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23 - Roman History- The Early Empire by William Wolfe Capes · Roman History- The Early Empire

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Speaker 1: Section twenty three of Roman History The Early Empire by
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Speaker 1: William wolf Capes. This LibriVox recording is in the public
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Speaker 1: domain recording by Pamelinagami, Chapter fourteen Life in the Provinces.
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Speaker 1: The Republic had bequeathed to the imperial government the greatest
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Speaker 1: possible variety of political conditions throughout the different provinces. As
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Speaker 1: in personal status, there were many intermediate positions between slavery
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Speaker 1: and full Roman citizenship, so there were as many stages
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Speaker 1: of privilege and power between a humble village community and
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Speaker 1: the mistress city. During her long period of conquest, Rome
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Speaker 1: had never tried to act on any uniform system, As
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Speaker 1: state after state had been annexed. She allowed the conquering General,
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Speaker 1: with the help of a commission or instructions from the Senate,
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Speaker 1: to define the political conditions of the country and to
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Speaker 1: lay down the Lex pro WINKII. The object of this
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Speaker 1: was mainly to fix the amount of tithe and tribute,
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Speaker 1: to map out the country's newly won into a sized
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Speaker 1: districts for the courts of justice, and to give or
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Speaker 1: to withhold special privileges in the case of those who
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Speaker 1: had been most marked as friends or foes, but The
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Speaker 1: Roman statesmen were always tolerant of local customs and had
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Speaker 1: no wish for uniformity of system. They broke up, indeed,
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Speaker 1: the political unions or federations, which had been strong and
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Speaker 1: might still be dangerous. But they respected the old forms
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Speaker 1: of national life and let their subjects manage their affairs
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Speaker 1: for the most part as they pleased. Each country lived
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Speaker 1: its separate life, with varying usages that had been slowly
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Speaker 1: shaped in the course of ages, and every part of
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Speaker 1: it enjoyed a large measure of self government. Where the
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Speaker 1: towns were all important, as in states affected by Greek
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Speaker 1: and Latin culture. There the old names and institutions lingered
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Speaker 1: a disturbed In Gaul, the tribes kept something of their
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Speaker 1: federal character, and the old name for the capital of
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Speaker 1: each union outlived in many cases the one of Roman origin,
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Speaker 1: as that of the Remi lives on still in Reims.
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Speaker 1: In Egypt, the political unit was the Gnome, and the
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Speaker 1: laws of Ptolemy were still respected, as those of Hiro were.
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Speaker 1: In Sicily, the old Greek names of our Conan demark
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Speaker 1: often lingered on, beside the official titles that were of
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Speaker 1: Latin source. The cities of the highest rank were colonia
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Speaker 1: or municipia whose citizens had either carried with them to
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Speaker 1: new homes or enjoyed by special boon the privileges of
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Speaker 1: the full Roman franchise. To this class belonged to all
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Speaker 1: the towns in Italy and Sicily, and some few in
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Speaker 1: the provinces. Next in order came the towns of Latin rite,
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Speaker 1: unconnected usually with the Latin race, but promoted to the
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Speaker 1: rank which Rome's nearest neighbors and allies had once enjoyed.
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Speaker 1: Here and there too were privileged cities enjoying by the
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Speaker 1: bounty of Rome the rights of freedom and immunity from taxes,
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Speaker 1: as guaranteed by special treaty, and called on that account
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Speaker 1: free or federate cities. Below these came the mass of
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Speaker 1: stipendiary towns, subject to tax and tie at the discretion
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Speaker 1: of the Roman rulers, but administered by their own magistrates
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Speaker 1: and little meddled with by the central government. Around such
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Speaker 1: of these were often grouped a number of villages, cantons, hamlets,
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Speaker 1: called by various names, and more or less dependent on
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Speaker 1: the central town of whose territory they formed a part
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Speaker 1: and by whose magistrates they were administered. Sometimes two wilder
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Speaker 1: mountain regions were annexed in this way to the nearer
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Speaker 1: towns through which a civilizing influence might be brought to
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Speaker 1: bear upon their route neighbors. In general, however, there was
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Speaker 1: no marked distinction between town and country life, as landowners
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Speaker 1: and farmers were grouped together for mutual defense and lived
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Speaker 1: within easy reach of the community whose civil rights they shared.
