Roman people

“ More than two thousand years ago, at a time when the people in the British Isles and in most parts of Western Europe were living the lives of savages, occupied in fighting, hunting, and fishing, dwelling in rude huts, clad in skins, ignorant of everything that we call civilization, Rome was the centre of a world in many ways as civilized as ours is now, over which the Roman people ruled. ”

“ No tidings I have heard for a great while past sounded so good and fair as the news that presently we shall have strife with Rome. These Romans are a people whom I neither love with my heart, nor esteem in my mind, but hate because they are very orgulous and proud. Upright folk should avoid their fellowship, for they are an evil and a covetous race, caring for no other matter but to heap treasure together, and add to their store. The emperor of this people, by fraud and deceit, has fastened this quarrel upon us, sending you letters with an embassy. ”

“ But, none must compare these my annals with the writings of those who compiled the story of the ancient Roman People. They had for their subjects mighty wars, potent cities sacked, great kings routed and taken captive: or if they sometimes reviewed the domestic affairs of Rome, they there found the mutual strife and animosities of the Consuls and Tribunes; the agrarian and frumentary laws, pushed and opposed; and the lasting struggles between the nobles and populace. ”

“ Only those facts and events which illustrate the real character of the Roman people, which show the progressive development of Rome as a world power, and which explain the influence that Rome has exercised upon modern civilization, have been emphasized. ”

“ And although the tribes are indolent, and the countries peaceful, and although there are no contests for votes, but the tranquillity of the age of Numa has returned, nevertheless, in every quarter of the world Rome is still looked up to as the mistress and the queen of the earth, and the name of the Roman people is respected and venerated. ”

“ The Roman state was reproduced in miniature in these societies, with their popular assemblies, and their officials, who bore the honorable titles of quæstor, curator, prætor, ædile, and so forth.
To read these twenty-five hundred or more inscriptions from all parts of the Empire brings us close to the heart of the common people. We see their little ambitions, their jealousies, their fears, their gratitude for kindness, their own kindliness, and their loyalty to their fellows. ”

“ This book, like the volume on "Society and Politics in Ancient Rome," deals with the life of the common people, with their language and literature, their occupations and amusements, and with their social, political, and economic conditions. We are interested in the common people of Rome because they made the Roman Empire what it was. They carried the Roman standards to the Euphrates and the Atlantic; they lived abroad as traders, farmers, and soldiers to hold and Romanize the provinces, or they stayed at home, working as carpenters, masons, or bakers, to supply the daily needs of the capital. ”

“ The character of the Roman people, which enabled them to dominate the earth and to give laws to the world, was formed before they had schools, and when their schools were most flourishing they themselves were in rapid moral and social dissolution. ”

“ The others occurred annually, and were named from the gods to whose honour they were dedicated.
12. The Romans were a more grave and domestic people than the lively Greeks; their favourite dress, the toga or gown, was more formal and stately than the Grecian short cloak; their demeanour was more stern, and their manners more imposing. The great object of the old Roman was, to maintain his dignity under all circumstances, and to show that he could controul the emotions to which ordinary men too readily yield. ”

“ That a city-state with the old and narrow local social and political traditions which Rome had could adapt herself to the government of a world-empire composed of such diverse elements as made up the Roman Empire is one of the marvels of history, and a study of the methods which she followed can not fail to throw light on political questions which we have to meet today. The range of social and economic conditions through which Rome went is equally wide. The Romans come on the stage of history as a primitive pastoral people with strongholds on the hills. ”

“ Ever have I found you loyal and true, in business and counsel. Because of your prowess I hold the heritage of divers neighbouring princes in subjection. Lords, you have hearkened to the letters carried by the ambassadors of Rome, and to the malice they threaten if we do not after their commandment. Very despiteful are they against us, and purpose to work us bitter mischief. But if God be gracious to His people, we shall yet be delivered from their hand. Now these Romans are a strong nation, passing rich and of great power. ”

“ CHAPTER XI SOURCES OF INCOME AND MEANS OF LIVING. THE ROMAN'S DAY
403 It is evident from what has been said that abundant means were necessary to support the state in which every Roman of position lived. It will be of interest to see how the great mass of the people also earned the scantier living with which they were forced to be content. For the sake of this inquiry it will be convenient, if not very accurate, to divide the people of Rome into the three great classes of nobles, knights, and commons, into which political history has distributed them. ”

“ The overthrow of the kings of Rome did not relieve the people from all their oppression. The inhabitants of that city had long been divided into two great classes, the Patricians, or nobles, and the Plebeians, or common people, and the former held in their hand nearly all the wealth and power of the state. ”

“ The Roman world was blotted out by the barbarians. For hundreds of years the kind of life men had lived in Rome disappeared altogether and the very records of it seemed to be lost. Gradually, bit by bit, the story has been pieced together, and the men of two thousand years ago stand before us: we see them across the gulf. The faces of those belonging to the earliest story of Rome are rather dim. But they, too, help us to understand what the Romans were like. We learn to know a people from the men it 9 chooses as its heroes; about whom fathers tell stories to their children. ”

“ They all said that the public was quite out of touch with Roman affairs. On the contrary, facts have demonstrated that also in this age, in aspect so eager for things modern, people of culture are willing to give attention to the events and personages of ancient Rome. ”

“ Roman art in Britain has surely been rated too low.
226The figure introduced on this page was found here. It represents one of old Rome’s most favourite deities,—Victory, careering, with outstretched wings, over the globe. How strong must the passion for conquest have been in the breast of a people, who, though nurtured in a southern climate, braved for more than three centuries, the fogs, and storms, and desolation of this wild region! ”

