The Project Gutenberg EBook of Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero by W. Warde Fowler doc

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Warde Fowler
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Title: Social life at Rome in the Age of
Cicero
Author: W. Warde Fowler
Release Date: February 24, 2004 [EBook
#11256]
Language: English
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GUTENBERG EBOOK SOCIAL LIFE
AT ROME ***
Produced by Ted Garvin, Nicolas Hayes
and PG Distributed Proofreaders
SOCIAL LIFE AT
ROME IN THE AGE
OF CICERO
BY W. WARDE FOWLER, M.A.
'Ad illa mihi pro se quisque acriter
intendat animum, quae vita, quae mores
fuerint.'—LIVY, Praefatio.
AMICO VETERRIMO
I.A. STEWART

ROMAE PRIMUM VISAE
COMES MEMOR
D.D.D.
PREFATORY NOTE
This book was originally intended to be a
companion to Professor Tucker's Life in
Ancient Athens, published in Messrs.
Macmillan's series of Handbooks of
Archaeology and Art; but the plan was
abandoned for reasons on which I need
not dwell, and before the book was quite
finished I was called to other and more
specialised work. As it stands, it is
merely an attempt to supply an educational
want. At our schools and universities we
read the great writers of the last age of the
Republic, and learn something of its
political and constitutional history; but
there is no book in our language which
supplies a picture of life and manners, of
education, morals, and religion in that
intensely interesting period. The society of
the Augustan age, which in many ways
was very different, is known much better;
and of late my friend Professor Dill's
fascinating volumes have familiarised us
with the social life of two several periods
of the Roman Empire. But the age of
Cicero is in some ways at least as
important as any period of the Empire; it

is a critical moment in the history of
Graeco-Roman civilisation. And in the
Ciceronian correspondence, of more than
nine hundred contemporary letters, we
have the richest treasure-house of social
life that has survived from any period of
classical antiquity.
Apart from this correspondence and the
other literature of the time, my mainstay
throughout has been the Privatleben der
Römer of Marquardt, which forms the last
portion of the great Handbuch der
Römischen Altertümer of Mommsen and
Marquardt. My debt is great also to
Professors Tyrrell and Purser, whose
labours have provided us with a text of
Cicero's letters which we can use with
confidence; the citations from these letters
have all been verified in the new Oxford
text edited by Professor Purser. One other
name I must mention with gratitude. I
firmly believe that the one great hope for
classical learning and education lies in the
interest which the unlearned public may
be brought to feel in ancient life and
thought. We have just lost the veteran
French scholar who did more perhaps to
create and maintain such an interest than
any man of his time; and I gladly here
acknowledge that it was Boissier's

Cicéron et ses amis that in my younger
days made me first feel the reality of life
and character in an age of which I then
hardly knew anything but the perplexing
political history.
I have to thank my old pupils, Mr. H.E.
Mann and Mr. Gilbert Watson, for kind
help in revising the proofs.
W.W.F.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
TOPOGRAPHICAL
Virgil's hero arrives at Rome by the
Tiber: we follow his example;
justification of this; view from Janiculum
and its lessons; advantages of the position
of Rome, for defence and advance;
disadvantages as to commerce and
salubrity; views of Roman writers; a walk
through the city in 50 B.C.; Forum
Boarium and Circus maximus; Porta
Capena; via Sacra; summa sacra via and
view of Forum; religious buildings at
eastern end of Forum; Forum and its
buildings in Cicero's time; ascent to the
Capitol; temple of Jupiter and the view
from it.
CHAPTER II
THE LOWER POPULATION
Spread of the city outside original centre;

the plebs dwelt mainly in the lower
ground; little known about its life:
indifference of literary men; housing: the
insulae; no sign of home life; bad
condition of these houses; how the plebs
subsisted; vegetarian diet; the corn supply
and its problems; the corn law of Gaius
Gracchus; results, and later laws; the
water-supply; history of aqueducts;
employment of the lower grade
population; aristocratic contempt for retail
trading; the trade gilds; relation of free to
slave labour; bakers; supply of
vegetables; of clothing; of leather; of iron,
etc.; gave employment to large numbers;
porterage; precarious condition of labour;
fluctuation of markets; want of a good
bankruptcy law.
CHAPTER III
THE MEN OF BUSINESS AND THEIR
METHODS
Meaning of equester ordo; how the
capitalist came by his money; example of
Atticus; incoming of wealth after
Hannibalic war; suddenness of this; rise
of a capitalist class; the contractors; the
public contracting companies; in the age
and writings of Cicero; their political
influence; and power in the provinces; the
bankers and money-lenders; origin of the

