Chapter 85
CHAPTER III
[1] This struggle of the common people (_plebeians_) for an equal place with the ruling cla.s.s (_patricians_) before the law, in religious matters, and in politics, covered two and a half centuries, the old restrictions being broken down but gradually. The most important steps in the process were:
509 B.C. Magistrates forbidden to scourge or execute a Roman citizen without giving him a chance to appeal to the people in their popular a.s.sembly. This "right of appeal" was regarded as the Magna Charta of Roman liberty.
494 B.C. Plebeian soldiers granted officers of their own (_Tribunes_) to protect them against patrician cruelty and injustice.
451-449 B.C. Laws must be written--Code commission appointed. Result, the _Laws of the Twelve Tables_ (R. 12); these mark the beginning of the great Roman legal system.
445 B.C. Intermarriage between the two orders legalized.
367 B.C. Right to hold office granted, and one of the Consuls elected each year to be a plebeian.
250 B.C. By this date the distinctions between the two orders had disappeared; patricians and plebeians intermarried and formed one compact body of citizens in the Roman State.
[2] "The scholar who compares carefully the Greek const.i.tutions with the Roman will undoubtedly consider the former to be finer and more finished specimens of political work. The imperfect and incomplete character which the Roman const.i.tution presents, at almost any point of its history, the number of inst.i.tutions it exhibits which appear to be temporary expedients merely, are necessary results of its method of growth to meet demands as they rose from time to time; they are evidence, indeed, of its highly practical character." (Adams, G. B., _Civilization during the Middle Ages_, 2d ed., p. 20.)
[3] The same opportunity came to Athens after the Persian Wars and to Sparta after the Peloponnesian War, but neither possessed the creative power along political and governmental lines, or the tolerance for the ideas and feelings of subject peoples, to accomplish anything permanent.
Rome succeeded where previous States had failed because of her larger insight, tolerance, patience, and constructive to create a great world empire.
[4] Caesar extended Roman citizens.h.i.+p to certain communities in Gaul and in Sicily, and began the further extension of the process of a.s.similation by taking the conquered provincial into citizens.h.i.+p in the Empire. This was carried on and extended by succeeding Emperors until finally, in 212 A.D., Roman citizens.h.i.+p was extended to all free-born inhabitants in all the provinces.
[5] For example, Balbus, a Spaniard, was Consul in Rome forty years before the Christian era, and another Spaniard, Nerva, had become Emperor before the close of the first century A.D. Many commanders in the army and governors in the provinces were provincials by birth.
[6] Roman citizens.h.i.+p was much more than a mere name. A Roman citizen could not be maltreated or punished without a legal trial before a Roman court. If accused in a capital case he could always protect himself from what he considered an unjust decision by an "appeal to Caesar"; that is, to the Emperor at Rome. The protection of law was always extended to his property and himself, wherever in the Roman Empire he might live or travel.
[7] Both literature and inscriptions testify abundantly to the affectionate regard in which Roman rule was held. The rule may have been far from perfect, judged from a modern point of view, but it was so much better and so much more orderly than anything that had gone before that it was accepted in all quarters.
[8] Every house was protected from the evil spirits of the outside world by Ja.n.u.s, and had its sacred fire presided over by Vesta. Every house had its protecting Lares. The cupboard where the food was stored was blest by and under the charge of the Penates. The daily wors.h.i.+p of these household deities took place at the family meal, the father offering a little food and a little wine at the sacred hearth. Every house father, too, had his guardian Genius, whose festival was celebrated on the master's birthday.
In a similar fas.h.i.+on the State had its temples, its sacred fire and votive offerings, and various divinities ruled the elements and sent or withheld success.
Almost every activity in life was presided over by some deity, whom it was necessary to propitiate before engaging in it. Davidson says, with reference to the practical nature of their religion, that "While the Athenians rejoiced before their G.o.ds, the Romans kept a debtor and creditor account with theirs, and were very anxious that the balance should be on the right side."
[9] "Among our ancestors," says Pliny, "one learned not only through the ears, but through the eyes. The young, in observing the elders, learned what they would soon have to do themselves, and what they would one day teach to their successor."
[10] Such careful physical training as was given in a Greek _palaestra_ and _gymnasium_ would have been regarded by the Romans as most effeminate.