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Speaker 1: The ancient writers seldom speak directly about social life and
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Speaker 1: any town, but Rome. It lay outside the plan of
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Speaker 1: formal history. Its details were too well known to call
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Speaker 1: for comment, and the national comedy, which must have thrown
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Speaker 1: most light upon it, is now lost to us. The
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Speaker 1: literary men could not live happily save in the capital.
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Speaker 1: Though Juvenile speaks with bitterness of the trials of the
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Speaker 1: poor client's life, yet he still trudged wearily about the
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Speaker 1: streets to pay his court to his rich patrons, and
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Speaker 1: kept his garret rather than move to the healthy country
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Speaker 1: towns where life was cheap. Marshall spent thirty years of
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Speaker 1: meanness as a needy parasite of fashion stable circles, catering
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Speaker 1: for their appetite for scandalous talk and selling for a
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Speaker 1: paltry dole. His wit, his gaiety and his licentious fancy.
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Speaker 1: And when he went at last to his little town
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Speaker 1: in Spain, whose calm he had long sighed for, he
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Speaker 1: spoke of it with disgust and weariness, and longed to
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Speaker 1: be back at Rome again. Statius again grew tired of
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Speaker 1: the city, where, in spite of his poetic fame, he
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Speaker 1: could only get a miserable pittance by dwelling on the
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Speaker 1: virtues of Domitian. And he determined to go back to
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Speaker 1: his native Naples. But his wife was deaf to all
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Speaker 1: his praises of the country, and preferred the suburah and
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Speaker 1: the crowded streets to the baths of Bayey and the
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Speaker 1: beauties of the charming bay. We cannot expect, therefore, to
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Speaker 1: find in these writers much about the course of that
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Speaker 1: provincial life, which was so distasteful to them. Our knowledge
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Speaker 1: on the subject was drawn mainly from the incus riptions
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Speaker 1: on stone and bronze, of which so many have been
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Speaker 1: found in different countries. From this source we may trace
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Speaker 1: the efforts made to regulate the condition of the municipia
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Speaker 1: and fix some uniform principles for the government of the
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Speaker 1: most favored communities throughout the Empire. Thus fragments have been
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Speaker 1: found of what was probably the Lex Julia Muniki Palace,
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Speaker 1: passed to regulate the choice of town councils and their magistrates.
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Speaker 1: Two other laws, found near Malaga a few years back,
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Speaker 1: date from Domitian and go still more into detail about
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Speaker 1: the constitutional features of the Spanish towns from which they
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Speaker 1: take their names. And the third, discovered still more recently
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Speaker 1: in the same country, has furnished further evidence. Much may
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Speaker 1: be learnt also from the funeral inscriptions, though indeed we
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Speaker 1: should not glean much information of the kind from the
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Speaker 1: graveyards of our own times. But the old epitaphs seldom
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Speaker 1: failed to note the local titles and honors of the dead,
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Speaker 1: and tell us much, incidentally, of the nature of their
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Speaker 1: rank and offices that would be otherwise unknown to us.
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Speaker 1: To these two must be added the formal eulogies, the
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Speaker 1: votes of honor, the thanks offerings and words of dedication.
