large number of slaves, left continuingunemployment. The condition of the unemployedand the unemployable was a pressing problem. Theyhad to be taken care of if jobs could not be found onpublic works or in colonial settlements. Even duringthe civil wars it had proved necessary to continue thefree grain-distribution. Indeed, the relief rolls hadclimbed after Caesar's death from the 150,000 whichhe had set, to the old figures of 320,000.

Augustus once more introduced a means test andreduced the number to 200,000. Suetonius tells of acrisis when the government, in order to reduce theexpense of relief, expelled foreign residents, exceptphysicians and teachers. So wise a statesman couldnot avoid realizing the pauperizing effects of the sys-tem. " He wrote," says his biographer, " that he wasinclined to abolish forever the public distribution ofgrain, for the people had come to rely upon it and had

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ceased to till the fields; but he had not proceeded fur-ther in the matter because he was sure that, from adesire to please the people, it would be revived at onetime or another/' In other words, the situation hadgot out of hand. Many persons preferred relief towages. Thereafter during the Imperial prosperitythe number on relief continued at about 200,000.Nearly three hundred years later the dole was ex-tended and made hereditary. Two pounds of breadwere issued daily to all registered citizens who ap-plied. In addition pork, olive oil, and salt were dis-tributed free at regular intervals. When Constanti-nople was founded, right to relief was attached tothe new houses in order to encourage building.

The Augustan boom, as was said earlier, was partlythe result of a heavy spending program. This hadbeen made possible primarily by the spoils collectedin Egypt. But eventually the money ran out. In hislater years Augustus spent far less on public buildingsand popular entertainments than in his earlier ones.The wars just referred to had proved a heavy financialdrain. Large sums of money went back to the prov-inces to pay for luxuries imported by the rich. Withthe exhaustion of mines the flow of gold and silver tothe mints was checked. Coinage, according to Pro-fessor Frank's estimate, fell to about five per cent ofits former rate. This was deflation with a vengeance.Interest rose and prices fell. The next Emperor, Ti-

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berius, by rigid economy succeeded eventually in bal-ancing the budget without increasing taxes; in somecases he was able to reduce them. When his repre-sentative in Egypt turned in more money than wasdue from the regular Imperial taxes, the Emperorsent back word that he wished his sheep sheared butnot shaved. A sternly conscientious man — in spiteof scandalous stories circulated by his enemies —Tiberius risked unpopularity in the capital by cuttingout the expensive public shows which his predecessorhad thought necessary to keep the people in a goodhumour.

His thrifty attitude is indicated by an incident re-lated by Tacitus. The aristocracy believed the oldfamilies ought to be subsidized, if necessary, in or-der to maintain a proper governing class. A spend-thrift senator brought his four young sons to the Sen-ate and delivered a public plea to the Emperor tomake them a grant of money. The senators were sym-pathetic; it wasn't their money that was to be givenaway. Tiberius took a more responsible view. " Ifevery poor man is to come to this chamber," he re-plied, " and ask for money for his children, there willbe no satisfying the claimants, and the public ex-chequer will be emptied." However, in view of thegenerous mood of the Senate he weakened and madeeach boy a grant of ten thousand dollars. The affairgives a clue to the unpopularity of Tiberius in Rome

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as contrasted with the popularity which his efficientadministration won him in the provinces. The un-graciousness of his words spoiled the effect of his gen-erosity. Tacitus thought them an indication of theEmperor's "sour temper." The tactful Augustusmight have refused to make the gift, without arousingresentment. It used to be said of two American Presi-dents that Benjamin Harrison could make an enemyby the way he said yes, while William McKinleycould make a friend by the way he said no.

But this essential policy of prudent spending byTiberius, continuing as it did the Augustan deflation,brought on hard times which culminated in the panicof A.D. 33. We find the stoiy in Tacitus. He says thatJulius Caesar's laws on usury and land holdings hadbeen disregarded for a long time. In the year 33 dis-tressed debtors, perhaps stirred up by shysters, be-gan to prosecute their creditors for usury. Therewere so many cases that the government allowed aperiod of eighteen months in which offenders mightadjust their affairs in accordance with the law. Thisprecipitated a crisis because loans were called andland values collapsed. To bolster the market the Cae-sarian law was revived and lenders were ordered toinvest two thirds of their capital in Italian land. Theeffect of the edict was the direct opposite of what wasintended. With a falling market, reinvestment inland was postponed for lower prices, and the collapse

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continued. Thereupon the government set up aHome Owners' Loan Corporation, the modern H.O.L.C. Perhaps its operations were more like those ofthe Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the R.F.C.,for its loans probably were only to the larger opera-tors. It was authorized to lend distressed landown-ers five million dollars from the treasury, withoutinterest for a period up to three years. This helpstabilized the market and ended the crisis. It wasnot a complex industrial civilization. So the resultsof the panic were not so devastating and lasting asthe result of the panic that ended the boom years inthe United States.

Two more New Deal experiments come within thisperiod. An Agricultural Adjustment Administration,the familiar A.A.A., was set up under Domitian, A.D.91, and a Farm Credit Administration, the F.C.A.,a few years later under Nerva and Trajan. Italianfarmers, especially the big landowners, had foundwine and oil more profitable than wheat. When vine-yard cultivation was an infant industry the Italianfarm bloc had been able to induce the government atvarious times to restrict the planting of vineyards inthe provinces. Nevertheless provincial competitionhad continued. In the year 91 there was a bad wheatharvest and an overproduction of wine. To stimulatethe production of wheat and at the same time to pro-tect the vineyard interests, the Department of Agri-

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culture provided an A.A.A. It decreed that no morevineyards be planted in Italy and that half the vine-yards in the provinces be destroyed. America was fol-lowing Roman precedent when it ploughed up thecotton in 1933. Enforcement was spotted. It is thejudgment of Professor Rostovtzeff that the Italianwine industry was helped " at least to a certain ex-tent." But the measures adopted " did not succeed insaving progressive agriculture in Italy in general/'

The failure may be inferred from the further actionby the government under Nerva and Trajan at thebeginning of the second century. It sought to attractcapital into farming and to help established farmerswith cheap loans. Senators were compelled to investat least one third of their capital in Italian land — theold panacea — and a Farm Credit Administrationwas set up. Under this F.C.A., farmers were allowedto borrow from the government on mortgage securityat five per cent, which was less than half the ruralcommercial rate.

Trajan had conquered Dacia, the modern Ru-mania. The country had productive mines and largeaccumulated treasure. Professor Frank estimates theloot that Trajan obtained at a hundred million dol-lars. Under the spell of the Dacian windfall the gov-ernment proceeded in the grand manner. The moneywas not needed in Rome. So it was used to establish

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the greatest philanthropic fund in history up to thetime of the Rockefeller Foundation.

The size of poor families had fallen off becausechildren could not be supported. The repercussionswere being felt in Italian industry, which needed alarger domestic market. The government was des-perately anxious to encourage the growth of pop-ulation. It provided that the interest of the F.C.A.loans should go to town commissioners throughoutItaly to be paid to poor families to help support theirchildren. The records show what happened to thishuge philanthropy. It gradually melted under therepeated devaluation of the denarius. The interestwas sufficient to meet only the expenses of the admin-istrative staff in the " bureau of roads and alimenta-tion."

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CHAPTER XI

PRELUDE TO CRISIS

THE GREAT age of Rome lasted well into the thirdcentury. In spite of defects, a great age it had been.How the Empire seemed to a contemporary is toldby the Christian writer Tertullian about A.D. 200:

" Surely a glance at the world shows that it is dailybeing more cultivated and better peopled than be-fore. All places are now accessible, well known, opento commerce. Delightful farms have now blotted outevery trace of the dreadful wastes; cultivated fieldshave supplanted woods; flocks and herds have drivenout wild beasts; sandy spots are sown; rocks andstones have been cleared away; bogs have beendrained. Large towns now occupy lands hardly ten-anted before by cottages. Islands are no longerdreaded [as the abode of pirates]; houses, people,civil rule, civilization are everywhere."

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Yet the Roman world that seemed so fair carriedwithin it the seeds of decay. The benign rule of the" five good emperors " degenerated into military des-potisms. Then came fifty years of chaos in which onegangster ruler followed another in rapid succession." In this tempest of anarchy during the third cen-tury," Professor Breasted writes, " the civilization ofthe ancient world suffered final collapse." From theanarchy at the end of the century emerged the totali-tarian state of Diocletian, Constantine, and their suc-cessors. This was successful only in protecting rem-nants of culture for another hundred years. Then theWestern world, already barbarized except in spots,was submerged under repeated waves of ignorance inthe barbarian invasions.

Before following the course of government inter-vention in business in this period, culminating in thePrice-and-Wage Act of Diocletian, at the beginningof the fourth century, we must return to the goldenyears of the Empire. In these years forces were atwork that prepared the way for the debacle, just asin the lush 1920's in the United States we now rec-ognize factors that led into the great depression.

The autocracy itself, inescapable as it may havebeen, gradually had a stifling effect upon the humanspirit. The Republican tradition was so strong thatfor many years liberty was only intermittently sup-pressed. In the latter part of the Republican era Ca-

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tullus wrote a scurrilous attack upon Caesar. Thegreat man did not send his critic to a concentrationcamp. He invited him to call and talk it over. But acentury and a half later an emperor had two authors ofbiographies put to death for cynical references to thegovernment, which were interpreted as treasonable.

Under pressure the outlook and attitude of thepeople gradually changed. The servility of the Sen-ate under Tiberius, as described by Tacitus, is in pain-ful contrast to the dignity and character of that bodywhen it was building the Empire. " O men, ready forslavery! " the disgusted Emperor once exclaimed.

After the first century there were only a few greatwriters. Livy thought that society had been demoral-ized by wealth, and the elder Pliny agreed that thelack of intellectual interests was due to the worshipof money. But Tacitus wrote that " genius died bythe same blow that ended public liberty." A similarview is presented by an anonymous author of the pe-riod. In his treatise, On the Sublime, this writer sug-gests that wealth, leading to indolence and a taste forluxurious living, accounts partly for the decline inRoman literature. But he puts this further explana-tion in the mouth of a philosopher: " In these days weseem to be schooled from childhood in utter servility;swaddled, I might say, from the tender infancy of ourminds in servile ways and practice. We never drinkfrom the fairest and most fertile source of literature,

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which is freedom, and therefore we show a genius fornothing but flattery." This comment might have beenwritten about conditions in the great modern dicta-torships.

Perhaps the explanation given by contemporarieswas too simple. The failure in literature may have re-flected not merely loss of liberty but a mood of weari-ness from other causes. Under the enlightened rul-ers of the second century the pressure was relaxed.Tacitus tells us of the relief he felt in being able towrite freely. But with the extreme paternalism of thegovernment, the people had lost their old energy.The pleasant era that so appealed to Gibbon was nota heroic age in Rome.

As the autocracy became pervasive, it undertook,in the interest of efficiency, local as well as Imperialgovernment. The natural leaders of the cities lost in-itiative and public spirit. " The chief object of eco-nomic activity," writes Professor Rostovtzeff, " was tosecure for the individual or his family a placid andinactive life on a safe, if moderate, income."

Rome always had been overpractical. It never hadshown the curiosity of the Greek world. " The incuri-ousness of the Roman rich and the Roman rulers,"says H. G. Wells, " was more massive even than theirarchitecture." There were no technical improve-ments in industry after the early part of the secondcentury. A French historian, Eugene Albertini, re-

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marks that Roman tools were poor. In quarries,mines, and construction work the toil of men was re-quired to make up for the inadequacy of tools andthe lack of explosives. In trucking and hauling thefailure to devise a practical harness and to use horse-shoes made draught animals ineffective. The Romancollar pressed on the horse's windpipe and partly dis-abled him. Slaves had to supply the muscular effortthat could not be obtained from horses. One of thereasons why the Romans did not develop heavy cav-alry lay in their failure to invent such a simple deviceas the stirrup. This essential feature of horse equip-ment came eventually to western Europe from thehorsemen of the south Russian plains.