Unlike the Greeks, who strove for a harmonious bodily development, the Romans exercised for usefulness in war. Cicero exclaims, with reference to Greek gymnasial training: "What an absurd system of training youth is exhibited in their _gymnasia_! What a frivolous preparation for the labors and hazards of war!"
[11] Macaulay, in his _Horatius_, describes the results of the education of this early period as follows:
"Then none were for the party, But all were for the State; And the
Then lands were fairly portioned And spoils were fairly sold; For the Romans were like brothers In the brave days of old."
[12] "The Romans," says the historian Wilhelm Ihne, "were distinguished from all other nations, not only by the extreme earnestness and precision with which they conceived their law and worked out the consequences of its fundamental principles, but by the good sense which made them submit to the law, once established, as an absolute necessity of political health and strength. It was this severity in thinking and acting which, more than any other cause, made Rome great and powerful."
[13] The lot of a captive in war, everywhere throughout the ancient world, was to be taken and sold as a slave by his captors. Many educated Greeks were thus taken in the capture of Greek cities in southern Italy and sold as slaves in Rome. These were let out by their masters as teachers of the new learning. Even the thrifty Cato, who vigorously opposed the new learning on principle, was not averse to permitting his educated Greek slaves to conduct schools and thus add to his private fortune.
[14] These men had little choice otherwise. Grain from Spain and Africa became so cheap that a farmer could not raise enough on his small farm to pay his taxes and support his family, so he was obliged to sell his land to men who turned it into large cattle and sheep ranches. He would not emigrate to the provinces, as Englishmen have done to Canada and Australia, but instead went to the cities, where he led a hand-to-mouth existence in a type of tenement house. It was from such sources that the Roman mob, demanding free grain and entertainment in return for its votes, was made up.
[15] Arithmetic was not easy for the Romans, partly because they had no figure or other sign for zero, partly because they used a decimal system for counting and a duodecimal for their money, and partly because the Roman system of notation (I, V, X, L, C, D, M) did not adapt itself to quick calculation. Try, for example, these simple sums:
Add: CCLVII Subtract: LXVIII CIX x.x.xIV ------ ------
Multiply: CXXV Divide: XII |Cx.x.xII XII ------ ----
[16] Finger reckoning (whence _digits_) with the Romans attained a prominence probably never reached with any other people. Bills and accounts were reckoned up on the fingers, in the presence of the patron.
Eighteen positions of the fingers of the left hand stood for the nine units and the nine tens, and eighteen positions of the fingers of the right hand stood for the nine hundreds and the nine thousands. For larger sums, such as ten thousand and more, various parts of the body were touched. Any one who betrayed, according to Quintilian, "by an uncertain or awkward movement of his fingers, a want of confidence in his calculations," was thought to be but imperfectly trained in arithmetic.
[17] There was much complaint that parents were slow with their fees, and at times forgot them entirely if the boy did not turn out well. Finally, in the reign of Diocletian (284-305 A.D.), in an effort to relieve the distress of schoolmasters, prices were legally fixed at approximately the equivalent of $1.20 per month per pupil for teaching reading and $1.80 for arithmetic, measured in money values of a decade ago. These were regarded as "hard times prices."
[18] "Reading aloud, with careful attention to p.r.o.nunciation, accent, quant.i.ty, and expression, formed an important part of the training in literature of a Latin youth. Correct reading of Latin was a much more difficult art, as practiced, than is the reading of English, as all of us well know who learned properly to intone our
"Arma virumque cano, Trojae qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus, Lavinaque venit."
The lack of use of small letters and s.p.a.cing between the words (R. 21), as well as poor punctuation, also added to the difficulty.
[19] A nonsensical minuteness was followed here, and many trivialities were emphasized. Juvenal tells us, in his Seventh Satire, written about 130 A.D., that "a teacher was expected to read all histories and know all authors as well as his finger ends. That, if questioned, he should be able to tell the name of Anchises' nurse, and the name and native land of the stepmother of Anchemotus--tell how many years Acestes lived--how many flagons of wine the Sicilian king gave to the Phrygians." This reminds us of some of the dissected study of English and Latin until recently given in our colleges and high schools.