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Speaker 1: The records of the guilds and corporations, which, after being
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Speaker 1: buried from sight and thought for ages, have been found
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Speaker 1: in course of time in a rapidly increasing store. A
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Speaker 1: whole city, too, Pompeii has risen from the grave to
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Speaker 1: show us not merely the houses and the streets in
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Speaker 1: which men lived and died under the early Empire, but
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Speaker 1: the words even which their hands had traced, sometimes in
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Speaker 1: stately inscriptions on their public monuments, sometimes in advertisements, roughly
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Speaker 1: sketched upon the walls, sometimes in the scribblings of schoolboys,
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Speaker 1: or the careless scrawls by which the idle whiled away
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Speaker 1: their time and wrote out for all to read the
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Speaker 1: history of their jests and loves and hate. In the
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Speaker 1: towns of the highest class, the powers of administration were
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Speaker 1: vested in a few magistrates, who held office only for
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Speaker 1: a year. The chief of these filled the place of
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Speaker 1: the consuls or pritors of old times, and were styled
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Speaker 1: from their judicial functions duumweri yuri d kundo, being also
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Speaker 1: presidents of the town councils. Below them were the two
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Speaker 1: a de las, who, as at Rome, had a variety
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Speaker 1: of police functions and the care of the streets, markets
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Speaker 1: and public monuments. Sometimes the comprehensive term quatuor weari yuri
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Speaker 1: d kundo was used to include both of the classes
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Speaker 1: above named. There were also, in the larger town two
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Speaker 1: quicstors to be treasurers of the public funds and control
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Speaker 1: the statements of accounts. It was usual to take the
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Speaker 1: census every five years throughout the Empire, and in the
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Speaker 1: days of the Republic it had been the duty of
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Speaker 1: the cansors, who preside over the world, and to carry
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Speaker 1: it through with becoming ceremony and religious pomp. The Emperor
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Speaker 1: took the Kentsur's place at Rome, and no special officers
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Speaker 1: or commissions were appointed for the purpose and the provinces,
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Speaker 1: but the duam Weirs of the year were charged to
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Speaker 1: make all the entries of personal and real estate within
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Speaker 1: the course of sixty days, and to send copies of
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Speaker 1: the registers to the Central record Office to mark the
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Speaker 1: importance of the functions. The honorary term of quinquinnalis was
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Speaker 1: added to the official title of the douam Weir, and
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Speaker 1: as such appears often on the funeral inscriptions. It was
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Speaker 1: the more prized as it carried with it also the
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Speaker 1: duty of drawing up the list of the town councilors,
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Speaker 1: as the kentsors had to do for the Roman Senate.
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Speaker 1: The council or ordo decurionum, consisted of the ex magistrates
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Speaker 1: and others of local dignity and wealth, subject only to
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Speaker 1: a few conditions stated in the municipal laws that been found,
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Speaker 1: such as those which shut out from office convicted thieves
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Speaker 1: and bankrupts, or men engaged in trades regarded as discreditable
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Speaker 1: like the gladiator, auctioneer and undertaker. A minimum age and
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Speaker 1: income was also fixed, but it was one that varied
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Speaker 1: at different times and places. A lucky accident has preserved
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Speaker 1: for us the album decurionum, or role of the town
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Speaker 1: council in two different cases. At the head we find
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Speaker 1: a number of titular patroni. For it was the usage
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Speaker 1: of the towns to connect themselves, if possible, with members
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Speaker 1: of influential families at rome, who might watch over their interests,
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Speaker 1: and also to confer the honorary name on the most
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Speaker 1: eminent of the local notabilities. At the end of the
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Speaker 1: register came the names of some pri text tati or
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Speaker 1: young men of high family, who were allowed to be
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Speaker 1: present at the meetings of the council and train themselves
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Speaker 1: for public life by hereing the debates. The councilors themselves
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Speaker 1: managed most of the affairs of public interest, voted their
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Speaker 1: local taxes, controlled the expenditure of their funds, made grants
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Speaker 1: for public buildings, conferred honors, immunities and pensions, and watched
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Speaker 1: over the ceremonials of religion. But the popular assemblies of
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Speaker 1: the citizens had not yet, as at Rome become a nullity.
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Speaker 1: In the inscriptions we can still read of the votes
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Speaker 1: that had been passed with the approval of the people.