In spite of the widespread prosperity of the upperclasses that attended the Augustan peace, disquietingsymptoms gradually appeared. Within a half-cen-tury after Augustus's death economic progress sloweddown and finally stopped. In the latter part of the pe-riod every serious border war brought the Empire tothe verge of ruin, and there were no accumulated re-serves to meet the crisis of the next century. Tempo-rary lifts had been given by the spoils of conquests.But Victor Chapot remarks with some reason that" the state became permanently insolvent on the daywhen all conquest ceased and all plunder with it; thelast great spoil was taken by Trajan in Dacia " earlyin the second century.

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It is worth while to examine the factors thatblocked progress in both industry and agriculture.Rome was an agricultural state that for a time seemedlikely to develop large-scale industries. The proc-ess never got far. Industrialization in Italy encoun-tered several major obstacles. Public sentiment wasopposed to the corporate form of doing business. Thelaw permitted joint-stock companies to handle gov-ernment contracts. It forbade the organizing of pri-vate corporations. Personal responsibility and per-sonal liability were favoured by the Romans. Oneresult was that banking was maintained on a rela-tively small scale. There were rich individuals in thebanking business, but the big banking corporationsthat were needed to finance large-scale business ac-tivity were not allowed to develop. The same handi-cap was imposed on Roman industry and trade. Thetrust-busting spirit had unforeseen consequences.

Furthermore, industry had to make its way in asociety dominated by a landed aristocracy. Underthe Republic the " best people " thought it beneaththem to engage in industry, although frequently theybecame silent partners of freedmen or business menin industrial or commercial enterprises. There was astrong hangover of this feeling, although under Au-gustus a change had come. Professions once frownedupon were now open to gentlemen. Indeed, in thenext century Rome found in Marcus Aurelius an em-

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peror who had inherited extensive brickworks fromhis mother in a business that had been established byhis great-great-grandfather, Domitius Afer. It mustbe admitted, however, that brick-making had alwaysbeen fairly respectable. After Marcus reached thethrone the bricks from his Domitian works werestamped "Aug N." — "Our Augustus." If contrac-tors of the second century after Christ were anythinglike those of the twentieth, they probably figuredthey would get along better with the city inspectors ifthey used the " Aug N." bricks.

Slavery was a brake on progress. Of industrialworkmen it is estimated that eighty to eighty-fiveper cent were slaves or ex-slaves. The abundance ofslaves checked the demand for free labour and forlabour-saving devices. In modern industry the ingen-ious mechanic is responsible for many improve-ments in the machine which he operates. This in-centive is lacking in the slave workman.

Professor Frank suggests an illustration. Italianironworks failed to get into mass production at atime when a great advance seemed within reach, forlack of a simple device. " The invention of a valvein the bellows used in iron furnaces to create a con-tinuous blast, an improvement that any intelligentand interested free workman might have conceived,would have revolutionized the iron industry by mak-ing smelting and casting possible on a large scale/'

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Progress requires competent industrial leadershipas well as intelligent and industrious workmen. Hereagain Roman society proved deficient. For variousreasons growing out of the Empire's social evolutionindustry did not attract able men. " Roman history,"writes Professor Frank, " does not point to a singleeffective leader trained in business/'

Finally, industrial development faced a failingfarm market just at a time when it had to meet strongcompetition from new industries in the provinces. Aswe shall see in a moment, the Italian farm market formanufactured goods began to shrink with the disap-pearance of the independent small farmers and theconsolidation of small farms into large estates. At thesame time the export trade was hard hit by provin-cial competition. Fortis lamps from northern Italy,of which I spoke in a previous chapter, were replacedin the Gallic, German, and British markets by Fortislamps made in Gaul. Carthage factories took the Af-rican market. The red pottery of Arretium was imi-tated in southern Gaul and later in Germany. Salesof Italian glassware were restricted when Colognetook up its manufacture. The demand for luxurygoods fell off because the wealthy found they couldhave these produced by slaves in their own house-holds. " Commerce decayed because customers dis-appeared."

The question of what happened to Italian farming

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has evoked endless discussion. In the later years ofthe Republic and the earlier years of the Empiremany demobilized soldiers had been settled on smallfarms. The free Italian farmer was a competent man.He practised crop rotation and summer fallowing,and used alfalfa, clover, and beans, as well as manure,to enrich his soil. Americans living in the farm beltwould be interested in the enthusiasm for alfalfa ofColumella, who wrote a treatise on farming in themiddle of the first century. But that the farm industryin important areas — not everywhere — was in seri-ous trouble in the second century there is no doubt.There is constant complaint from contemporary writ-ers that the soil is not producing as much as in the olddays.

The theory of a long period of deficient rainfallhas been advanced. It is not supported by evidence.A clue to one phase of the trouble is found in the com-ment of the elder Pliny that big estates ruined Italy.Rich men from the provinces moved to Rome in largenumbers under the Empire, as rich Frenchmen al-ways have moved to Paris. Their favourite invest-ment was in large estates, operated at first by slaves,later by tenant farmers. The most extensive use ofslave labour, it is true, was in the latter part of theRepublican era, in the age of Cicero. Under the Au-gustan peace the supply of war captives sold into slav-ery was sharply curtailed and by the middle of the

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first century it was being recognized that slave labourwas uneconomic. What happened to the big slave-operated estates may be inferred from what hap-pened on the pre-war cotton plantations of our South-ern states. Frederick Law Olmsted made severaljourneys on horseback through the slave states be-tween 1850 and 1857. In his book The Cotton King-dom he stresses the inefficiency of slave labour. Hespeaks of the listlessness of the slaves, of " their dog-ged action, the stupid plodding machine-like mannerin which they worked." In his Seaboard Slave StatesOlmsted says he was told it would be impossible tofurnish the slaves with good tools; " they would notlast out a day in a Virginia cornfield." Mules, he says,were used instead of horses because horses " cannotbear the treatment they must always get from ne-groes." Under such conditions the fertility of the bigSouthern plantations was exhausted.

The slaves on Italian farms, often working inchains, were undoubtedly as inefficient as those seenby Olmsted. No wonder the estates produced badlyand the soil deteriorated. As for the free tenant farm-ers who were replacing the slave gangs in the latterpart of the first century, they were under the familiarcompulsion to " mine the soil" in order to make quickreturns. The same situation exists in America today.The report of the National Emergency Council onEconomic Conditions of the South speaks of the ruin

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of millions of acres of once fertile land by tenantfarmers. Many of them, it says, " have little interestin preserving soil they do not own." It is true thesmall Roman farmer did not disappear and the broadfarm belt of northern Italy, especially the valley ofthe Po, remained fertile. The modern traveller whocrosses from Rome to Venice in the spring is im-pressed by the luxuriant growth of crops. There is noevidence of soil deterioration here after twenty-fivehundred years of cultivation.

But Italian farming generally was hit by the agri-cultural development of the provinces, just as indus-try had been hit by their industrial development.Farm products were among the important exports ofItaly, and the export market suffered from provincialcompetition. So the government was forced to adoptthe extraordinary measures to help agriculture thatalready have been mentioned. By A.D. 200 there weremany abandoned farms in key regions of the Empirethat had escaped the notice of Tertullian.

Early in the second century, when agriculture andindustry were both in difficulty, the government be-gan what a writer in the Cambridge Ancient Historycalls "an orgy of spending." The civil service wasexpanded and made more expensive by being reor-ganized on a salary basis. Large sums were put intopublic buildings. Some of these were erected bywealthy citizens and local municipalities, others by

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the Imperial government. The Emperor Hadrian'sbiographer says there was hardly a city in the Em-pire that was not beautified by this generous ruler. Afew years ago I happened to be in Athens when thenew water system designed by American engineerswas about to be put in operation. It replaced the sys-tem begun by Hadrian eighteen hundred years agoand finished by his successor.

The name of Hadrian is familiar to visitors to Romebecause it is identified with the impressive architec-ture of the Pantheon, the Castel Sant' Angelo, thebridge leading to it, and that elaborate town knownas Hadrian's Villa, whose ruins still stand at Tivoli,a few miles outside the city. These remains are evi-dence of the work of a great builder. Because Ha-drian really began the spending orgy, it is interestingto observe what sort of man he was. Born in Spain ofan old Italian family which had migrated to that prov-ince, he was consumed with interests even more di-versified than those of Julius Caesar. He was a com-petent soldier and a great administrator. He thoughthimself an architect, art critic, painter, musician, andman of letters. A broken collar-bone testified to hisdevotion to hunting, as did a scar on the face that in-duced him to grow a beard, so that thereafter beardswere the mode in Roman society. He was an invet-erate traveller, largely because he desired personalknowledge of the Empire for reasons of public policy;

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partly because of inborn curiosity. " He wished to seewith his own eyes," his biographer wrote, " every-thing he had read about." He could build the greatmilitary wall in Britain and in tourist fashion climbMount Etna to see a sunrise.

The outlying lands needed his attention. The warsof his ambitious predecessor, Trajan, under whomRoman rule reached its farthest limits, had overex-tended the Empire. Hadrian hauled down the flagin regions that were too difficult to hold, and providedadequate frontier defences, with especial attention tothe discipline and efficiency of his troops. Wisely hedepended chiefly on the spirit of the army rather thanon any Maginot line. His address to the First Pan-nonian squadron after an inspection shows his atten-tion to details. " Your javelin-throwing," he said,"was accurate and good. Your spear-throwing, too,was in many cases excellent, and the jumping wasneat and lively. I should certainly have pointed outto you anything in which you fell short if I had no-ticed it — for example, if you had shown a tendencyto overshoot your targets."

He seems to have realized that something was thematter with industry and commerce. As no new landswere being added to the Empire to bring more cus-tomers within the free-trade area, he attempted tostimulate the home market by founding new citiesand encouraging public improvements in the old. It

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was in these domestic policies that his passion forbeauty and order carried him into expenditures thatweakened the economic structure of Rome.

Public education profited from his munificence,and his love of art made his elaborate Tivoli villa asort of world museum where he reproduced famousbuildings that had pleased him on his travels, andaccumulated pieces of sculpture. In cultural mattershe had the amateurishness of the last German Kaiser,and like Wilhelm he did not recognize his limitations.When he sent his design for a temple to an architect,the professional was candid in his criticisms. Thestatues, he wrote, were out of proportion. "If thegoddesses wish to rise and leave the temple they willnot be able." And he caustically added: " You don'tunderstand these matters." A scholar with whom theEmperor disputed the meaning of a word did nothave the architect's nerve to stand up to him. Thelearned man's friends remonstrated. "The lord ofthirty legions," he replied, " must be allowed to knowhis stuff." While a Greek historian wrote that " Ha-drian was a pleasant man to meet and he possessed acertain charm," we can understand the comment of acontemporary: " I felt great reverence for him but Iwas not bold enough to entertain affection for him."

In his last illness, which was long and distressing,the Imperial artist wrote some half-mocking, half-wistful lines of verse that have been preserved

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through the centuries. Their human appeal is shownby the many translations that have been made intoseveral languages; so many that it was possible topublish a book of them in England more than seven-teen hundred years after the author's death under thetitle: The Dying Hadrians Address to His Soul. Hisstanza is so timeless it might have come from thetwentieth century as readily as from the second. Anunrhymed translation might run:

Dear soul of mine, so gay, so restless,Long my body's guest and comrade,

To what far land art thou departing,Pale land, barren, sunless?

