Mercutio

“ Of course when Rome had once been drawn into the career of conquest, the ascendency of the military spirit would be complete; war, and the organization of territories acquired in war, would then become the great occupation of her leading citizens; industry and commerce would fall into disesteem, and be deemed unworthy of the members of the imperial race. ... Even when the Roman nobles had become a caste of conquerors and pro-consuls, they retained certain mercantile habits ”

“ While we had many tillers of the ground, and few merchants, we were brave in the field, and just at home!"
"Think you, then, that the spirit of commerce is averse to justice, and bravery, and freedom?"
"No, I do not think it, Arvina, I know it!" answered Fabius Sanga, who, with the truth and candor of a patrician of Rome's olden school, possessed, and that justly, much repute for wisdom and foresight. "All mercantile communities are base communities. Look at Tyre, in old times! Look at Carthage, in our grandfathers' days! at Corinth in our own! Merchants are never patriots! ”

“ Thus nobles of Illustrious rank were allowed to take only four per cent.; but ordinary citizens were to be entitled to six. Merchants in legitimate trade, if they lent money, might demand eight per cent.; but the investor in any risky venture, such as nautical enterprises, was permitted to stipulate for twelve per cent. [800]
The despotic power exercised by a Roman father over his family, expressed by patria potestas, was almost peculiar to that nation, but in practice it seems to have been very rarely abused. ”

“ This was the celebrated and regretted Spaniard, Mercablis, who, for more than thirty years, was accorded by the Choragium a home of his. own, a retinue of servants and the fulfillment of every whim, of which the chief was his determination to have as little as possible to do with any human being except his wife and their three children, for he was not a slave, but a freeman. ”

“ Among the early Romans, the most honourable occupations were agriculture and war; the latter enabling the citizens to make a conquest of the soil with the sword, and the former teaching them to subdue it to their purposes by the implements of husbandry. Trade and commerce were held in contempt, and left to the plebeians; the patrician considering himself suitably employed only when he was thrashing his corn, or performing the same operation on his enemies. ”

“ Ten years afterwards, in the reign of Nero, we hear of the now famous city, the greatest and wealthiest the world has ever seen, having become the residence of a great number of such dealers as the Romans dignified with the title of merchants, and between whom and the small traders of Rome, Cicero drew, as we have already noticed, so marked and so supercilious a distinction. ”

“ It is only when the general passion for setting down records of all sorts of enterprises and incidents on imperishable materials came in with the Empire that the story of the Roman trades-union can be clearly followed. It is a fortunate thing for us that this mania swept through the Roman Empire, because it has given us some twenty-five hundred inscriptions dealing with these organizations of workmen. These inscriptions disclose the fact that there were more than eighty different trades organized into guilds in the city of Rome alone. ”

“ The brilliancy of the life of the mercantile class, with its careless luxury and easy indifference to expenditure, set a standard for the nobility which was at once galling and degrading. They were induced to apply the measure of wealth even to members of their own order, and regarded it as inevitable that any one of their peers, whose patrimony had dwindled, should fill but a subordinate place both in politics and society ”

“ I thought of the consequences, and now repent me of my wickedness. Mercy, my good lord, mercy!”
“Be faithful, and fear not,” replied the king.
“The merchant, my lord the king,” said a servant of the chamber, who entered at that moment, followed by the old merchant.
“Thou art come at a good time, sir merchant; the first maxim has been proved; it has saved my life; it was worthy of its price.”
“Even as I expected, my lord; a year and a day hence expect me again.”
“We will trust no more to a single hand,” said one of the conspirators, when they met again after the barber’s repentance ”

“ During the internal quarrels of Rome, agriculture had been so thoroughly neglected, that the harvest had completely fallen to the ground, or, rather, had never come out of it. The husbandman had husbanded nothing, either for himself or others; and as nothing had been sown but civil dissension, there was nothing to reap but the fruit of it. The Romans, who, until lately, had been thirsting for power, were now hungry for food; and, to prevent the people from dying at home, envoys were sent to scour the surrounding countries,—a process which involved many a brush with the inhabitants. ”

“ Lucius in the portico smiled in kindly approval. But the travelling merchants, led by Caleb, arrived through the garden. They were Indians, Sabæans, Arabs, Phœnicians; and their slaves toiled under their heavy bales of merchandise, which were slung on pliant sticks over their shoulders. The merchants bent low in salaams before the wealthy [57] Roman, bowed down to the earth, kissed the ground which his foot had trodden, all eager to sell their exotic wares at a profit above the ordinary to so distinguished a traveller. ”

“ After a sharp contest, in which three of the sea-kings were slain, the men of Mercia drove the pagans into their intrenchments, nor did they cease from assailing them in their stronghold until darkness had settled down upon the land. But a thousand men, though backed by so good a cause, were sure to fall at last before such a mighty and overwhelming host as the invaders presented. ”

“ It required that all the ready money which was found in the treasury of Attalus king of Pergamus, who had left the Romans his heirs, should be divided among the poorer citizens of Rome, to supply them with all the various instruments requisite in husbandry, and that the lands of that monarch should be farmed by the Roman censors, and the money drawn from thence should be divided among the people.――Another, frumentaria, by Caius Sempronius Gracchus. ”

“ The expedient to which they resorted was that of selecting the rules of law common to Rome and to the different Italian communities in which the immigrants were born. In other words, they set themselves to form a system answering to the primitive and literal meaning of Jus Gentium, that is, Law common to all Nations. Jus Gentium was, in fact, the sum of the common ingredients in the customs of the old Italian tribes, for they were all the nations whom the Romans had the means of observing, and who sent successive swarms of immigrants to Roman soil. ”