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Speaker 1: The municipal laws of the two Spanish towns, which may
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Speaker 1: be fairly taken as types of the whole class, give
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Speaker 1: full details of the mode in which the magistrates were
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Speaker 1: named in public and voted for openly in all the
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Speaker 1: city wards. The election placcards posted on the houses of
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Speaker 1: POMPEII show that the popular contests were very real and
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Speaker 1: the excitement strong. At times, even the women longed to
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Speaker 1: air their sympathies, and though they could not vote, they
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Speaker 1: scrawled the names of their favorite candidates upon the walls.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes party spirit was carried to such dangerous lengths that
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Speaker 1: the emperors were called upon to interfere and name a
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Speaker 1: special prefect to take the place of the magistrate who
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Speaker 1: could not be chosen peacefully. If these municipal offices were
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Speaker 1: hotly coveted, it was only for the honor and not
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Speaker 1: for any substantial advantages, which they carried with them. Their
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Speaker 1: holders received no salaries, as did the agents of the
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Speaker 1: Imperial government, nor had they lucrative patronage at their disposal.
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Speaker 1: Their main privilege was rather that of ruining themselves to
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Speaker 1: please the citizens. They had first to pay a sort
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Speaker 1: of entrance fee on taking office. They had to regale
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Speaker 1: the populace on the day after their election with at
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Speaker 1: least cake and wine, and often with more costly fare.
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Speaker 1: The town councilors, too, expected a state dinner on all
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Speaker 1: life lordly scale. A present of varying amount was looked
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Speaker 1: for by the members of every guild and corporation, and
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Speaker 1: often by the citizens in general. The people grumbled bitterly
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Speaker 1: if they were not amused by shows of gladiators or
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Speaker 1: well appointed plays. To secure reelection, it was often needful
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Speaker 1: to spend great sums on public works such as roads, aqueducts,
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Speaker 1: and temples, and finally, to win the gratitude of future generations,
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Speaker 1: men often willed away large sums, the interest of which
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Speaker 1: was to feed, amuse, or shelter for all time the
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Speaker 1: citizens of the favored town. In the less privileged communities
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Speaker 1: throughout the provinces, there was more variety of conditions for
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Speaker 1: the old institutions lasted on with the same names in
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Speaker 1: many of the same forms as before the Roman conquest.
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Speaker 1: The agents of the central government had a larger control
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Speaker 1: over their actions, especially in matters of finance and jurisdim
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Speaker 1: and their consent was needed in all questions of moment.
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Speaker 1: But they were too few in number to look much
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Speaker 1: into details, and the towns retained everywhere a large measure
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Speaker 1: of self government. Municipal freedom prevailed, perhaps more widely than
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Speaker 1: at any other period. Local senates met in council magistrates
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Speaker 1: were chosen by popular election, and patriotism, though confined within
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Speaker 1: narrow range, was still intense. The inscriptions which are found
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Speaker 1: in every part of the old Roman world, as well
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Speaker 1: as the ruins of the great works which here and
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Speaker 1: there are left, show us how real and widespread was
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Speaker 1: the public spirit. The citizens vied with each other in
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Speaker 1: their outlay for the public good. Temples, aqueducts, baths, theaters,
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Speaker 1: guild halls, triumphal arches rose on all sides, not at
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Speaker 1: the expense of the whole society, but by the beneficence
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Speaker 1: of the wealthy and the generous. Augustus set the example
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Speaker 1: first and urged his friends and courtiers to make a
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Speaker 1: show of munificence in public works, and other emperors were
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Speaker 1: anxious to add to the pomp and brilliancy of the
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Speaker 1: imperial regime. The wealthy and the noble copied the fashion
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Speaker 1: of the day, which spread from Rome to the furthest provinces,
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Speaker 1: from the city to the village, but the spirit of
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Speaker 1: imitation reached much further. Roman life was a center of
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Speaker 1: attraction for the world, and exerted a leveling and centralizing influence,
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Speaker 1: before which local usages and manners passed rapidly away. The
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Speaker 1: ruder races were drawn irresistibly toward the customs of their conquerors.
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Speaker 1: Their own chiefs tried in vain to check the movement.