All left behind, thy jests and laughter!

In the sweep of his great practical and cultural in-terests he might well be called Hadrian the Magnifi-cent. But such magnificence as his the ancient worldcould not afford. In his lavish spending at home andabroad he set an example that was widely followed.It has been suggested that throughout the Empire thecities themselves began to spend a disproportionatepart of their revenues on such amenities as games,theatres, baths, and banquets. Idlers were attractedby the dole, which many cities copied from Rome.The idle poor together with the idle rich were main-tained by the hard-working masses. For the rich were

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not producers. They notoriously lived on sweated in-comes from farms and shops. " The creation of newcities," Professor Rostovtzeff says, " meant the crea-tion of new hives of drones." The cities with theirlarge unproductive spending became a heavy drainon the farming country upon which they had to de-pend for support.

As the spoils of conquest were exhausted, therewere no reserves to draw upon. " Overspending,"writes Professor Adcock, " so weakened the financialand economic resources of the Empire that the crisesthat were to come in the third century were in partthe price that the world had to pay for the gilding ofthe Golden Age of the Antonines."

Under Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-Emperor,whose heart has been described as stronger than hishead, the state came close to bankruptcy. When itwas called upon to defend the Danubian frontiers,the treasury was exhausted and the Emperor wasforced to sell the crown treasures at public auction.To the appeal of his soldiers for more pay he replied:" Anything that you receive over and above your reg-ular pay must be exacted from the blood of your par-ents and relatives."

In this brief survey of conditions leading to the fa-tal third century, one further aspect of Roman liferemains to be considered. A large element in the pop-ulation failed to share in the prosperity of the Golden

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Age. Its bitterness was reflected in the disastrouspolitical and economic events that followed. Awretched proletariat lived in the slums of Rome. Forthose who worked, wages were kept close to the sub-sistence level by slave competition. Strikes wouldhave been futile* There were plenty of slaves whocould have taken the strikers* places. In all Romanhistory I have found only seven strikes recorded -two of them sit-down strikes. The actual words" sit down " are used in a papyrus record of RomanEgypt in the second century after Christ. Labourtrouble had developed in an alabaster quarry. Theforeman had assigned a gang to a difficult part of thequarry. He reports to a superior that they refused tobe transferred. " Some of the men," he writes, " cameto me and said: * We are going out to our old placeand sit down until you bring us word'" — presuma-bly of the rescinding of the order. The threat wassuccessful. The foreman recalled the men who hadbeen assigned to the more favourable location, andthe original gang went back to work.

In Italy the only recorded labour trouble was in theRoman mint in the latter part of the third century af-ter Christ. The Emperor Aurelian had found evi-dence of graft in the issuing of sub-standard coinsand had closed the mint. The workmen fortifiedthemselves in the building in accordance with the fa-miliar modern practice in sit-down strikes. The Em-

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peror had to send troops to drive them out. In therighting that followed, several thousand men werekilled. But large numbers of the submerged classstolidly accepted their lot. For those who could notor would not find work the government made whatprovision it felt necessary. They got at least a livingfrom the dole. There were free entertainments, in-cluding the brutal gladiatorial combats, and the ex-tensive public baths furnished the facilities of mod-ern athletic clubs for a nominal fee. This lazy livinghad its appeal. An ungrammatical scrawl of a streetartist in Timgad has been preserved: " 'unting [thatis, watching beast hunts], bathing, and gaming, theseis the life! " Doubtless, says the English historian,M. Cary, these words " summed up the philosophy ofmany a townsman of the Roman Empire."

But the hard and insanitary living-conditions andextensive undernourishment took their toll. Tomb-stone inscriptions show the abnormal number ofworkers who died young. There is evidence of sav-age hatred of the well-to-do. This appears in the bit-ing attacks of the satirists, especially Juvenal, uponthe smart set in Rome. " In Juvenal," Sir Samuel Dillwrites, " a great sunken class, whom we hardly knowotherwise than from the inscriptions on their tombs,finds a powerful voice and a terrible avenger." Hedenounces ill treatment of provincials, cruelty shownto slaves, lust for revenge, and immorality in a soci-

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ety that seemed to value only material success. Likeother satirists he exaggerates, and he adores unwar-ranted generalizations. Juvenal was a fuzzy thinker.He hated the " new woman " of his day. He is just assevere with the women who attend public meetings,discuss the poets at dinner, are careful in their dic-tion, and wear stylish high-heeled shoes, as he is withthose who order their slaves flogged while they are inthe beauty parlour, or even have them crucified. But,with all necessary allowances, the picture he drawsof high society is terribly sordid. To be sure, the friv-olous rich at whom his shafts are generally directedwere only a fraction of the population. But richeswere associated with slave-driving and tax-extortion.Embittered men living in crowded tenements werenot likely to discriminate.

From another part of the Empire comes confirma-tory evidence of class hatred. The authentic voice ofthe proletariat speaks in some of the early Christianwritings. When these are read with the social back-ground in mind, the bitterness of the poor toward therich is appallingly evident. In the Gospel of St. Lukethe rich man is sent to hell and the poor man to Abra-ham's bosom. The rich man is condemned not be-cause he is wicked but because he is rich. Abrahamcalls to him: "Remember that thou in thy lifetimereceivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evilthings; but now he is comforted and thou are tor-

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mented." The author of the Epistle of St. James, writ-ing to the Twelve Tribes of the Dispersion in the sec-ond century, strikes at the ruthless money-lenders andtax-collectors. He reminds the poor that "rich menoppress you and draw you before the judgmentseats/' and comes out with this blast: " Go to, now,ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries thatshall come upon you. . . . Your gold and silver iscankered, and the rust of them shall be a witnessagainst you, and shall eat your flesh as though it werefire."

By the end of the second century of peace the Em-pire had developed problems which it did not under-stand and for whose solution it had no technique.

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CHAPTER XII

THE TOTALITARIAN STATE

THE DEADENING autocracy, the stagnation of industryand agriculture, and the class bitterness described inthe preceding pages constitute the background forthe social and economic events in the third centurywhich culminated in the totalitarian state. Theseevents centred in fifty years of military anarchywhich wrought the unconscious revenge of the poor.But their revenge tore down their own lives as wellas the lives of those they hated, and involved the civ-ilization of the ancient world in ruin.

"The Roman army," a commentator says, "bothmade and unmade the Roman Empire." It was notthe same army. Under the wise reorganization ofAugustus the army was made a school for citizenship.Enlistment in the legions opened the way to a civilcareer. The recruits represented a cross-section of

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the middle class from the most Romanized parts ofthe Empire. They were saturated with the Romantradition. While on frontier duty they often wereemployed on public works. At the end of their serv-ice they received land or a bonus equivalent to thir-teen years' pay and became respected business menor farmers in the communities where they settled.For generations the army was a civilizing agency.

But the time came when Italy and Gaul no longercould furnish recruits. The population had decreasedor the men had become too soft. It became neces-sary to draw soldiers and officers from the less civi-lized regions. They took seriously their obligation todefend the frontiers. Repeatedly rude but energeticnon-Italian emperors swept barbarian intruders outof the Mediterranean world. But the ignorant pro-vincial soldiers had no feeling for Roman institutions.In the third century they finally realized they werethe strongest force in the state. The successive mili-tary dictatorships that followed were not consciouslydictatorships of the proletariat. But they were dicta-torships of proletarian generals of proletarian armies.A great empire was ruled by a series of rough top-sergeants. " Make the soldiers rich," was the admoni-tion of the dying Emperor Septimius Severus to hissons, " and do not trouble about the rest." The obvi-ous sources of enrichment were ruinous taxes andplunder.


By modern standards, ordinary taxes had beenlow throughout the second century. There is indi-rect evidence of the comparative poverty of the an-cient world in the reluctance of the emperors to sanc-tion increases. But in the third century, to meet themilitary expenses, the demands of the soldiers, andthe extravagances of the emperors, there were fre-quent confiscations of property and periodic exac-tions from the rich. In addition heavy burdens wereimposed on provincial towns in the shape of compul-sory services. The inhabitants were forced to providefood, lodging, and transport for the troops. Disci-pline was relaxed and the soldiers were allowed toloot the districts through which they passed. Whilefarms as well as cities were plundered, the chief suf-ferers, of course, were the well-to-do. Business wasinterrupted, the rich and the middle class were im-poverished, and the poverty of the poor was in-creased. A few wealthy owners of large estates werestrong enough or influential enough to escape theheavy tax-exactions. Their immunity increased theburden on the rest. Graphic evidence of the shrink-ing of the cities throughout the Empire has been un-covered by the spade of the modern excavator.

A sidelight on the tax question is furnished by aRoman historian of the fourth century, Ammianus.Gaul, as usual, was being invaded by the Germans.The Emperor sent a relative, a brilliant young fellow

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named Julian, afterwards known as Julian the Apos-tate, to take'charge of the province. It was a toughassignment, but Julian made good. There was uni-versal complaint about taxes. His assistant assuredhim in the customary way that existing taxes were notenough to meet expenses, and that more sources oftaxation must be found. But Julian had studied thequestion and had the figures before him. He in-sisted that with proper governmental economies thetaxes already levied would produce a surplus. Theassistant, a real bureaucrat, was not so easily re-pulsed. Shortly afterwards he appeared with anedict drawn up for the Governor to sign, imposing thenew taxes on which he had set his heart. Julian scan-dalized the entire civil service by throwing the edictunread into the wastebasket. At once reports wentback to the Emperor that this brash young Governorwas an " insufferable nanny-goat," " an ape in pur-ple/' But later when the jealous Emperor tried toweaken Julian by withdrawing some of his troops forservice in the East, the young commander-Governorproved so popular that over his protests his soldiersproclaimed him Emperor and eventually he reachedthe throne.

Julian was exceptional in his devotion to economy.The expenses of running the Empire continued to in-crease. As taxes failed to produce the needed rev-enue, the government resorted to devaluation of the

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currency. The denarius under Augustus was worthtwenty cents, about the value of the old French franc.In two hundred years it had fallen to five cents. Thefifty years of military anarchy brought it to half acent. Prices shot up as they did in twentieth-centuryinflations in Europe.

Records are meagre, but we know that in the Ro-man province of Egypt wheat went to fifteen thou-sand times its pre-inflation price. In the simplereconomic structure of the time inflation was not sodisastrous as in the complex modern world. Butflighty prices combined with the general disorder andheavy tax-exactions to undermine the middle class,which was the backbone of the Empire.

A pall settled over the population. People felt theywere being swept downward by forces beyond theirpower to control. In the face of overwhelming evilsthey were helpless. Despairing of the present life,they turned to the other-world cults of the Orient." The worship of Isis," writes Dean Inge, " was or-ganized in a manner very like that of the Catholicchurch. There was a kind of Pope, with priests,monks, singers, and acolytes. . . . The priests weretonsured and wore white linen vestments." And Mr.Fisher adds: " Before Rome became Christian it hadbecome clerical, a city of temples and images, ofpriests and religious processions, of cynic philoso-phers in cowls and coarse woollen gowns like the beg-

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ging friars of the Middle Ages, of astrologers andmagicians, such as always thrive amid public misfor-tunes." In this preoccupation over a future life publicaffairs were ignored. " The greatest political events,"in the words of Professor Lot," passed over the headsof the people like black or golden clouds. Later theywere to watch even the ruin of the Empire and thecoming of the barbarians with indifference."

Late in the third century after Christ the anarchywas ended by an energetic and able soldier and ad-ministrator. Diocletian, with army backing, becamedictator, reorganized the administration, and stabi-lized the currency on what he believed was a soundbasis. Unfortunately, like some modern rulers facinga similar problem, he overvalued his new monetaryunit. Prices promptly responded with another vio-lent rise. Diocletian recognized the suffering that re-sulted, but naturally did not understand the cause.The trouble, he thought, lay in greedy profiteering.In 301 he issued his famous edict setting maximumprices and wages. After denouncing the profiteers inthe preamble, he announced maximum prices for be-tween seven and eight hundred articles and types ofwork and service.