[20] Quintilian well states the aim of this higher education when he says that "the man who can duly sustain his character as a citizen, who is qualified for the management of public and private affairs, and who can govern communities by his counsels, settle them by means of laws, and improve them by judicial enactments, can certainly be nothing else but an orator."
[21] In his _Lives of Eminent Grammarians and Rhetoricians_, chap. I.
Suetonius lived from 75 to 160 A.D., and was an advocate at Rome and private secretary to the Emperor Hadrian.
[22] There was a general dread of Greek higher learning on the part of the older Romans, and this found expression in many ways. Among these was an edict of the Senate, in 161 B.C., directing the Praetor to see that "no philosophers or rhetoricians be suffered at Rome" (R. 20), a decree which could not be enforced, and the edict of the Censors, in 92 B.C. (R. 20), expressing their disapproval of the Latin schools of rhetoric.
[23] These seven studies became the famous studies of the church schools of the Middle Ages, with Grammar as the greatest and most important study (see chap. VII; R. 74). The curriculum of the Middle Ages was a direct inheritance from Rome.
[24] See Quintilian, _Inst.i.tutes of Oratory_, book I, chap. X, 22, 37, and 46. This chapter is devoted largely to a description of the use of these studies.
[25] Sample questions which were debated to bring out the fine distinctions in Roman Law and Ethics were:
(a) Was a slave about whose neck a master had hung the leather or golden token (worn by free youths only), in order to smuggle him past the boundary, freed when he reached Roman soil wearing this insignia of freedom?
(b) If a stranger buys a prospective draught of fishes and the fisherman draws up a casket of jewels, does the stranger own the jewels?
[26] In the later centuries of the Empire, people went to hear a man who could orate or declaim, as people now do to hear a great political orator, a revivalist preacher, or a popular actor or singer. A form of amus.e.m.e.nt for distinguished travelers pa.s.sing through a city was to have some one orate before them. "This power of using words for mere pleasurable effect," says Professor Dill, in his _Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire_, "on the most trivial or the most extravagantly absurd themes, was for many ages, in both West and East, esteemed the highest proof of talent and cultivation."
[27] Each Greek rhetorician in Rome was given one hundred _sestertia_ (about $4000) yearly from the Imperial Treasury, Quintilian probably being one of the first to receive a state salary.
[28] "He [Claudius] was also attentive to provide a liberal education for the sons of their chieftains;... and his attempts were attended with such success that they, who lately disdained to make use of the Roman language, were now ambitious of becoming eloquent. Hence the Roman habit began to be held in honor, and the toga was frequently worn." Tacitus's Account of Britain, _Agricola_, chap. 21.
[29] England offers us the nearest modern a.n.a.logy. This was one of the last of the great European nations to establish popular education, but for centuries previous thereto the great private, tuition, grammar schools of England--Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester, and others--together with the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, prepared a succession of leaders for the State--men who have steered England's destinies at home and abroad and made her a great world power.
[30] This grew up, as all law grows, by enacted laws and decisions of the courts, and in time came to be an enormous body of law. Lacking the printed law books and indices of to-day, to obtain a knowledge of Roman law became a formidable task. Finally the practical Roman mind codified it, and reduced it to system and order. The Theodosian Code, of 438 A.D., and the Justinian Code, of 528 and 534 A.D., were the final results. These codes were compact, capable of duplication with relative ease, and later became the standard textbooks throughout the Middle Ages. The great importance of these codifications may be appreciated when we know that almost all the original laws and decisions from which they were compiled have been lost.
[31] The Romanic countries--France, Spain, Italy--have drawn their law most completely from the Justinian Code. Due to Spanish and French occupation of parts of America, Roman legal ideas also entered here, the Louisiana Code of 1824 being Roman in law and technical expressions and spirit, though English in language. Spanish and Portuguese settlement of the South American continent has carried Roman law there.
[32] The Roman alphabet is the alphabet of all North and South America, Australia, Africa, and all of Europe except Russia, Greece, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and a few minor Slavic and Teutonic peoples. Even in Germany and Austria, Roman letters were rapidly superseding the more difficult German letters in the printing of papers and books for the better-educated cla.s.ses before the Great War. In India, Siam, China, and j.a.pan, Roman letters are also being increasingly used.