“ Every product of every country was to be found in Rome; every subject of every nation resided there either free or as a slave. The wealth from commerce and power in the Roman Empire was enormous, and stimulated and encouraged the highest pursuits of literature and learning. The legacy given by Rome to civilization and literature is incalculable in its value. In all parts of Europe, the British Isles, in Asia and in Africa, even now immense remains of Roman commerce and civilization are only just being unearthed. ”

“ Thus it appears that in every part of the Roman world, in the decaying little country town, and in the great trading centres, the same great movement of association, is going on apace. It swept into its current almost every social grade, and every trade, handicraft or profession, the pastil-makers, the green-grocers and unguent sellers of Rome, the muleteers of the Alps, the fullers of Pompeii, the doctors at Beneventum, the boatmen of the Seine, the wine merchants of Lyons. ”

“ Commerce, however, for centuries supplied new motives for war to men whose ideas of economics were still at the theological stage. [1211] The eternal principle of strife, of human attraction and repulsion, plays through the phenomena of commerce as through those of creed. The profoundly insane lust for gold and silver, which had so largely determined the history of the Roman Empire, definitely shaped that of Spain; and Spain's example fired the northern nations with whom she came in contact. ”

“ The founder of Rome slew his brother—a horrid crime—but this fratricide was necessary to the establishment of a sole authority, without which Rome would have perished from the weakness consequent on domestic strife. Who shall be able certainly to balance a single fratricide against all the virtue and wisdom of the Eternal City? Doubtless we ought to prefer the most humble fortune to greatness founded upon evil deeds ”

“ Overpower the Mercutian, escape with Joan down the deserted corridors back to the secret passageway, emerge below, return to their hideout in the Ramapos and plan for revolt. It was all as simple as that.
e must have these Earth slaves," the Mercutian continued, unheeding. "They, must be made an example of. They are responsible for the unrest. They have killed Magnificents; and the Earth fools think they can do the same. They will find out their error soon enough. But as long as those three live, so long will the slaves hope, and plot." ”

“ Yet already in antiquity the word mercenary had a higher sense than the word servile; for Cicero, wishing to say that one should treat one’s slaves well, said that they should be treated as mercenaries—that is to say, as men remunerated but free. ”

“ Doubtless the merchants practised their religious ceremonies from the first, but their god Mercurius was not officially recognized by the state till the year 495 B.C. Rome frequently suffered from scarcity of grain during the unsettled times that followed the expulsion of the Tarquins. ”

“ The envoys stated, at Rome, that the habit of the people of their country was, on the arrival of traders, to go to "the further side of some river where wares and commodities are laid down by the strangers, and if the natives list to make exchange, they have them taken away, and leave other merchandise in lieu thereof, to content the foreign merchant." ”

“ And thus we see, that not only the Kingdom but also the King by his Customs and Imposts may get notoriously, even when the Merchant notwithstanding shall lose grievously; which giveth us good occasion here to consider, how much more the Realm is enriched by this noble Trade, when all things pass so happily that the Merchant is a gainer also with the King and Kingdom. ”

“ While Rome was suffering from want of corn, it was wasting the very flower of its population in a war with the Volscians. Among the most distinguished warriors on the side of the Romans was Caius Marcius, a young patrician, who led all his own clients into an action in which the defendants—the unfortunate Volscians—were subjected to enormous damages. ”

“ Descuret, Moreau leaves Greece alone, and goes on to Rome. The state of morals in Rome under the empire he describes as "une dépravation maladive, devenue par la force des choses héréditaire, endémique, épidémique." Then follows a short account of the emperors and their female relatives. "Cet éréthisme génésique qui, pendant près de deux siècles, régna a l'état épidémique dans Rome" he ascribes mainly to heredity. ”

“ The Roman nobles are taught to regard merchandize as a sordid pursuit, and they employ themselves in the cultivation of their lands, and in the breeding of [342] cattle. So far are they from thinking it beneath their dignity to convert their agricultural knowledge into a source of gain, that property thus acquired will raise ignoble families to the honour of noble birth.
“The Florentines seem to have more correct notions of nobility than any of the above-mentioned communities. ”

“ When the king's Council heard of the difficulty, we are told that the Cardinal sent for a great number of merchants, and thus addressed them. "Sirs, the King is informed that you [49] use not yourselves like merchants, but like graziers and artificers; for when the clothiers do daily bring cloths to your market for your ease, to their great cost, and there be ready to sell them, you of your wilfulness will not buy them, as you have been accustomed to do. What manner of men be you?" ”

“ At a supper in Aquitaine the table was spread with two table-covers with purple borders—borders as wide as those on the Imperial chlamys!"
"Do you mean to say they were more than two fingers wide? Remember, I've authorised the width of two fingers."
"Ah, much, much wider I fear! It was a regular Imperial chlamys. Can such sacrilege be permitted?"
Mercury did not succeed however in reciting all his reports:
"At Delphi a monster has been born—four ears, four eyes, two snouts, all covered with hair. The augurs say it is a bad omen—that the Holy Empire will be split up...." ”

“ It is interesting to note the influence of long-established customs upon the social habits of people. The present habitat of the will-making people is continental Europe. This fact is susceptible of easy explanation. The jurisprudence of the continent is founded on Roman law. Sir Henry Sumner Maine has well said: ‘To the Romans belong preëminently the credit of inventing the will, the institution which, next to the contract, has exercised the greatest influence in transforming human society.... ”

“ Commerce, in common with all gainful occupations except agriculture, was despised by the Romans, and the exercise of it was forbidden to the higher ranks. Cicero, however, admits that though retail trade, which could only prosper by lying and knavery, was contemptible, yet wholesale commerce was not altogether to be condemned, and might even be laudable, provided the merchant retired early from trade and invested his gaits in farm lands.—De Officiis, lib. ”