In its technical descriptions the edict reads like amodern tariff act. There is millet ground and milletunground; olive oil first quality and olive oil secondquality; goose artificially fed and goose not artificially

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fed; cabbages best and cabbages small; washed Tar-entine wool and washed Laodicean wool. Maximumsalaries are included for barbers, wagon-makers, ele-mentary teachers, teachers of Latin and Greek, andmany others.

The act had teeth. The penalty for evasion wasdeath. The Emperor had so expanded the civil serv-ice that a contemporary wrote, with disgusted exag-geration, that half of the men of the Empire were onthe government pay-roll. There were plenty of in-spectors. But this early attempt at price-fixing failed.It is recorded that business men closed their shops,that many articles of commerce disappeared, and thatfood riots resulted. A dozen years later we read theobituary of the act: "For merest trifles blood wasshed and, out of fear, nothing was offered for saleand the scarcity grew much worse until, after thedeath of many persons, the law was repealed frommere necessity."

The attempt of Diocletian and his successors tosave an empire that was crumbling resulted in com-plete regimentation under a totalitarian state. In thereign of Marcus Aurelius many villages and townshad been virtually wiped out by a great plague, prob-ably a malignant type of smallpox, that had swept theEmpire from Persia to the Rhine. On a diminishedpopulation with greatly impaired resources taxeswere increased to support the enlarged army and the

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vast bureaucracy. Heavy contributions of grain wereexacted from farmers to feed the soldiers and thepopulation of the large cities. There were land taxes,property taxes, occupation taxes, poll taxes. It hasbeen said of this period that " the penalty of wealthseemed to be ruin." The heart was taken out of theenterprising men. Finally the burden became so in-tolerable that to escape the Imperial levies tenantsfled from the farms and business men and workmenfrom their occupations. The government intervenedand bound the tenants to the soil — the beginning ofserfdom — and the business men and workmen totheir occupations and trades. Private enterprise wascrushed and the state was forced to take over manykinds of business to keep the machine running.

As oppression by the central authority increased,many Romans in the frontier provinces escaped fromits heavy hand to find refuge among the Germans andeven the Huns. It is recorded that a refugee with theHuns told a Roman ambassador that " he consideredhis new life with the Huns better than his old lifeamong the Romans." To the poor, it was said, theenemy was kinder than the tax-collector.

To repeople the lands devastated by the plague inthe latter part of the second century, Marcus Aure-lius had " settled an infinite number of barbarians onRoman soil." By the fifth century the country wasstill further depopulated by the governmental oppres-

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sion. At this time, under the whip of hunger, beganwhat German historians have called "the wander-ing of the nations " in western Asia and northern Eu-rope. This put pressure upon the barbarian neigh-bours of the Empire and they moved in on the landsfrom which the stricken inhabitants had fled. " As theRoman Empire gradually crumbled like a dilapidatedhouse," J. W. Thompson writes, " the Germans filledthe ruined provinces, which were as rooms in the vastedifice, and dwelt in them side by side with the nativepopulace. The Romans grew more barbarized. TheGermans became more civilized." But culture wasoverwhelmed by ignorance.

For our purposes the rest of the story is soon told.Under Diocletian, Rome had ceased to be the seat ofgovernment. His headquarters were at Nicomedia, afew miles southeast of the present Istanbul. Onlyonce after he became Emperor did he visit Rome, andthat was the year before his retirement, when he con-structed the great baths whose ruins still impress us.Early in the fourth century Constantine built a newcity on the site of the ancient Byzantium and in 330he transferred the capital to " the new Rome whichis Constantinople," as its official title ran. This wasin a fine strategic position between the European andthe Asiatic fronts. Latin remained the court languageand the country was still regarded as one Roman Em-pire, but with increasing emphasis on " the eastern

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parts," and " the western parts." Just before the closeof the century the Western Empire was formally di-vided from the Eastern. In 476 the last of the Romanline, Romulus Augustulus, " laid down his Imperialdignity and the court of Constantinople was informedthere was no longer an emperor of the West."

The city of Rome was never the capital of the West-ern Empire. An emperor went there to celebrate atriumph in 404 of our era. It was the third time in acentury that Rome had entertained a sovereign. TheImperial court moved first to Milan and then to Ra-venna, at that time a sea-coast town on the Adriatic,protected from attack by lagoons and marshes; nowsix miles inland. Ravenna was regarded as the capi-tal of Italy until the middle of the eighth century.

In spite of the general intellectual stagnation, ex-cept in the new Christian theology, commerce stillcontinued throughout the Mediterranean basin un-til it was interrupted by the conquests of Islam. Bythe beginning of the eighth century most of the west-ern Mediterranean was dominated by Saracens. It-aly and western Europe were now Christian and thegreat sea was controlled by their Moslem enemies.The Christians, a Mohammedan writer boasted, " canno longer float a plank on it." The economic equilib-rium that had survived the Germanic invasions wasdestroyed. With the disappearance of the merchants,the urban life which they maintained went down in

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collapse. Roman cities continued to exist, but only asecclesiastical centres. There was general impoverish-ment. Western Europe sank back into a purely agri-cultural state. Movable wealth no longer existed. Nocentral government could raise and pay for an armyfor its defence. Soldiers were recruited from the de-pendants of the great landlords. The feudal systemof the Middle Ages, it has been said, represented thedisintegration of public authority and its assumptionby men who, because of their great estates, felt them-selves independent. That system embodied the ef-fects on the political structure of the return of societyto a simple rural civilization.

As for Rome itself, at the end of the anarchy of thethird century the great buildings still stood and splen-did new ones were being added. Roman art beganand ended with architecture. But when Constantinebuilt a massive arch by the Colosseum to commemo-rate his victories, he could find no sculptors to deco-rate it. The pieces of fine sculpture that were usedwere taken from the arch of Trajan. Creative workin literature as well as the arts had ceased. The city'sold life had been engulfed in the ignorance of a poly-glot population. The spoken language had become apatois. In the fifth century, a historian says, the peo-ple spoke Latin, but what Latin!

" Rome partly succeeded in Romanizing the Med-iterranean world," writes Professor Lot," but only the

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upper classes had the Roman mentality." In the oldcity still lived some of the new rich who had managedto take advantage of the disorders to make fortunesthrough speculation or political influence. The soci-ety in which they moved, as described by a contem-porary writer Ammianus was extravagant and osten-tatious, but wholly without culture. These peopleshowed none of the energy and courage that in ear-lier days had more than offset the faults of the old aris-tocracy. A crowd of soft and stupid economic royal-ists and a listless proletariat were left to maintain thegreat tradition in the ancient capital, while powerfulfeudal landlords dominated the countryside. EarlyRoman history has been described as the history of or-dinary people doing extraordinary things. At the end" there were not Romans left to do the work of Rome."

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CHAPTER XIII

WARNING SIGNALS

As we survey the collapse of Roman civilization wesee that the trouble was not the strength of the in-vaders. It was internal decay. The reasons for thatdecay have proved the nightmare of historians fromGibbon to the present time. When the inquirer fixesupon certain causes, he usually is brought up sharplyby the reflection that these same causes existed inother eras without fatal results. The slave system wasat its worst during the Republic, but Rome went vig-orously forward. So long as the people kept theirnerve, the capital and Italy seemed able to assimilateforeign stocks, at least to such a degree that civiliza-tion was not impaired. It was when conditions be-came pathological that assimilation stopped. Forcenturies education in England was as deficient as

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education in Rome, and culture flourished in Franceunder autocratic rule. A pertinent suggestion is fur-nished by a remark of Hugh Wilson's in his Educa-tion of a Diplomat. Discussing the pre-war mental-ity, Mr. Wilson says: "To us the Victorian era ofstability was normal. We needed a lifetime to realize,and some of us have not yet realized, that the Vic-torian era was an historical phenomenon, so unusualthat it will be cited with the age of Augustus as oneof the two great periods of peace and security in thehistory of western civilization."

An unusual combination of circumstances madepossible the Victorian stability and the stability ofthe Roman peace. When the balance was disturbed,the stability in both instances was lost. The civiliza-tion of the Roman world might have withstood someof the disintegrating influences. When they gangedup on it, Roman civilization could not withstand themass attack. Perhaps if " the wandering of the na-tions " had been deferred a few centuries, Romemight have revived after a period of decay. In thecourse of history many nations have had their blankyears in literature and the arts and have recovered.I have referred to sculpture in fourth-century Rome.It was as deficient in nineteenth-century America andEngland. In these countries it came back. In Rome itdid not have the chance. The Eastern Empire, cen-tred at Constantinople, suffered from many of the

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same complaints that affected the Western Empire,but did not find them fatal. Apparently it escapedthe precise combination of forces that caused the col-lapse in the West.

Without going into the general problem, I believewe may profit from certain parts of the Roman ex-perience. It was a very different experience from ourown. But, in spite of the differences, it carries warn-ing signals for the present age.

As was said earlier, civilization involves collectiveaction through government. Many of the instancesof governmental intervention that we have just ex-amined proved useful. Some of them mitigated dis-tress. In times of crisis state loans were helpful. Cae-sar was able to stop the flight of capital and restoreconfidence by government action. The panic of 33was ended by Treasury loans provided by the Em-peror Tiberius. Under the younger Gracchus and inthe early period of the Empire public works cushionedthe evils of unemployment. The problem was dealtwith fairly effectively at times through ResettlementAdministrations. On the other hand, the history ofthe dole carries a warning. Relief was necessary. Butunder the Republic it was so handled as to build upa powerful and unmanageable pressure group. Nomeans test was applied until the dictatorship of Cae-sar. Even under the Empire it became a permanentlydemoralizing factor in the social and economic life.

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WARNING SIGNALS

People were schooled to expect something for noth-ing. This failure of the old Roman virtues of self-reliance and initiative was conspicuously shown inthat part of the population that was on relief. It hadfar wider aspects. Emergencies that would not havedismayed the men of the Republic were too much forthe men of the later Empire.

Rome, as I remarked in a previous chapter, wasdemoralized by prosperity. The sharp social divisionthat attended the get-rich-quick era was destructivefirst to the Republic and later to the Empire. Thenew rich lost initiative and self-reliance and becameselfish, arrogant, uncompromising. The wretchedlypoor were always liable to be preyed upon by design-ing politicians. The Roman people developed theirgreat qualities under conditions that approximatedthose of the American frontier. They were energetic,hard-working, thrifty men and women, with a stronglove of country and a high sense of justice. With sud-den prosperity these virtues began to crumble.

Living became more interesting and in many waysmore humane. The hard narrowness of frontier lifegave way to a broader outlook. But there were otherless happy effects on both sides of the social line. Therich refused to make even moderate concessions inthe handling of privileges which they had been ableto monopolize through their control of the govern-ment. The poor had sunk to a level where the selling

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of votes was widespread and elections went to thehighest bidder. " Rome is for sale/' exclaimed aNorth African prince of the second century B.C. " Itwill perish when it finds a purchaser." The authen-ticity of the line has been challenged. But it carriedbitter truth for the future.

We saw the effects of the boom years in Americain breaking down standards and undermining char-acter. Flaming youth got the idea that the highestaim in life was to have a good time. Many of its eld-ers confused their moral values. The official scandalsof the Harding administration had their counterpartin Rome under similar conditions.