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Speaker 1: Roman pride put barriers in their way, and agreed at
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Speaker 1: times to refuse the franchise and the speech of Italy
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Speaker 1: to the newcomers. But in vain, the leaven of the
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Speaker 1: Roman culture spread among them, and their national usages and laws,
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Speaker 1: and even their language tended rapidly to dissip The wiser
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Speaker 1: emperors respected jealously the local liberties and traditions, and had
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Speaker 1: no wish, in the first century at least to carry
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Speaker 1: out a uniform system, but Roman influence spread through many channels.
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Speaker 1: The legions, as they passed along the roads or remained
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Speaker 1: encamped upon the frontier, acted on the men with whom
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Speaker 1: they were in daily contact. The traders who followed in
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Speaker 1: their train carried with their wares the speech, thought, and
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Speaker 1: customs of the central city. The governors and financial agents
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Speaker 1: who came direct from Rome brought the newest fashions with
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Speaker 1: them to dazzle the higher circles of the country towns,
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Speaker 1: and gave the tone to social intercourse. The journals of
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Speaker 1: Rome are acted as they were called, were read, and
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Speaker 1: far off provinces the latest epigram passed from mouth to mouth.
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Speaker 1: The finest passages of the orders of Note, the latest
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Speaker 1: poems of a marshal, traveled either in the governor's train
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Speaker 1: or were dispatched in regular course of trade as literary
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Speaker 1: wares to the provincial booksellers. As at Rome, the lower
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Speaker 1: orders soon learned to expect amusements ready made, looked to
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Speaker 1: the wealthy and munificent to give them shows and costly spectacles,
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Speaker 1: and grumbled at their magistrates if they were not liberal enough,
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Speaker 1: or if they seemed to think too much of what
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Speaker 1: they gave, but commonly they were ready with their thanks.
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Speaker 1: And if the largesse had been generous, and if the
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Speaker 1: gladiators died with becoming grace, the grateful people passed a
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Speaker 1: vote of thanks, or made the consul pass it decided
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Speaker 1: to erect a statue in their benefactor's honor, but as
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Speaker 1: the inscriptions tell us, often let him pay for it himself.
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Speaker 1: Liberalities such as these must have materially lightened the expenses
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Speaker 1: of local government. With no salaries for the chief officials
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Speaker 1: and no costly civil service to keep up, no schools
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Speaker 1: nor paupers to maintain out of the rates, and with
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Speaker 1: so many examples of unificence among the cities, the burdens
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Speaker 1: of municipal taxation could not have been heavy. The towns
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Speaker 1: had commonly some revenues from lands or mines or forests,
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Speaker 1: religion was endowed with its own funds, and the claims
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Speaker 1: of the imperial treasury were moderate. At the end of
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Speaker 1: the Republic, the burdens caused by war and confiscation, the
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Speaker 1: merciless exactions of the governors, and the cancer of usury
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Speaker 1: had spread bankruptcy and ruin throughout the provinces. But in
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Speaker 1: the course of the first century of the Empire, peace
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Speaker 1: and order and settled rule had caused a widely diffused comfort.
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Speaker 1: The freedom of self government, secured contentment, and public spirit, feeble,
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Speaker 1: as it seemed in the ruling city, was lively and
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Speaker 1: vigorous elsewhere. The great boon of the imperial system to
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Speaker 1: the world was the higher conduct of its agents, as
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Speaker 1: compared with that of the proconsuls and propride hoors of
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Speaker 1: the Republic. They were paid high salaries directly from the state.
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Speaker 1: They needed not to ruin themselves by bribery and shows
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Speaker 1: to win their places. They were watched by a financial
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Speaker 1: agent of the government, and liable to a strict account
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Speaker 1: at Rome before the Emperor, who had no interest, like
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Speaker 1: their peers, in their acquittal. It is true that if
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Speaker 1: we think only of the numerous cases of extortion and
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Speaker 1: misrule which we meet with in the pages of Tacitus,
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Speaker 1: we may believe there is little proof of better things.
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Speaker 1: But the evidence of just a rule is real and solid.