“ Whatever amount of belief we give to the legends of Roman wars and conquests under the kings, we can hardly doubt that the territory of several neighbouring towns was incorporated with the Roman state, and that their people, whether they removed to Rome or went on occupying their own lands elsewhere, became Romans, but not as yet full Romans. ”

“ Forget not to assure Gracchus and Calpurnius of my affection. Farewell. [Pg 63]
LETTER III. FROM PISO TO FAUSTA.
You are right, Fausta, in your unfavorable judgment of the Roman populace. The Romans are not a people one would select to whom to propose a religion like this of Christianity. All causes seem to combine to injure and corrupt them. They are too rich. The wealth of subject kingdoms and provinces finds its way to Rome ”

“ Perhaps the willingness of the average Roman to co-operate with his fellows, and his skill in forming an organization suitable for the purpose in hand, go farther than any of the other qualities mentioned above to account for his success in governing other peoples as well as his own nation. ”

“ The Roman Code was merely an enunciation in words of the existing customs of the Roman people. ”

“ Caligula wished that the Roman people had but one neck that he might cut it off, and as I read this letter I am afraid that for a moment I was capable of wishing the same thing concerning the laboring classes of America. ”

“ The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.
The superstition of the people was not imbittered by any mixture of theological rancor; ”

“ What happier being in the world than that Roman could nature, could Rome ever have produced, if, after leading round the train of captives amid all the circumstance of war, he had breathed out his soul in glory, when just stepping down from his Teutonic car? ”

“ Under the shadow of the walls of the Eternal City all the great races were associated and mingled—Latins, Trojans, Greeks, Sabines, and Etruscans. The Roman civilization was the product of all that had gone before, as it was destined to be the father of all that should follow it. The Roman had no peer either in courage or fortitude. Aspiring to universal dominion, he toughened himself to achieve it. Dooming his enemy to death or slavery, he was not less self-exacting, his own life, through the cup of poison, the sword, or the opened vein, becoming the forfeit equally of misfortune and shame. ”

“ And the Romans—the true Romans—of the Regola and the Popolo, of the Monti district and the Trevi district, who add the adjective Roman to their name like a title of nobility, who eat dumplings on Thursdays, tripe on Sundays, and lamb at all times, who like white wine and the fireworks at Sant' Angelo, who are proud of their March water, and calmly allow the beetles to swarm in their old houses, the sceptical, clever, impassive, and industrious Romans, who are good husbands and kind lovers, they certainly are not asleep. ”

“ Under the latter head we consider the Roman as a citizen, and we examine the several classes of citizens, their obligations and their privileges; we study the form of their government, its officers and machinery, its legislative, judicial, and executive procedure, its revenues and expenditures, etc. It is evident that no hard and fast line can be drawn between the two branches of the subject: they cross each other at every turn. One scarcely knows, for example, under which head to put the religion of the Romans or their games in the circus. ”

“ These were the darling amusements of all, and chief occupations of many Romans; and those who could take pleasure in such spectacles, must have lost all that tenderness of inward feeling, and all that exquisite sympathy for suffering, without which none can perceive the force and beauty of a tragic drama. The extension, too, of the military power, and the increasing wealth and splendour of the Roman republic, accustomed its citizens to triumphal and gaudy processions. ”

“ Genseric
Hymenial songs must cheer these drooping maids--- They each shall choose a Goth or Vandal lord, And rase the lineage of the Roman name In the warm grots of Asdrubal and Hanno, For which their ancestors in Carthage bled, And armies perish'd in the Lybian sands. Leo
Now thou art master of the Roman world, Let clemency bespeak thee more a king, Than all thy triumphs o'er subjected Rome. Genseric
The multitude disarm'd---I leave their lives; Plebeian slaves may tremble and retire; But all of noble or patrician blood, Of ev'ry age and sex, my prisoners are. ”

“ Though the Romans are no more but a fable and an ornament of rhetoric, we have here their New England Farmer, the very manual those Roman farmers read, speaking as if they were to hear it, its voice not silenced, as if Rome were still the mistress of the world,—as fresh as a dripping dish-cloth from a Roman kitchen. ”

“ Being eclectic, it embraced all gods,—although this is not to say that every Roman worshipped all of these,—and those peoples whom she conquered were not ravished with violence from their creeds and forced to kneel at unlike altars. Each nation might find a parallel for its gods in Rome's pantheon, and so might be brought without shock into Rome's fold. For, take a man's gods from him, whatsoever they may be that he worships, and give him nothing in return to which he can hold, and at once you take from him all that anchors him to the rationalities of life. ”

“ Rome produced famous generals and equally distinguished statesmen and cut-throats, and Roman armies fought all over the world. But the Roman empire-making was done without a preconceived plan. The average Roman was a very matter-of-fact citizen. ”

“ Of all Rome’s achievements in the field of politics none was so far-reaching in its influence and so lasting in its effects as her conquest of the world and her successful government of it for five hundred years or more. ”

“ There are far too many Romans," he continued, "who have no family altar nor ancestral tomb. They have fought well for Rome, and are falsely called the masters of the world; but the results of [Pg 168] their fighting can only be seen in the luxury of the great, while not one of them has a clod of dirt to call his own." ”

“ The history of Rome is the narrative of the building up of a single City, whose dominion gradually spread until it comprised all the countries about the Mediterranean, or what were then the civilized nations. "In this great empire was gathered up the sum total that remained of the religions, laws, customs, languages, letters, arts, and sciences of all the nations of antiquity which had successively held sway or predominance." Under the system of Roman government and Roman law they were combined in one ordered community. ”