As for elections, the Handbook written by Cicero'sbrother recommending bribery and lavish promisesis not out of date in the modern world. A successfulpolitician, the Governor of a state, remarked in con-versation not long ago that he was " terrified " overthe outlook for democratic institutions in this coun-try. "In these days," he said, "we have to makepromises that we know we can't carry out. We haveto promise the old people pensions that would bank-rupt the state if we paid them. We have to promisehigher salaries to the school-teachers, higher wagesto the working people, higher prices to the farmers,bigger allotments of public funds from the federalgovernment. I am ashamed of what I have done. ButI wanted to win." In the last days of the Republic

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many Roman politicians could have made the sameconfession. The American Governor's remarks werecynical and extreme. Still, in view of what happenedin Rome, we cannot dismiss them as simply fanciful.

The autocracy, reflecting as it did a deterioration inthe character of the Roman people, contributed to afurther undermining of their spirit. The process be-gan under the liberal emperors of the second cen-tury after Christ, long before the advent of the to-talitarian state. The central government undertooksuch far-reaching responsibility in affairs that the fi-bre of the citizens weakened. Evidently it is a finequestion of statesmanship how far government can gowithout crossing the line between services that arewholesome, that strengthen character, and those thatare demoralizing and weaken it.

The most disastrous policy in its immediate effectswas extravagant spending by the government of theEmpire. Part of the money went into the magnifi-cence of the cities, part into the maintenance of thearmy and of the vast bureaucracy required by a cen-tralized government. Gradually the soldiers and thecivil servants became dominating pressure groups.The expense they entailed led to strangling taxationwith repeated devaluations of the currency that fa-tally weakened the middle class and decimated itsnatural leaders. A sturdy middle class might haveprevented the military anarchy that completed its

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liquidation. The attempt to cure the resulting disor-der with the complete regimentation of the totalitar-ian state merely gave a temporary check to the pro-gressive decay. Disintegration followed the stifling ofinitiative.

The modern world has far greater resources thanthe Roman Empire. It is quite impossible to draw asafe inference from the Roman experience as to thelimits of modern spending. There is merely the ob-vious warning that it is possible to go so far as to in-volve destructive taxation with the dangers of infla-tion. But certainly in Europe there are disquietingand spectacular analogies to the last years of Rome.To pass over the waste and devastation from war,there are uncertainties affecting the currencies ofmost countries with potentially disintegrating effectson the social structure. There is the spread of totali-tarian systems in which Diocletian and his successorswould have felt at home. The lives and activities ofpeople are increasingly controlled by regimes that re-fuse to allow freedom of spirit.

It required a century or more for the destructiveforces in Rome to work out their effects. The moderntempo is faster. The history of the later Roman Em-pire carries a warning to present-day authoritarians.

There is another aspect to the decline of Rome, theeconomic. The underlying economic trouble of theRoman system was its failure to provide opportuni-

2S2

WARNING SIGNALS

ties for the people to find work through which theymight maintain decent minimum standards of living.As Russia has demonstrated, no society is on a stablefoundation when it is divided into a world of beggarsand a world of the rich. We have seen the difficul-ties in which Rome repeatedly became involved be-cause of this division, from which poverty and ig-norance finally emerged triumphant. The disordersof the first century B.C. grew out of struggles betweenrich and poor. Prosperity sagged into the stagnationof the second century of the great peace partly fromthe same cause. The farms no longer furnished amarket to the factories because the small independentfarmer was absorbed by the great landlord. Indus-trial progress ceased because of the lethargy of slavesand undernourished free workmen and the failureof a sleek upper class to produce energetic and in-telligent leadership.

It is true, as Professor Homo has remarked, thatRoman culture was essentially aristocratic. It hadbeen imposed on the world by superior groups whichhe calls " the general staff of civilization," and hadfailed to send its roots deep into the mass of thepeople. That was because the people virtually wereexcluded from the well-being of the general staff.They had no sense of partnership in the glittering lifeabove them which they helped support. So when thestaff of empire-builders and administrators disap-

233


peared in the anarchy of the third century, " Romancivilization suffered a mortal blow." The inhabitantsfelt a certain sense of solidarity. They valued the Ro-man peace as the source of all their blessings. Buttheir feeling for the Empire was only passive. In theday of peril it could not be stirred to effective action.

Rome did a magnificent and lasting service to man-kind. We may consider its final failure without at-tempting to pass moral judgments based on modernexperiences and standards. In the same sense inwhich Metternich said that "indignation is not apolitical attitude," we may assume that neither isindignation a historical attitude. Short-sighted self-interest affected the mass of the people as it affectedtheir leaders. The rich landowners were anxious toavail themselves of cheap slave labour, without re-gard to the effect on the free workers or on the futureof farming and industry. The people deserted theirchampion, Gaius Gracchus, lured by appeals to theirselfishness. Would modern men have been less short-sighted under similar conditions? Certainly the short-run selfish view often prevails today.

The fundamental modern social problem is theproblem that Rome failed to solve. It is the problemof building a unified yet free society, with decentminimum standards of living. A society so intelli-gently and justly organized that there is no menacingsubmerged class. A society that provides reasonable

284

WARNING SIGNALS

incentives for the free rise of a general staff of com-petent managers whose ranks are always open tofresh recruits. A society that develops a social pres-sure under which leaders accept an enlightened andfar-sighted view of their responsibilities. This is thesociety which the long experience of Rome sets as agoal before the modern world.

235

5353S3335S3$3^^

APPENDIX I

CHRONOLOGY OF ROMAN NEWDEAL MEASURES AND OTHER

ECONOMIC EXPERIMENTS

367 B.C. — Licinius Stolo: moratorium on debts;Small Holdings Act; Farm-Labour Act.

357 B.C. — Maximum interest rate set at 8}4 per cent.352 B.C. — Government Land Bank; Farm Debt

Conciliation Committee.342 B.C. — Interest abolished to favour debtors; law

soon ignored.217 B.C. — Monetary devaluation to meet financial

stringency in second war with Carthage.133 B.C-121 B.C. — The Gracchi: Resettlement Ad-

ministration (R.A.); Public Works Administra-tion (P.W.A.); Ever Normal Granary; two-pricesystem for wheat, sold by the government at 32

237

APPENDIX I

cents a bushel, considerably below the marketprice, to those willing to stand in line. (For his-tory of cheap wheat and wheat dole, see below.)

90 B.c-86 B.C. — Frozen credits from civil war inItaly and war in Asia Minor; panic from collapseof Asiatic stocks and overspeculation; currencydevalued and debts scaled down 75 per cent.

63 B.C-61 B.C. — Severe stringency from indebted-ness caused by wild speculation. Flight of gold,loans called. Relieved by embargo on gold ex-ports and cheap credits offered by Rome's J. P.Morgan; followed by easy money made possibleby gold and silver spoils from Asia.

49 B.a-44 B.C. — Julius Caesar; panic in Rome whenCaesar crosses Rubicon; flight of capital; collapsein real estate. Remedies: debts scaled down onbasis of pre-war values; Resettlement Admin-istration; 80,000 taken off relief and settled awayfrom Rome; relief cut in half with means test(320,000 to 150,000); anti-hoarding measures,with compulsory investment in Italian land;P.W.A. work on roads, public buildings, reclama-tion projects.

29 B.a-9 B.C. — Augustus: extensive P.W.A.; largesoldier bonuses; easy-money policy from spoilsof Egypt and large coinage of gold and silverfrom government mines; inflationary activity

238

APPENDIX I

with high prices; relief rolls, which had ex-panded after Caesar's death, cut from 320,000 to200,000.

9 B.C.-A.D. 33 — Augustus and Tiberius: publicspending cut, with funds exhausted and coinagereduced by 95 per cent; Tiberius attempts tobalance budget without raising taxes; deflation-ary hard times culminating in panic of A.D. 33;collapse of land values; mortgages called. HomeOwners' Loan Corporation (H.O.L.C.) set upwith loans for three years without interest toreal-estate owners.

91 — Domitian: Agricultural Adjustment Adminis-tration (A.A.A.), half of provincial vineyards de-stroyed to stop overproduction of wine.

97-106 — Nerva and Trajan: Farm Credit Adminis-tration (F.C.A.), with loans to farmers at halfthe market rate; government aid to children ofpoor families; senators required to invest onethird of their property in Italian land.

117-211 — Hadrian and successors: extravagantspending on public works by central governmentand cities, followed later by heavy expendituresfor wars, exhausting reserves and tax resources.

212-284 — Heavy spending continues on army, bu-reaucracy, and extension of dole; military an-archy combining with ruinous taxes and infla-

239

APPENDIX I

tion to demoralize business and break down themiddle class.

284-476 — Diocletian and successors: increasing tax-ation; inflation from overvalued currency withskyrocketing prices; price- and wage-control; to-talitarian state; end of Western Empire.

CHEAP WHEAT AND THE DOLE

123 B.C. — Wheat sold at 32 cents a bushel, consider-ably below the market price.

103 B.C. — Proposed reduction to 4 cents a bushel;probably annulled.

82 B.C. — Cheap wheat distribution abolished bySulla.

78 B.C. — Wheat again sold at 32 cents a bushel.58 B.C. — Wheat furnished free as a dole.46 B.C. — Relief rolls reduced by Caesar from 320,-

000 to 150,000, mounting again after his death.2 B.C. — Rolls reduced by Augustus from 320,000

to 200,000.274 A.D. — Aurelian: Relief extended, with bread

substituted for wheat and addition of free pork,olive oil, and salt. Right to relief made heredi-tary.

327 — Right of relief attached to new houses by Con-stantine to encourage building in new capitalof Constantinople.

240

APPENDIX I

DEVALUATION OF DENARIUS

(Approximate Dates)

Early first century (Augustus) 20 centsMiddle first century (Nero) 15 centsEnd second century (Septimius

Severus) 10 centsEarly third century (Caracalla) 6 centsEnd third century (Diocletian) .5 cent

241

5*5&3&S&5&5*533^

APPENDIX II

IF YOU WISH TO READ FURTHER

WITH the bewildering number of books on Romanhistory, any short list must represent rather arbitraryand personal selections. An excellent introduction tothe whole field is the concise survey in the last 250pages of James H. Breasted's remarkable textbook,Ancient Times, revised edition of 1935. The samematerial appears in the revised edition of his TheConquest of Civilization. Adequate single-volumehistories are Tenney Frank's A History of Rome, withspecial attention to the economic side, and M. Cary'sA History of Rome, which has interesting chapterssummarizing social and economic conditions at theend of each century. H. F. Pelham's Outline of Ro-man History, pre-eminently political, is a marvel oflucid condensation.

242

APPENDIX II

For the period of the Republic, Frank's Roman Im-perialism traces the development of Roman expan-sion. A. H. J. Greenidge's A History of Rome, B.C.133—104, is a beautiful book. The author's untimelydeath prevented the completion of the history he hadplanned. Rice Holmes's three-volume The RomanRepublic and the Founder of the Empire is especiallyfull for the period of Julius Caesar. Another standardwork is W. E. Heitland's The Roman Republic, inthree volumes. In Methuen's admirable series, AHistory of the Greek and Roman World, publishedin London, Howard H. Scullard treats of the periodfrom 753 to 146 B.C. Frank Burr Marsh takes up thestory in A History of the Roman World from 146 to30 B.C. Professor Marsh's book presents a fresh pointof view, as does his The Founding of the Roman Em-pire. His discussion of the senatorial machine sug-gested the treatment of my chapter, " Big Business inPolitics." In two volumes on The Architect of the Ro-man Empire, Mr. Holmes gives a vivid account ofthe death struggle of the Republic and of the workof Augustus.

