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The Historians' History of the World 05 [The Roman Republic]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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But a golden age generally comes to an end with increase of population. Mouths to be fed multiply; the yeomen sell their little farms and emigrate, or become satisfied with a lower scale of living as hired labourers. The Romans had a remedy for these evils in a home colonisation. The immense quantity of public land in the hands of the state, with the necessity of securing newly-conquered districts of Italy, led to the foundation of numerous colonies between the Samnite and Punic wars, and extended the means of material well-being to every one who was willing and able to work; and this not only for Romans, but for Latins and others, who were invited to become citizens of the colony.
If, however, the superfluous sons of families settled on lands in Samnium, or Apulia, or Cisalpine Gaul, others must have lost these lands; and the question naturally occurs: What had become of these people? This question brings us to the worst point in ancient society—that is, slavery.
It was the practice of ancient nations to regard all conquered persons as completely in the light of booty, as cattle or lifeless goods. If indeed the enemy surrendered without a blow, they became subjects. But those who were taken after a struggle were for the most part sold into slavery. In early times this evil was small. Nor was it to be expected that the small proprietors could afford either to buy or to maintain slaves. They were acquired by the rich patricians and plebeians, who held large tracts of public land, or who had acquired large estates of their own. Before the decemvirate, their debtors were their slaves. But this custom had been long abolished, and it was conquest which supplied slaves to the rich. After the conquest of Samnium, thirty-six thousand persons are said to have been sold. After the reduction of Cisalpine Gaul and Sicily, still larger numbers were brought to the hammer. These were the wretches on whose lands the poorer sort of Roman citizens settled. The slaves may generally be divided into two great classes, the urban or city slaves, and those of the country. They had no civil rights; they could not contract legal marriage; they had no power over their children; they could hold no property in their own name; their very savings were not their own, but held by consent of their master; all law proceedings ran in the name of their masters. For crimes committed, they were tried by the public courts; and the masters were held liable for the damage done, but only to the extent of the slave’s value. To kill, maim, or maltreat a slave was considered as damage to his master, and could only be treated as such. No pain or suffering inflicted on a slave was punishable, unless loss had thereby accrued to the owner.
But human nature is too strong always to fulfil conditions so cruel. There is no doubt that the slaves of the household were often treated with kindness; often they became the confidential advisers of their masters. The steward or bailiff of a rich man’s estate, his villicus, was a person of considerable power. Still the mass of the slaves, especially the agricultural slaves, were treated as mere cattle. Some poor drudges were the slaves of other slaves, such ownership being allowed by the masters. Cato recommends to sell off old and infirm slaves, so as to save the expense of keeping live lumber. Englishmen feel a pang at seeing a fine horse consigned in his old age to the drivers of public carriages; but Romans wasted no such sympathy on slaves who had spent their lives and strength in cultivating their lands. Notwithstanding the better treatment of the house slaves, the humane Cicero reproached himself with feeling too much sorrow for one who had been for years his tried and faithful servant. It was in the next half-century, however, that slaves increased so much in Italy as to produce great effect upon the social condition of the people. At present the evil was only in its beginning.
Here it must be remarked that the practice of giving liberty to slaves was very common. The prospect of freedom as a reward for good conduct must have done much to prevent Roman bondsmen from sinking into that state of animal contentment and listless indifference which marked the negro slaves of later times.
The freedmen filled no mean space in Roman society. Among them were to be found able and well-educated men, who had held a high station in their native country, and often obtained great influence over the minds of their masters. Freedmen exercised most branches of retail trade, and formed the shopkeepers and petty traders and artisans of Rome; for Roman citizens, however poor, could in early times condescend to no business except that of agriculture. Rich men carried on trades by means of their slaves and freedmen; in later times freedmen often worked as artists under some patrician roof, and many of the early poets were freedmen.
Here, then, we trace the beginning of a great distinction, that afterwards was more strongly marked, between the population of the city and the population of the country—between the rustic and the civic tribes.b
THE ROMAN FAMILY: WOMEN AND MARRIAGE
The Roman woman independent of the marriage tie was placed under the authority of her father or of a guardian.
The father’s authority was absolute. All the members of an ancient Roman family—father, mother, children, and daughters-in-law—made up a close association under one ruler or head. All the wealth which came to a family was thrown into a kind of common stock and formed but one patrimony. The sole head of this association, the one master of the common resources, was the father. Until now we have seen no difference made between the children of the two sexes; paternal power presses with equal weight on the son and on the daughter, and holds them both down to the same level. Besides, the daughter like the son can sign a legal contract; like him she has her share of the family patrimony, a guaranteed share that only a formal disinheritance can take from her. More liberal than the oriental or Greek law, Roman law granted equal rights in the paternal inheritance.
But as soon as the paternal power has disappeared, the legal differences between the two sexes begin to show themselves; the son, if he is of age, becomes independent and master of his actions, the daughter, on the contrary, whatever her age, remains under the power of a guardian.
A Roman Woman
(From a Statue)
What was that perpetual guardianship of women which the Romans themselves considered as one of the most fundamental institutions of their law? Was it a protecting guardianship like that of minors? Was it a despotic power like that of the father of a family? Neither one nor the other. To grasp its real character, we must go back to the causes which led to its establishment.
In the almost patriarchal constitution of ancient Rome, the preservation of families was of great public importance and the laws were always made to benefit it. The domestic ties, always so close whilst the head of the family lived, were not broken at his death; the hereditary possessions, whilst they were divided amongst the children, did not the less remain the patrimony of the family; the perpetual worship due to the spirit of the ancestors and to the household gods remained a common debt. But supposing that amongst the children there was a daughter, the hereditary share she was to receive would not be safe in her hands; it was to be feared that one day she would try to enrich the family she had entered at the expense of her own. It was to guard against this danger, it was to perpetuate in each family, together with the preservation of hereditary possessions, the memory of its ancestors and the glory or dignity of the house, that the Romans deprived woman of the free possession of her property and placed her under the perpetual guardianship of her agnates. This guardianship was not, then, established in the interest of woman, on account of her weakness and natural incapacity; it was established against her and in the interests of the guardians themselves.