Oppidum

“ Matter of no little moment in days when the lay aristocracy knew no trade but war, and the peasant was still his lord’s chattel, when the monastery was not only the last shelter of learning and the arts, but the only agricultural college and the only technical school, when the monk was the one physician, and the one intelligent artisan, and the clerk, alike legislator, notary, scribe, was almost the only man who knew how to sign his name. ”

“ The Poetry of the Common People of Rome
I. Their Metrical Epitaphs
The old village churchyard on a summer afternoon is a favorite spot with many of us. The absence of movement, contrasted with the life just outside its walls, the drowsy humming of the bees in the flowers which grow at will, the restful gray of the stones and the green of the moss give one a feeling of peace and quiet, while the ancient dates and quaint lettering in the inscriptions carry us far from the hurry and bustle and trivial interests of present-day life. No sense of sadness touches us. ”

“ I can find nothing in the way of a building for you in the neighbourhood. In the town there is something of the sort, though it is doubtful whether it is for sale, and, in fact, close to my own house. Let me tell you that Antium is the Buthrotum of Rome, just what your Buthrotum is to Corcyra. Nothing can be quieter, cooler, or prettier—"be this mine own dear home." ”

“ The patricians of a Latin town admitted to the Roman franchise became plebeians at Rome. Thus from the beginning, the Roman plebs contained families which, if the word 'noble' has any real meaning, were fully as noble as any house of the three elder tribes. Not a few too of the plebeians were rich; rich and poor, they were the more part land-owners; no mistake can be greater than that which looks on the Roman plebs as the low multitude of a town. ”

“ If I set slaves to keep them off, a fight breaks out between my slaves and those of the abbey; one day mine are beaten, the next mine beat the others. But however it be, I am deprived of the help of their arms. Besides, seigneur, almost every day has its special duties; one day we have to prune the vines of the abbey, another we have to plow, harrow and plant its fields; yet another, we have its crops to cart away; another day it is the fences that have to be repaired. We have lately also had ditches to dig when the abbess feared that the convent was to be attacked by some bands of marauders. ”

“ On the third day of his stay, he remained within his guest-chamber until sundown, writing. As the vesper-bell rang I met him in the corridor, dressed for walking, and from his countenance I judged that whatever his mission to the island might be, he was about to bring it to an end. He passed me without speech, almost as though he had not seen me, and left the monastery. A few minutes afterwards, looking down from the windows to watch the brethren come in from their field tasks, I saw him take the road up to the castle. ”

“ In the Senate-house, were fourteen ancient urns, dug up as they were removing earth in the fortifications.
A little out of the town is a spacious field, which they call Campus Martius; and well it may be so termed, with better reason, than that at Rome at present (which is no more a field, but all built into streets) , for here on every Sunday, after the evening devotions, this precise people permit their youth to exercise arms, and shoot in guns, and in the long and cross bows, in which they are [Pg 238] exceedingly expert, reputed to be as dexterous as any people in the world. ”

“ There exists in fact an intimate connection between the system of common tillage and the clan form of society, and even subsequently in Rome joint residence and joint husbandry were in the case of co-proprietors of very frequent occurrence. [1] Even the traditions of Roman law furnish the information that wealth consisted at first in cattle and the usufruct of the soil, and that it was not till later that land came to be distributed among the burgesses as their own special property. ”

“ The older Roman families were called patricians, or fathers, and thought all rights to govern belonged to them. Settlers who came in later were called plebeians, or the people, and at first had no rights at all, for all the land belonged to the patricians, and the only way for the plebeians to get anything done for them was to become hangers-on—or, as they called it, clients—of some patrician who took care of their interests. There was a council of patricians called the Senate, chosen among themselves, and also containing by right all who had been chief magistrates. ”

“ While the plebs of Rome and the municipalities alike had little opportunity for political activity they found a compensation in the social life of their guilds or colleges. These were associations of persons who had some common tie, such as a common trade or profession, a common worship, or the humble desire to secure for themselves a decent burial by mutual coöperation. Thus arose professional, religious, and funerary colleges. The organization of the colleges was modelled on that of the municipalities. ”

“ Wherever the Romans planted colonies, there they established Collegia; without its colleges Roman society was incomplete; the Collegium was an element essential to Roman life.
The Collegium was a corporation or guild of persons associated in support of a common object; there were colleges of artists, of architects, builders, and artisans, as well as colleges associated with the administration and government, with religion and law. ”

“ Some sumptuous public edifices, beautiful private houses—that is all the splendour of the metropolis of the empire. He who goes to the Palatine may to-day refigure for himself, from the so-called House of Livia, the house of a rich Roman family of the time of Augustus, and convince himself that a well-to-do middle-class family would hardly occupy such a house to-day. ”

“ And to begin, I present this abbey to you, its lands, buildings, slaves, with no other charge upon you than to contribute a certain sum into my treasury and to turn out with your men at my first call."
"I a count of this country! I the possessor of such broad estates!" the young chief cried with joy, hardly believing so magnificent a gift possible. "But the goods of this abbey are immense! Its lands and forests extend more than two leagues in a circle!"
"So much the better, my lad! You and your men will settle down here. Handsome female slaves are sure to abound on the place. ”

“ I call my arches and bowers my garden in the clouds. Nobody quite knows how beautiful the Crimson Rambler can be till they have seen it against a background of summer sky. Just out of the garden stretched the plantation of firs, Scotch and Austrian, with a border of ribes, laurels, hollies, and yews. The plantation is very small, but it gives a sense of silence between the Abbey and the old town. ”