Primitive Italy and the Beginnings of Roman Im-perialism, by Leon Homo, is the work of an accom-plished French scholar. It is a pity that his brilliantbook La Civilisation Romaine has not been translated.Primitive Italy is one of a great series, " The Historyof Civilization," brought out in the United States by

243

APPENDIX II

Alfred A. Knopf. Most of the volumes are transla-tions from the French. Those dealing with Rome,aside from the one just mentioned, are J. Declareuil'sRome the Law-Giver, Homo's Roman Political In-stitutions, Albert Grenier's The Roman Spirit, PaulLouis's Ancient Rome at Work, Victor Chapot's TheRoman World, and Ferdinand Lot's fascinating book:The End of the Ancient World. Another volume inthe series that I have found useful is A. R. Burn'sMoney and Monetary Policy in Ancient Times.

G. Ferrero's The Greatness and Decline of Romecovers in five attractively written volumes the historyto the close of the reign of Augustus. Some historians,I believe, regard Ferrero as more brilliant than sound.The second volume of M. RostovtzefFs A History ofthe Ancient World, dealing with Rome, is by one ofthe most eminent modern authorities. Mommsen'sA History of the Roman Republic shows that alearned German historian may be interesting. Hishistory has flashing passages.

The Imperial period is briefly but well described inA Short History of the Roman Empire to the Death ofMarcus Aurelius, by Wells and Barrow. A valuablediscussion of the latter part of the Empire is H. M. D.Parker's A History of the Roman World from A.D. 137to 337. This is in the Methuen series already referredto. It covers rather briefly the field of the more elab-orate last two volumes of the Cambridge Ancient His-

244

APPENDIX II

tory. The early chapters of J. W. Thompson's TheEconomic and Social History of the Middle Agescontain material on the barbarian invasions. Thelater years of the Western Empire are described inthe first volume of J. B. Bury's History of the LaterRoman Empire. The first half of Christopher Daw-son's fascinating book: The Making of Europe dealswith this period. So do Parts One and Two of HenriPirenne's Economic and Social History of MediaevalEurope, stressing the destruction of urban life by theMoslem conquests. A fine and scholarly history ofthe Empire not yet translated is Eugene Albertini'sUEmpire Romain. Gibbon's monumental Declineand Fall, Bury edition, I suspect is discouraginglylong and detailed for the average reader. Besides, thegreat additions to the knowledge of Roman historysince he wrote it cannot be taken care of in notes,even by so accomplished a scholar as Professor Bury.

The economic history of the Mediterranean worldhas received adequate attention only in fairly recentyears. For the general reader the best single book isperhaps Tenney Frank's Economic History of Rome,revised edition of 1927, unfortunately out of print,but to be found in libraries. The farm problem iselaborately discussed by W. E. Heitland in his Agric-ola — "The Farmer." M. P. Charlesworth's TradeRoutes of the Roman Empire presents a valuable sur-vey of commercial development. The classic eco-

245

APPENDIX H

nomic history of the Empire is RostovtzefFs monu-mental volume: The Social and Economic History ofthe Roman Empire. An interesting point is raised byTenney Frank's criticism of Rostovtzeff in his MartinLectures. Professor Frank was born on a Kansas farmand is familiar with American farm life. He believesthe continental historians are misled by their Euro-pean background into supposing that the Romanfarmers were essentially European peasants. In-stead, in Frank's opinion, they were much like the in-dependent American farmers. Louis's Ancient Romeat Work already has been mentioned.

The most extensive collection of material bearingon the economic life of Rome and the Empire is theelaborate series edited by Frank: " An Economic Sur-vey of Ancient Rome." Its five volumes by specialistscover Italy of the Republic and Empire and the Ro-man provinces. It is an amazing work. Supple-menting Frank and Rostovtzeff on the economic sideare the volumes on Rome of the great Cambridge An-cient History. This co-operative history is rather pre-occupied with politics and wars, but it has fine chap-ters on social and economic conditions, literature,art, and religion. It is indispensable for reference.

Among the significant magazine articles dealingwith economic aspects of Roman history are those byW. L. Westermann, American Historical Review,July 1915 and January 1938; and by V. G. Simkho-

246

APPENDIX II

vitch, Political Science Quarterly, June 1916, discuss-ing the farm problem under the Empire. EllsworthHuntington in the Quarterly Journal of Economics,February 1917, attributes Rome's decline largely tochanges in climate, with very sketchy evidence. Asummary of the majority opinion against this view isgiven by Ellen Churchill Semple in The Geographyof the Mediterranean Region. The best account ofthe panic of A.D. 33 is Tenney Frank's in the AmericanJournal of Philology, 1935, pages 336-41. With theseshould be mentioned two pamphlets by W. E. Heit-land: The Roman Fate and Iterum, stimulating essayson the Roman decline by an eminent scholar.

Various aspects of Roman history are dealt with inmany volumes that combine sound scholarship withdelightful reading. Frank's Social Behavior in An-cient Rome, Martin Classical Lectures, Volume II,just mentioned, has chapters on family life, religiouschange, and social reform. W. Warde Fowler's SocialLife at Rome in the Age of Cicero gives a vivid pic-ture of everyday life. The same subject a centurylater is covered by L. Friedlander's Life and Mannersunder the Early Empire, in four volumes, and T. G.Tucker's Life in the Roman World of Nero and St.Paul. Grant Showerman's Monuments and Men ofAncient Rome tells of the recent excavations, withenthusiastic chapters on travel and biography. F. F.Abbott's The Common People of Ancient Rome re-

247

APPENDIX H

views in some detail Diocletian's famous wage-priceedict. Herbert S. Hadley's Rome and the World To-day is useful especially for its discussion of Romanlaw from the point of view of a practising attorney.Pictures of the Empire in its glory and decay aregiven in Sir Samuel Dill's Roman Society from Neroto Marcus Aurelius, and Roman Society in the hastCentury of the Western Empire. The Legacy ofRome, edited by Cyril Bailey, includes chaptersby specialists on such subjects as " Communicationsand Commerce," " Literature," and " The Science ofLaw." Numerous topics are interestingly treated inSir H. Stuart Jones's Companion to Roman History.J. C. Stobart's The Grandeur that was Rome, revisededition, is a popular account of the Roman civiliza-tion. Government is dealt with in Greenidge's RomanPublic Life, Abbott's and Johnson's Municipal Ad-ministration in the Roman Empire, which is out ofprint, and Homo's Roman Political Institutions. Thestandard discussion of slavery is R. H. Barrow'sSlavery in the Roman Empire. Jack Lindsay's MarcAntony gives a modern Marxist view of the con-spiracy of Catiline. Two biographies of especial in-terest are Gaston Boissier's Cicero and His Friends,and John Buchan's Augustus. His Julius Caesar,while interesting, is much slighter. The Reign ofTiberius, by Frank Burr Marsh, is a stimulating his-tory and character study. The successor of Augustus

248

APPENDIX H

was maligned by malicious tradition as a cruel andsensual monster. Rehabilitated by modern historians,he emerges from Professor Marsh's analysis as a realstatesman.

While Latin literature does not come within thefield here surveyed, attention should be called toProfessor J. W. MackaiFs Latin Literature and hisClassical Studies, and to J. Wright Duff's A Historyof Latin Literature in the Golden Age and A Historyof Latin Literature in the Silver Age — all very pleas-ant as well as enlightening.

Space limitations of this book prevented discussionof the Roman occupation of Britain; but I am suremany American readers would find stimulating ma-terial in Haverfield and Macdonald's The RomanOccupation of Britain, in R. G. Colling wood's slendervolume: Roman Britain, and in the more elaboratestudy by Collingwood and Myres: Roman Britain andthe English Settlement.

Unfortunately Smith's great two-volume Diction-ary of Greek and Roman Antiquities is long out ofprint. A small English substitute for this is theOxford Companion to Classical Literature. Sandys'sA Companion to Latin Studies is elaborate, but itsusefulness is impaired by the absence of a compre-hensive general index.

Anyone with even moderate curiosity will be re-paid for looking into the translations of Livy, Tacitus,

249

APPENDIX II

and Plutarch. These may be inexpensively obtainedin Everyman's Library, as well as in the Loeb Clas-sical Library. The Loeb Library includes severalhundred volumes of Greek and Latin writers, theoriginal text on one page, a good translation on thepage opposite. It is a superb project with one blem-ish: the indexes are terrible! But one may pick up al-most any volume dealing with the Roman period,Cicero's Letters, his De Officiis, the Tusculan Dispu-tations, Pliny's Letters, Strabo, Polybius, Appian, Dio,Sallust, Cato, Vitruvius (on architecture), Ammianus,and be amazed and delighted by the keen observa-tions on human nature there shown. J. W. Mackailsuggests the fascination of these ancient books whenhe writes of The Lives of the Cxsars by Suetonius," who tells us the colour of Caesar's eyes, who quotesfrom a dozen letters of Augustus, who shows us (themad) Caligula shouting to the moon from the palaceroof, and Nero lecturing on the construction of theorgan." For those who wish their classics in smallpackages there are two useful compendiums: GreekLiterature in Translation and Latin Literature inTranslation, by Howe and Harrer.

250

SS35<?5*3S<£5^3^^

APPENDIX III

A LIST OF BOOKS

(published in New York unless otherwise stated)

ABBOTT, F. F.: The Common People of Ancient Rome.Charles Scribner's Sons. 1911., and JOHNSON, A. C : Municipal Administrationin the Roman Empire. Princeton UniversityPress. Princeton, N. J. 1926. (Out of print.)

ALBERTINI, EUGENE: VEmpire Romain. LibrairieFelix Alcan. Paris. 1936.

BAILEY, CYRIL: The Legacy of Rome. Oxford Uni-versity Press. 1923.

BAKER, GEORGE P.: Twelve Centuries of Rome.Dodd, Mead & Company. 1934.

BARROW, R. H.: Slavery in the Roman Empire.Methuen & Co. London. 1928.

BOISSIER, GASTON: Cicero and His Friends. G. P.Putnam's Sons. 1925.

251

APPENDIX IH

BREASTED, J. H.: Ancient Times, A History of theEarly World. Second edition. Ginn & Co. Bos-ton. 1935.: The Conquest of Civilization. New Edition.Harper & Brothers. 1938.

BUCHAN, JOHN: Augustus. Houghton Mifflin Com-pany. Boston. 1937.: Julius Cxsar. D. Appleton-Century Company.1932.

BURNS, A. R.: Money and Monetary Policy in AncientTimes. Alfred A. Knopf. 1927.

BURY, J. B.: A History of the Later Roman Empire.Volume I. The Macmillan Company. New York.1931.

Cambridge Ancient History, Volumes VII-XII. TheMacmillan Company. 1928-39.

Cambridge Medieval History, Volume I. The Mac-millan Company. 1911.

CARY, M.: A History of Rome. The Macmillan Com-pany. 1935.

CASSON, S.: Progress and Catastrophe. Harper &Brothers. 1937.

CHAPOT, V.: The Roman World. Alfred A. Knopf.1928.

CHARLES WORTH, M. P.: Trade Routes of the RomanEmpire. Revised edition. The Macmillan Com-pany. 1926.

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APPENDIX III

COLLINGWOOD, R. G.: Roman Britain. Oxford Uni-versity Press. 1934., and MYRES, J. N. L.: Roman Britain and theEnglish Settlement. Oxford University Press.1936.

DAVIS, W. S.: The Influence of Wealth in ImperialRome. Peter Smith. 1933.

DAWSON, CHRISTOPHER: The Making of Europe.Sheed&Ward. 1937.

DECLAREUIL, J.: Rome the Law-Giver. Alfred A.Knopf. 1926.

DILL, SAMUEL: Roman Society from Nero to MarcusAurelius. The Macmillan Company. 1905.: Roman Society in the Last Century of the West-ern Empire. The Macmillan Company. 1899.

DUFF, J. W.: A Literary History of Rome in theGolden Age. Charles Scribner's Sons.: A Literary History of Rome in the Silver Age.Charles Scribner's Sons.