Roman banker; nature of his business;
risks of the money-lender; general
indebtedness of society; Cicero's debts;
story of Rabirius Postumus; mischief done
by both contractors and money-lenders.
CHAPTER IV
THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY
The old noble families; their
exclusiveness; Cicero's attitude towards
them; new type of noble; Scipio
Aemilianus: his "circle"; its influence on
the Ciceronian age in (1) manners; (2)
literary capacity; (3), philosophical
receptivity; Stoicism at Rome; its
influence on the lawyers; Sulpicius Rufus,
his life and work; Epicureanism, its
general effect on society; case of
Calpurnius Piso; pursuit of pleasure and
neglect of duty; senatorial duties
neglected; frivolity of the younger public
men; example of M. Caelius Rufus; sketch
of his life and character; life of the Forum
as seen in the letters of Caelius.
CHAPTER V
MARRIAGE AND THE ROMAN LADY
Meaning of matrimonium: its religious
side; shown from the oldest marriage
ceremony; its legal aspect; marriage cum
manu abandoned; betrothal; marriage rites;
dignified position of Roman matron; the

ideal materfamilias; change in the
character of women; its causes; the ladies
of Cicero's time; Terentia; Pomponia;
ladies of society and culture: Clodia;
Sempronia; divorce, its frequency; a
wonderful Roman lady: the Laudatio
Turiae; story of her life and character as
recorded by her husband.
CHAPTER VI
THE EDUCATION OF THE UPPER
CLASSES
An education of character needed;
Aristotle's idea of education; little interest
taken in education at Rome; biographies
silent; education of Cato the younger; of
Cicero's son and nephew; Varro and
Cicero on education; the old Roman
education of the body and character;
causes of its breakdown; the new
education under Greek influence; schools,
elementary; the sententiae in use in
schools; arithmetic; utilitarian character of
teaching; advanced schools; teaching too
entirely linguistic and literary; assumption
of toga virilis; study of rhetoric and law;
oratory the main object; results of this;
Cicero's son at the University of Athens:
his letter to Tiro.
CHAPTER VII
THE SLAVE POPULATION

The demand for labour in second century
B.C.; how it was supplied; the slave trade;
kidnapping by pirates, etc.; breeding of
slaves; prices of slaves; possible number
in Cicero's day; economic aspect of
slavery: did it interfere with free labour?;
no apparent rivalry between them; either
in Rome; or on the farm; the slave-
shepherds of South Italy; they exclude free
labour; legal aspect of slavery: absolute
power of owner; prospect of
manumission; political results of slave
system; of manumission; ethical aspect:
destruction of family life; no moral
standard; effects of slavery on the slave-
owners.
CHAPTER VIII
THE HOUSE OF THE RICH MAN IN TOWN
AND COUNTRY
Out-of-door life at Rome; but the Roman
house originally a home; religious
character of it; the atrium and its contents;
development of atrium: the peristylium;
desire for country houses: crowding at
Rome; callers, clients, etc.; effects of this
city life on the individual; country house
of Scipio Africanus; watering-places in
Campania; meaning of villa in Cicero's
time: Hortensius' park; Cicero's villas:
Tusculum; Arpinum; Formiae; Puteoli;

Cumae; Pompeii; Astura; constant change
of residence, and its effects.
CHAPTER IX
THE DAILY LIFE OF THE WELL-TO-DO
Roman division of the day; sun-dials;
hours varied according to the season;
early rising of Romans; want of artificial
light; Cicero's early hours; early callers;
breakfast, followed by business; morning
in the Forum; lunch (prandium); siesta; the
bath; dinner: its hour becomes later;
dinner-parties: the triclinium; drinking
after dinner; Cicero's indifference to the
table; his entertainment of Caesar at
Cumae.
CHAPTER X
HOLIDAYS AND PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS
The Italian festa, ancient and modern;
meaning of the word feriae; change in its
meaning; holidays of plebs; festival of
Anna Perenua; The Saturnalia; the ludi and
their origin; ludi Romani and plebeii;
other ludi; supported by State; by private
individuals; admission free; Circus
maximus and chariot-racing; gladiators at
funeral games; stage-plays at ludi;
political feeling expressed at the theatre;
decadence of tragedy in Cicero's time; the
first permanent theatre, 55 B.C.; opening
of Pompey's theatre; Cicero's account of

it; the great actors of Cicero's day:
Aesopus; Roscius; the farces; Publilius
Syrus and the mime.
CHAPTER XI
RELIGION
Absence of real religious feeling; neglect
of worship, except in the family; foreign
cults, e.g. of Isis; religious attitude of
Cicero and other public men: free thought,
combined with maintenance of the ius
divinum; Lucretius condemns all religion
as degrading: his failure to produce a
substitute for it; Stoic attitude towards
religion: Stoicism finds room for the gods
of the State; Varro's treatment of theology
on Stoic lines; his monotheistic
conception of Jupiter Capitolinus; the
Stoic Jupiter a legal rather than a moral
deity; Jupiter in the Aeneid; superstition of
the age; belief in portents, visions, etc.;
ideas of immortality; sense of sin, or
despair of the future.
EPILOGUE
INDEX
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLAN OF HOUSE OF THE SILVER
WEDDING AT POMPEII
MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE POSITION OF
CICERO'S VILLAS
PLAN OF THE VILLA OF DIOMEDES AT

POMPEII
PLAN OF A TRICLINIUM
MAP
ROME IN THE LAST YEARS OF THE
REPUBLIC At end of Volume
Translations of passages in foreign
languages in this book will be found in the
Appendix following page 362.
CHAPTER I
TOPOGRAPHICAL
The modern traveller of to-day arriving at
Rome by rail drives to his hotel through
the uninteresting streets of a modern town,
and thence finds his way to the Forum and
the Palatine, where his attention is
speedily absorbed by excavations which
he finds it difficult to understand. It is as
likely as not that he may leave Rome
without once finding an opportunity of
surveying the whole site of the ancient
city, or of asking, and possibly answering
the question, how it ever came to be