“ The Senators, when addressed, were called PATRES, or "Fathers," for they were Fathers of the families.
The Romans, as we saw above, were divided at first into three tribes, Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres Each tribe was subdivided into ten districts called CURIAE, and each curia into ten clans called GENTES (3 tribes, 30 curiae, and 300 gentes) . Every Roman citizen, therefore, belonged to a particular family, at the head of which was a pater-familias; every family belonged to a particular gens, named after a common ancestor; every gens belonged to a particular curia ”

“ That one district has to regret eighty-seven cultivators, owing to that man's ill-treatment, and to that extent our republic has to regret the loss of so many heads of families, and demands them back at his hand, since they are the real revenues of the Roman people. The district of Herbita had in his first year two hundred and fifty-seven cultivators; in his third, a hundred and twenty. From this region a hundred and thirty-seven heads of families have fled like banished men. The district of Agyrium—what men lived in that land! ”

“ There developed an artisan and mercantile element, and there the aristocratic element of the population early took up their abode, i. e., the wealthier landholders, who could leave to others the immediate oversight of their estates. And so these oppida became the centers of government for the surrounding pagi. It is very doubtful if the Latins as a whole were ever united in a single state. ”

“ Each community had its modest or sumptuous dwelling, certain districts of Rome were entirely composed of convents, and behind the silent lifeless facades all those people buzzed, intrigued, and waged the everlasting warfare of rival interests and passions. ”

“ The division of the city into four tribes continued until the reign of Augustus; a new arrangement was made by the emperor, who divided Rome into fourteen wards, or [Pg. 26] regions. [9] The magnificent public and private buildings in a city so extensive and wealthy were very numerous, and a bare catalogue of them would fill a volume; [10] our attention must be confined to those which possessed some historical importance.
12. The most celebrated and conspicuous buildings were in the eighth division of the city, which contained the Capitol and its temples, the Senate House, and the Forum. ”

“ The Roman has the broad acres, his patrons have given him the land; the chapel has the common people, and the farmers are banding together not to pay tithes. So that his whole soul may well go forth in the apostrophe, 'Good Lord, deliver us!'
There is no man so feasted as the chapel pastor. His tall and yet rotund body and his broad red face might easily be mistaken for the outward man of a sturdy farmer, and he likes his pipe and glass. ”

“ Every mendicant friar shall, on the day of his inception, feast the Regent Masters according to ancient custom, or forfeit ten marks to the University; and every such incepting friar must be a regent for twenty-four months from his inception. And every religious possessing private property, and not being an abbot or prior or other governor of a conventual house, the rents of whose society amount to two hundred pounds yearly, must on the day of inception feast the Regents or pay twenty pounds to the University in lieu of a feast. ”

“ But legalized sodalitates are frequent later; the temple of Venus Genetrix, begun by Julius and finished by Augustus, had its collegium (Pliny, N.H. ii. 93) , and sodalitates were instituted for the cult of the deified emperors Augustus, Claudius, &c.
We thus arrive by a second channel at the collegia of the empire. Both the history of the trade gilds and that of the religious collegia or sodalitates conduct us by a course of natural development to that extraordinary system of private association with which the empire was honeycombed. ”

“ In a narrower sense populus signifies “the people,” “masses,” in contrast with the magistrates or with the senate, as in the well known phrase, senatus populusque Romanus.
II. The Three Primitive Tribes
The Romans believed that the three tribes which composed the primitive populus were created by one act in close relation with the founding of the city. [9] For some unknown reason they were led to connect the myth of Titus Tatius, the eponymous hero of the Tities, [10] with the Quirinal, [11] and with the Sabines, [12] who were generally supposed to have occupied that [3] hill. ”

“ Out of Rome, that is, throughout the whole extent of the Pontifical States, with the exception of the capital—in the Legations, the Marshes, Umbria, and all the Provinces, to the number of eighteen, how many ecclesiastics do you think are employed? Their number does not exceed fifteen—one for each Province except three, where there is not one at all. They are delegates, or, as we should say, prefects. The councils, the tribunals, and offices of all sorts, are filled with laymen. So that for one ecclesiastic in office, we have in the Roman Provinces one hundred and ninety-five laymen. ”

“ The monastery churches were often very large, but they were not public churches. In times of danger, monasteries were looked upon as places of safety. The waste lands which did not belong to any tun or vill in early times were called folk-land, and belonged to the people. The king was regarded as the guardian of these lands, but in time they were looked upon as his private property. Land given to monasteries was often very rough, but the care the monks gave to it in time made it fertile.
CHAPTER XV
LATER SAXON TIMES
1. Every old town and village has got its oldest house, of course. ”

“ Know ye that your Fraternity’s solicitude has pleased us, in that you have evinced, as was right, pastoral vigilance for the guardianship of souls. For indeed it has been reported to us that you have forbidden a monastery to be founded in the house of the late Epiphanius, a reader of your Church, in accordance with his will, for this reason; lest, seeing that this house was adjacent to a monastery of hand-maidens of God [2] , deception of souls should thence ensue. ”

“ With the introduction of Roman rule this theory of the idia was given greater precision. All the land of each village had to be tilled by the residents thereof, either as owners or tenants. At times, indeed, the inhabitants of one village might be forced to cultivate vacant lands at a distance. ”

“ It is not certain whether anyone except a patrician could claim 'occupation' as a right; but, as the possessors could in any case sell the land to plebeians, it fell into the hands of rich men, to whichever class they belonged, both at Rome, and in the Roman colonies, and the Municipia ”