FERRERO, G.: The Greatness and Decline of Rome.Five volumes, G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1909. (Outof print.)

FISHER, H. A. L.: History of Europe. Three volumes.Houghton Mifflin Company. Boston. 1935-6.

FOWLER, W. W.: Social Life at Rome in the Age ofCicero. The Macmillan Company. 1915.

FRANK, TENNEY: An Economic History of Rome.

25S

APPENDIX III

The Johns Hopkins Press. Baltimore. 1927.(Out of print.): A History of Rome. Henry Holt & Company.1923.: Roman Imperialism. The Macmillan Com-pany. 1914.: Social Behavior in Ancient Rome. MartinClassical Lectures, Vol. II. Harvard UniversityPress. Cambridge, Mass. 1932.(editor): An Economic Survey of AncientRome. Five volumes and Index. The Johns Hop-kins Press, Baltimore. 1933-1940.

FRIEDLANDER, L.: Life and Manners under the EarlyEmpire. Four volumes. E. P. Dutton & Co.

GIBBON, EDWARD: A History of the Decline and Fallof the Roman Empire, edited by J. B. Bury.Seven volumes. Second edition. Methuen & Co.London. 1926.

GREENIDGE, A. H. J.: A History of Rome B.C. 133-104.Methuen & Co. London. 1904.: Roman Public Life. The Macmillan Company.1901.

GRENIER, A.: The Roman Spirit in Religion, Thoughtand Art. Alfred A. Knopf. 1926.

HADLEY, H. S.: Rome and the World Today. G. P.Putnam's Sons. New edition. 1934.

HEITLAND, W. E.: Agricola. The Macmillan Com-pany. 1921.

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APPENDIX HI

: The Roman Republic. Three volumes. TheMacmillan Company. 1923.

HENDERSON, B. W.: The Life and Principate of theEmperor Hadrian. Methuen & Co. London.1923.

HOLMES, T. RICE: The Architect of the Roman Em-pire. Oxford University Press. Volume I, 1928;Volume II, 1931.: The Roman Republic and the Founder of theEmpire. Three volumes. Oxford UniversityPress. 1923.

HOMO, LEON: La Civilisation Romaine. Payot. Paris.1930.: VEmpire Romain. Payot. Paris. 1930.: Primitive Italy and the Beginnings of RomanImperialism. Alfred A. Knopf. 1926.: Roman Political Institutions. Alfred A. Knopf.1929.

HOWE, GEORGE, and HARRER, G. A.: Greek Literaturein Translation and Roman Literature in Transla-tion. Harper & Brothers. 1924.

JOHNSTON, H. W.: The Private Life of the Romans.Revised by Mary Johnston. Scott, Foresman andCompany. Chicago. 1932.

JONES, H. S.: Companion to Roman History. OxfordUniversity Press. 1912.

LINDSAY, JACK: Marc Antony. E. P. Dutton & Co.1937.

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APPENDIX i n

LOANE, HELEN J.: Industry and Commerce of theCity of Rome. The Johns Hopkins Press. Balti-more. 1938.

Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press.Cambridge, Mass.

LOT, F.: The End of the Ancient World. Alfred A.Knopf. 1931.

Louis, PAUL: Ancient Rome at Work. Alfred A.Knopf. 1927.

MACKAIL, J. W.: Classical Studies. Charles Scribner'sSons.: Latin Literature. First edition, 1895. Re-printed, 1934. The Macmillan Company.

MARSH, F. B.: The Founding of the Roman Empire.Second edition. Oxford University Press. 1927.: A History of the Roman World from 146 to 30B.C. Methuen & Co. London. 1935.: The Reign of Tiberius. Oxford UniversityPress. 1931.

MOMMSEN, T.: A History of Rome. Four volumes.Everyman's Library. E. P. Dutton & Co.

Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. Com-piled and edited by Sir Paul Harvey. OxfordUniversity Press. 1937.

PARKER, H. M. D.: A History of the Roman Worldfrom A.D. 138 to 337. Methuen & Co. London.1935.

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APPENDIX HI

PELHAM, H. F.: Outlines of Roman History. G. P.Putnam's Sons. 1928.

PIRENNE, HENRI: Economic and Social History ofMedieval Europe. Harcourt, Brace and Com-pany. 1937.

ROSTOVTZEFF, M.: A History of the Ancient World.Vol. II, Rome. Oxford University Press. 1928.: The Social and Economic History of the Ro-man Empire. Oxford University Press. 1926.

SCULLARD, H. H.: A History of the Roman World from753 to 146 B.C. Methuen & Co. London. 1935.

SEMPLE, ELLEN CHURCHILL: The Geography of theMediterranean: Its Relation to Ancient History.Henry Holt & Company. 1931.

SHOWERMAN, GRANT: Monuments and Men of An-cient Rome. D. Appleton-Century Company.1937.: Rome and the Romans. The Macmillan Com-pany. 1931.

STOBART, J. C : The Grandeur that was Rome. Re-vised by F. N. Pryce. D. Appleton-CenturyCompany. 1935.

THOMPSON, J. W.: Economic and Social History ofthe Middle Ages. D. Appleton-Century Com-pany. 1928.

TUCKER, T. G.: Life in the Roman World of Nero andSt. Paul. The Macmillan Company. 1910.

257

APPENDIX i n

WELLS, JOSEPH, and BARROW, R. H.: A Short Historyof the Roman Empire. Second edition. Methuen& Co. London. 1935. (Dial Press. 1931.)

WINSPEAR, A. D., and GEWEKE, L. K.: Augustus andthe Reconstruction of Roman Government andSociety. University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.1935.

258

:xro<js&\3*ro^^

INDEX

Actium, battle of, 161Adam, Robert, Diocletian's

influence on, 11Adcock, F. E.: on loyalty of

provinces, 179; on gild-ing Golden Age, 209

Agricultural AdjustmentAdministration, 191-2

Agriculture, see Farmproblem

Albertini, Eugene, onRoman tools, 197

Alexander the Great,quoted, 161

Alfalfa, 202Ammianus, 216-17Ancyrean inscription, 185-

6Antony, Mark: after Caesar's

assassination, 155-7; Pro~scribes Cicero, 157; de-feat at Actium anddeath, 161

Appian: on aims of T.

Gracchus, 98; on Senate'sloss of power, 117; on as-sassination of Caesar, 154

Aqueducts, 14Arenes de Lutece, 10Army: destroyed Republic,

46; reorganized by Ma-rius, 131—2; by Augustus,171; civilizing agency,214—15; becomes prole-tarian force controllinggovernment, 215; plun-ders, 216

Assembly: early power,55—7; authority con-firmed, 70; developed byT. Gracchus, 103; by C.Gracchus, 117; used byCaesar, 144; authorityabolished, 174

Augustan exposition, 15—16

Augustus (Octavian) : in-timidates Senate, 132;

i

INDEX

after Caesar's assassina-tion, 156-7; strugglewith Antony, 157; Ci-cero's murder, 157-9; Ac-tium, 161; traits, 162-4;comment on Alexander,162; political problems,164-5; dislikes grain re-lief, 187; new formof government, 171—3;problem of succession,175-6; popularity, 178-80; failure to conquernorthern Germany, 181-2; welding Empire, 183;easy-money policy, 183-5; farewell address, 185-6; tax system, 185; boomyevars, 186-7; deflation-ary hard times, 188, 190

Aurelian, Emperor, usestroops against strikers,210

Aurelius, Marcus: brick-yards, 200; sells crowntreasures, 209; plague,220; invites barbariansinto Empire, 221

Baalbek, 12Baker, G. P., on Augustus,

165Baldwin, Stanley, quoted,

37Barbarians: overwhelm

Britain, 8; France, 35;Empire, 49; filter in,221-2

Bibulus, consul, 143-5Books, 31-2Booms: first century, B.C.,

123-4; under Augustus,184-7

Breasted, J. H.: on ancientNew Deals, 4; on Egyp-tian recruit, 25; on an-archy of third century,195

Bribery, 46, 137; Caesar,142, 170; " Rome forsale," 230

Bridges, Roman, 13—14Britain, see Roman Brit-

ainBrutus, M. Junius, extor-

tion, 120Buchan, John, quoted, 180Budget-balancing, by Sulla,

113; by Tiberius, 188—9Business: in politics, 105;

in North African war,121; Pompey and pi-rates, 121; in Asia, 122;summary, 132-3

Caesar, C. Julius: traits,141—3; consul, 143—6;conquest of Gaul, 146-7; crosses Rubicon, 133,

ii

INDEX

148; measures to checkpanic, 149; Imperial or-ganization, 150-1; pow-ers, 152; assassination,152; blunders, 152-3;bribery, 170

Cannae, battle of, 75Carthage, second war with,

74-6Cary, M., quoted, 211Casson, Stanley, quoted,

34Catiline, character and

conspiracy of, 124-31Cato: on farming, 91; on

old slaves, 92Catullus, attack on Caesar,

196Chapot, V., on war spoils,

198Charity Ball (Festival of

Goddess of Chastity),65

Chronology: main datesof Roman history, 36; ofNew Deal, 238—40; ofwheat relief, 240; of de-valuation, 241

Cicero, Marcus Tullius:on money market, 18;compares Greeks withRomans, 42; on law, 44;as Governor of Cilicia,77; on vulgar occupa-tions, 95; on debts, 124;

house on Palatine, 125;on Catiline, 127, 169; oneffects of wealth, 137;character, 158-60; Let-ters, 158; death, 158; onpublic indifference, 170

Cicero, Marcus (son), 27-8

Cicero, Quintus (brother),Handbook of Politics,168-9

Cineas, pacifist, 71Cities: spending by, 208-

9; disintegration of,223-4

Civil service, under Au-gustus, 173, 176-7; later,197; top-heavy, 220

Cleopatra, 160—1Clodius, runs on free-

wheat platform, 113Considius, Q., financier,

129Constantine, transfers cap-

ital, 222Coriolanus, standpatter,

60—1

Cornelia, mother of Grac-chi, 116-17

Corporations: public, 18,109, 118-20; law of, 199

Crop rotation, 202

Dawson, Christopher, quot-ed, 147

Hi

INDEX

Dayton, Katharine, quot-ed, 4

Debts, 58-9; Livy's storyof centurion, 59-60;Coriolanus, 60—1; mora-toriums, 63-4, 190-1; im-prisonment for, abol-ished, 68-9; scalingdown, 124; Caesar'streatment of, 149

Democracy, victory inHortensian law, 70

Depressions: early, 62; infirst century B.C., 123;under Augustus, 184,188; under Tiberius,190

Devaluation: traditional,83; in second war withCarthage, 83; in firstcentury, 124; in Empire,218; table of, 241

Dictatorships: of Marius,138—9; of Sulla, 139—40;of Caesar, 152; develop-ment under Augustus,173; longest period ofbenevolent dictator-ships, 176-7; develop-ment and effect, 195-7;of Diocletian and suc-cessors, 219-20

Dill, Sir S., quoted, 211Dio Cassius: on Seneca,

39; on Egyptian treas-ure, 185

Diocletian: palace, 11; Ori-ental despot, 176; price-and-wage edict, 219—20;abandons Rome for Ni-comedia, 222

Doctors, 33-4Dole, see Relief

Easy money: first century,B.C., induces specula-tion, 123-4, 129; underAugustus, 183-7