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Speaker 1: Oppression had been scarcely thought a stain upon the characters
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Speaker 1: of the statesmen of the Republic, but now even the
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Speaker 1: sensualist and debauchi often seems to change his character when
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Speaker 1: he is waited with the responsibilities of office. Petronius Othough
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Speaker 1: and Vitellius redeem and part the infamy of earlier days
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Speaker 1: by their clean handed integrity in the purer Ara the
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Speaker 1: provincial government. The very frequency of the trials for misrule,
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Speaker 1: which may startle us at first, is in itself a
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Speaker 1: proof of the watchfulness of the central power, which was
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Speaker 1: as vigilant with Domitian as with Augustus. The abuses of
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Speaker 1: ages could not be swept away at once, and it
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Speaker 1: must have needed time and vigor to convince men that
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Speaker 1: the Empire was an earnest in the matter. The provincials
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Speaker 1: themselves soon recognized the difference, and their literature speaks far
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Speaker 1: more strongly on the subject than the Roman Philo, the
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Speaker 1: Alexandrian Josephus, the jew of Palestine, Strabo, the geographer of Pontus, Plutarch,
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Speaker 1: the Greek Epictatus the Phrygian philosopher bear emphatic witness to
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Speaker 1: the higher spirit of equity and moderation in their rulers.
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Speaker 1: Countries not long subjected show no wish to assert their freedom,
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Speaker 1: though the legions stationed in their midst are mainly recruited
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Speaker 1: from their own inhabitants, and became fixed to the soil
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Speaker 1: which they defend, and strangers to the emperor whose name
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Speaker 1: they bear. The results, too, speak loudly for themselves. The
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Speaker 1: impoverished cities of Asia raised themselves at once when the
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Speaker 1: incubus of the republican governors was removed. There, as in
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Speaker 1: other countries, the inscriptions abound in evidence of real prosperity.
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Speaker 1: The cities adorned themselves with stately buildings. The rich, no
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Speaker 1: longer afraid to show their wealth, used it with lavish generosity.
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Speaker 1: Trade flourished once more when the rows were cared for
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Speaker 1: and brigandiage and piracy put down. Commercial guilds spread themselves
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Speaker 1: over the world, and even the provident unions of the
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Speaker 1: humblest classes gained recognition and a sanction from the state.
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Speaker 1: Men looked only at the present and forgot that there
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Speaker 1: were no guarantees of permanence in the municipal freedom and
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Speaker 1: happiness now enjoyed no lasting gain in the absorption of
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Speaker 1: so many distincts centers of national culture. Nothing to give
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Speaker 1: dignity and independence to the provinces, as the federal or
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Speaker 1: national unions had done. No security that the cautious, easy
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Speaker 1: and tolerant government of the present would not be gradually
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Speaker 1: changed into the grinding machinery of a centralized despotism. They
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Speaker 1: thought of their material blessings and forgot the moral qualities
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Speaker 1: that should make them lasting. They looked back with a
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Speaker 1: feeling of relief at the turbulence of former days, at
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Speaker 1: the evils done and suffered in the name of liberty,
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Speaker 1: and felt with Dion crisistom. Our fathers fought, as they believed,
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Speaker 1: for freedom, but really for a phantom of the fancy,
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Speaker 1: like the Trojans who fought in defense of Helen when
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Speaker 1: she was no longer within their walls. Thus it was
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Speaker 1: in no mean spirit of flattery that they raised in
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Speaker 1: every land statues and altars to the emperors, to some
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Speaker 1: even of the vilest who have ever ruled. Of their
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Speaker 1: personal characters, they often knew but little, And though dark
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Speaker 1: stories of what had passed at Rome may have circulated
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Speaker 1: a while among the higher classes in the provinces, yet
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Speaker 1: the people knew next to nothing of their vices and
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Speaker 1: their follies, and thought of them chiefly as the symbol
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Speaker 1: of the ruling providence which throughout the civilized world had
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Speaker 1: silenced war and faction and secured the blessings of prosperity
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Speaker 1: and peace before unknown end of Section twenty three