Education, 27; slave teach-ers, 93

Eternal City (Tibullus),180

Ever Normal Granary, 109

Farm Credit Administra-tion, 191

Farm Debt ConciliationCommittee, 67-8

Farm legislation: SmallHoldings Act, 64, 98,108; Farm Labour Act,66; revived by Caesar,149; compulsory invest-ment in land underCaesar, 149; under Ti-berius, 190; under Tra-jan, 192; A.A.A., 191-2

iv

INDEX

Farm problem: early, 59;similarities to American,86; effect of Sicilianwheat, 88; of wars, 89;of slavery under Repub-lic, 91; wheat-growingdisplaced, 91; Cato onfarming, 91; soil de-pleted by slave labourand tenant farmers,202-4

Farm-to-market roads, 109Feudalism, 224Filibuster in Senate, 143-4Fisher, H. A. L.: on Au-

gustus, 28; on Empire-building, 76; on educa-tion, 93

France, see GaulFrank, Tenney: on coupon-

cutters, 39; on imperial-ism, 78; on aliens inRome, 166—7; on flow ofnew money, 186; on fail-ure to invent valve, 200;on industrial leadership,201

Frontinus, Julius, on aque-ducts, 14

Gaul: roads in, 24; Caesar'sconquest of, 146-7; pros-perity under Rome, 182;under Julian, 217

General Staff of Civiliza-tion, 233

Germany, northern, es-capes Romanization,181-2

Gibbon, Edward, on Ageof Antonines, 19

Gladiatorial combats, ori-gin of, 136

Government spending:orgy, 204; Hadrian's,205, 208; " GildingGolden Age," 209; un-der Marcus Aurelius,209; ruins Empire, 231

Gracchus, Gaius: traits,106—7; organizes demo-cratic coalition, 108—9;cheap wheat, P.W.A.,R.A., and social legisla-tion, 108-12; proposescitizenship for Italiantowns, 114; death, 115;estimate of, 115

Gracchus, Tiberius: familyand engagement of, 96;speech, 97; legislation,98; veto by tribune, 99;" recall," 100; Perga-mum treasure, 100;death, 101

Greeks: contrasted withRomans, 41-2; influ-ence on Romans, 81-2

v

INDEX

Greenidge, A. H. J.,quoted: on Gracchi, 115;on Assembly, 174

Hadrian: extravagantspending by, 205; traits,205-8; poem to his soul,208

Hadrian's Wall, 6Handbook of Politics,

168-9Hannibal, 74-5Hanno, pacifist, 74—5Heating, central, 8, 34Heitland, W. E., on Cati-

line, 131Holmes, T. Rice, on Julius

Caesar; 149Home Owners' Loan Cor-

poration, 191Homo, Leon: on Caesar's

blunders, 152-3; Gen-eral Staff of Civilization,233

Horace: on Rome, 29; onGreek influence, 81

Hortensian Law, 70

Inflation in third century,218

Interest, rate, 69; highrates in provinces, 120;fall under Augustus,185; F.C.A., 192

Iron industry, 30

Italy, unification of, 40,70, 71, 73; civil war in,114, 124, 139

Julian, holds down taxesin Gaul, 217

Juvenal: " bread and cir-cuses," 19; social satires,211-12

Kipling, Rudyard: Puckof Pook's Hill, 6; com-pared with Virgil, 22

Land investment, compul-sory, see Farm legisla-tion

Latin: used in Britain, 9;becomes patois, 224

Lawyers, 32-3Libraries, 31Licinius Stolo, 62-4; fined,

65Livy: on Roman origins

and decline, 51-3; storyof bankrupt soldier, 59;new nobility, 66; ondebt conciliation, 68; onplunder, 78; on farmspeculation, 90; on pub-licans, 119; on demoral-ization by wealth, 196

Lot, Ferdinand: on DarkAges, 16; Romans bar-barized, 49; only upperclasses civilized, 224

vi

INDEX

Louis, Paul, on exploita-tion, 80

Lumpenproletariat, 167

Manufacturing: in Rome,29; in Italy, 29-30; diffi-culties, 199-200; effectof slavery on, 200;provincial competition,201

Marius: given commandin Africa, 121; army re-organization by, 131—2;victories of, 138; in civillife, 138; proscriptions,*39

Marsh, Frank Burr: onCaesar's troops, 145; onsenatorial machine, 243

Military anarchy, 195,216-19

Mithridates, war with, 122Mommsen, " world of beg-

gars," 81Monarchy, revolt against,

52, 55; institutions car-ried into Republic, 55

Money, 82-5Moratorium on debts:

fourth century B.C., 63-4; in panic, A.D. 33, 190-1

Morgan, J. P., in panic of1907, 130

Moslems, control of Medi-terranean, 223

Murray, Gilbert, on fail-ure of nerve, 40

New Deal Measures, 5;appraisal of, 228-32;chronology, 237—9; an(^see individual measures

Newspapers, 31New Testament, denunci-

ation of rich, 212-13

Oertel, F., quoted, 183Olmsted, F. L., on slavery

in America, 203Orange, France, Roman

remains in, 10

Pacifists: Cineas, 71;Hanno, 74—5

Panics: 86 B.C., 123-4; 63B.C., 129—30; 49 B.C,148; A.D. 33, 19O-I

Paris, Roman remains in,10

Peel, Sir Robert, journeyof, 25

Philanthropic foundation,192-3

Piso, protests cheap wheat,111

Plague, under Marcus Au-relius, 220-21

Pliny, Elder: on Romanpeace, 20; on general

vii

INDEX

prosperity, 30; on wine-making, 30; on money-worship, 196; on big es-tates, 202

Pliny, Younger: corre-spondence with Trajan,23; seaside villa, 34

Plutarch: on Coriolanus,60; on Pyrrhus, 71-2;protests plunder, 79; onCaesar and pirates, 142;on Augustus and Cicero,159-60

Pola, Roman stadium in,11

Polybius: on speculation,18; on Roman imperial-ism, 22; on Roman con-stitution, 53; on fear ofgods, 82

Pompey: command againstpirates, 121; in Asia,122; alliance withCaesar, 143; leads sena-torial opposition toCaesar, 148; death, 148;called Princeps, 172

Pont du Gard, 3Postumius, works soldiers

on estate, 69Price-Wage edict of Dio-

cletian, 219-20Provinces: extortion in,

118-19; administration

under Augustus, 172-3;welfare increased, 80,179-80

Public Works Administra-tion: under Gracchus,109; under Caesar, 149;under Augustus, 186

Puck of Pook's Hill, 6Puteoli, iron centre, 30Pyrrhus, ambitions of, 71

Rainfall, theory of defi-cient, 202, 247

Rascoe, Burton, on plun-derbund, 22

Recall of elective officials,100, 122

Relief: low-price wheat,110-11; further legisla-tion under Republic,112-13; under Empire,187-8; chronology, 240

Resettlement Administra-tion: under TiberiusGracchus, 98—101; un-der Gaius Gracchus,101; under Caesar, 143-5, 149; in general, 202

Roads, 24-5Roman Britain, 5—10; sat-

isfied with Roman rule,182

Roman Egypt: reorgan-ized by Augustus, 161;

vui

INDEX

loot from, 185; sit-downstrike in, 210

Roman Empire: popula-tion, 20; area, 76; acci-dental growth, 76; eco-nomic incentive ingrowth, 77-8; divisionand end of Empire, 223;court removed to Milanand Ravenna, 223; rea-sons for decline of, 226-

34Roman law: foreigners'

court, 44; Twelve Ta-bles, 62

Roman Peace: majesty of,20; under Augustus,178-82

Roman remains, 3-14Roman Republic, 38; in-

dividualism in, 39; mon-archy and revolution,54-5; army control of,46, 130-2; failure of,153; self-government im-possible, 165; alien pop-ulation, 166-7; indiffer-ence of people, 170

Romans: characteristics of,41; readiness to compro-mise, 53; social differ-ences of, 49-51, 57-8;hardened by conquests,78; demoralized by

Greek influence and bywealth, 81-2, 137; lackof inventiveness, 197-8;loss of nerve, 218-19;language becomes a pat-ois, 224; " not Romansleft," 225

Rome: population of, 16;government under Re-public, 55—7; number ofslaves in, 93; price ofreal estate, and rents,135-6; alien population,166; government underEmpire, 171—7; and seeAssembly and Senate

Romulus and Remus, 51Roosevelt, Theodore: in

convention of 1912, 127;as opportunist, 146

Rostovtzeff, M.: on mag-nificence of Romanbuildings, 12; appraisalof A.A.A., 192; aim ofeconomic activity, 197;cities as hives of drones,209

Sallust, quoted on relief,166

Segovia, Roman aqueductin, 10

Senate: early days, 55-7;admits new members,

IX

INDEX

66; opposes expansion,76-7; attack on preroga-tives by T. Gracchus,100—1; defeated by busi-ness interests, 117, 121-3; quarrel with Caesar,144-5, 148, 151-2; rela-tions with Augustus,171-2; authority fades,173-4; chooses Nerva asEmperor, 176

Senatorial machine, 104-5; Sulla gives it lastchance, 140

Senators, forbidden to en-gage in foreign trade, 90

Severus, Septimius, 215Shipping, 26Sicily, wheat production

in, 88; civil war in, 95Sidonius, quoted, 34-5Slaves and slavery: brutal

treatment, 92; war cap-tives, 92-3; number inRome, 93; effect on agri-culture, 93, 202-3; slaverevolts, 95; effect onprogress, 200

Small Holding Acts, seeFarm legislation

Social bitterness: through-out Roman history, 49;first century B.C., 95-6;speech by T . Gracchus,

97; by Catiline, 128;slum-dwellers, 210; Ju-venal's tirades, 211—12;New Testament writers,212-13; produces publicindifference, 218-19

Spalato, Diocletian's pal-ace, 11

Strabo, on Britain and Ire-land, 8-9

Strikes, general: for trib-unes, 60-1; for recogniz-ing Assembly, 70

Strikes, sit-down, in Ro-man Egypt and in Ro-man mint, 210

Sublime, treatise on the,196

Suetonius: on Caesar, 141-3; on Augustus, 162-4,180; on relief, 187

Sulla, character and careerof, 139-40

Tacitus: on Britain, 9; onimperialism, 79; ongrowth of Imperial pow-er, 173; on Augustus,179; on Tiberius, 189—90; on autocracy, 196

Tax contracts: generaltrading in, 18; abusesof, 119

Taxes: abolished in Italy

INDEX

in second century B.C.,91; under Augustus,185; become heavy, 216;in later Empire, 220-1

Tertullian, description ofEmpire, 194

Tiberius: economy of,189—90; deals with panicof A.D. 33, 191; de-nounces senators, 196

Tibullus, 180Timgad, remains of, 11Trajan: correspondence

with Pliny, 23; dealswith farm problem, 192;philanthropic founda-tion, 193

Tribunes: origin of, 61;veto power, 99

Twentieth Legion, 9Two-price system for

wheat, 111

Unification of Italy, seeItaly

Velleius Paterculus: onCicero, 158; on Augus-tus, 179

Virgil: on Rome's mission,21—2; "such a toil tofound," 134

War: profitable, 106, 118,122, 131; spoils fromEgypt, 185; from Dacia,192, 198

Wells, H. G., on " Vce vie-Us," 63; on incurious-ness of Romans, 197

Wheat: competition withnew lands, 87—9; prices,110

Wilson, Hugh, Educationof a Diplomat, quoted,227

Wine: exports, 30-1; leg-islation on, 191-2

" Woe to the vanquished,"63

xi

A NOTE ON THE TYPE

This is the first book to he set in Caledonia, a newLinotype face designed by W. A. Dwiggins. Cale-donia belongs to the family of printing types called" modern face " by printers — a term used to markthe change in style of type-letters that occurred about1800. Caledonia is in the general neighborhood ofScotch Modern in design, but is more freely drawnthan that letter.

The book was designed by Mr. Dwiggins, and com-posed, printed and bound by The Plimpton Press,Norwood, Massachusetts.

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