The Common People of Ancient Rome Part 2

1 Preliterary Latin.

2 Vulgar Latin 3 Literary Latin 4-8 The Romance languages.

(b) This pa.s.sage from one of Cicero's letters to his brother (_ad Q.

fr._ 2, 3, 2) may ill.u.s.trate the familiar conversational style of a gentleman in the first century B.C. It describes an harangue made by the politician Clodius to his partisans.

"Ille furens et exsanguis interrogabat suos in clamore ipso quis esset qui plebem fame necaret. Respondebant operae: 'Pompeius.' Quem ire vellent.

Respondebant: 'Cra.s.sum.' Is aderat tum Miloni animo non amico. Hora fere nona quasi signo dato Clodiani nostros consputare coeperunt. Exarsit dolor. Vrgere illi ut loco nos moverent."

(c) In the following pa.s.sage, Petronius, 57, one of the freedmen at Trimalchio's dinner flames out in anger at a fellow-guest whose bearing seems to him supercilious. It shows a great many of the characteristics of vulgar Latin which have been mentioned in this paper. The similarity of its style to that of the preliterary specimen is worth observing. The great number of proverbs and bits of popular wisdom are also noticeable.

"Et nunc spero me sic vivere, ut nemini iocus sim. h.o.m.o inter homines sum, capite aperto ambulo; a.s.sem aerarium nemini debeo; const.i.tutum habui nunquam; nemo mihi in foro dixit 'redde, quod debes.' Glebulas emi, lamelullas paravi; viginti ventres pasco et canem; contubernalem meam redemi, ne quis in sinu illius ma.n.u.s tergeret; mille denarios pro capite solvi; sevir gratis factus sum; spero, sic moriar, ut mortuus non erubescam."

(d) This short inscription from Pompeii shows some of the peculiarities of popular p.r.o.nunciation. In ortu we see the same difficulty in knowing when to sound the aspirate which the c.o.c.kney Englishman has. The silence of the final -m, and the reduction of ae to e are also interesting. Presta mi sinceru (=sincerum): si te amet que (=quae) custodit ortu (=hortum) Venus.

(e) Here follow some of the vulgar forms against which a grammarian, probably of the fourth century, warns his readers. We notice that the popular "mistakes" to which he calls attention are in (1) syncopation and a.s.similation, in (2) the use of the diminutive for the primitive, and p.r.o.nouncing au as o, in (3) the same reduction of ct to t (or tt) which we find in such Romance forms as Ottobre, in (4) the aspirate falsely added, in (5) syncopation and the confusion of v and b, and in (6) the silence of final -m.

(1) frigida non fricda (2) auris non oricla (3) auctoritas non autoritas (4) ostiae non hostiae (5) vapulo non baplo (6) pa.s.sim non pa.s.si

(f) The following pa.s.sages are taken from Brunot's "Histoire de la langue Fracaise," p. 144. In the third column the opening sentence of the famous Oath of Strasburg of 842 A.D. is given. In the other columns the form which it would have taken at different periods is set down. These pa.s.sages bring out clearly the unbroken line of descent from Latin to modern French.

The Oath of Strasburg of 842

Cla.s.sic Latin

Per Dei amorem et per christiani populi et nostram communem salutem, ab hac die, quantum Deus scire et posse mini dat, servabo hunc meum fratrem Carolum

Spoken Latin, Seventh Cent.

For deo amore et por chrestyano pob(o)lo et nostro comune salvamento de esto die en avante en quanto Deos sabere et podere me donat, sic salvarayo eo eccesto meon fradre Karlo

Actual Text

Pro deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, d'ist di en avant, in quant Deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo

French, Eleventh Cent.

Por dieu amor et por del crestuen poeple et nostre comun salvement, de cest jorn en avant, quant que Dieus saveir et podeir me donet, si salverai jo cest mien fredre Charlon

French, Fifteenth Cent.

Pour l'amour Dieu et pour le sauvement du chrestien peuple et le nostre commun, de cest jour en avant, quant que Dieu savoir et pouvoir me done, si sauverai je cest mien frere Charle

Modern French

Pour l'amour de Dieu et pour le salut commun du peuple chretien et le notre, a partir de ce jour, autant que Dieu m'en donne le savoir et le pouvoir, je soutiendrai mon frere Charles

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. The stories which the stones tell are so far removed from us in point of time that even those who grieved at the loss of the departed have long since followed their friends, and when we read the bits of life history on the crumbling monuments, we feel only that pleasurable emotion which, as Cicero says in one of his letters, comes from our reading in history of the little tragedies of men of the past. But the epitaph deals with the common people, whom history is apt to forget, and gives us a glimpse of their character, their doings, their beliefs, and their views of life and death. They furnish us a simple and direct record of the life and the aspirations of the average man, the record of a life not interpreted for us by the biographer, historian, or novelist, but set down in all its simplicity by one of the common people themselves.

These facts lend to the ancient Roman epitaphs their peculiar interest and charm. They give us a glimpse into the every-day life of the people which a Cicero, or a Virgil, or even a Horace cannot offer us. They must have exerted an influence, too, on Roman character, which we with our changed conditions can scarcely appreciate. We shall understand this fact if we call to mind the differences between the ancient practices in the matter of burial and our own. The village churchyard is with us a thing of the past. Whether on sanitary grounds, or for the sake of quiet and seclusion, in the interest of economy, or not to obtrude the thought of death upon us, the modern cemetery is put outside of our towns, and the memorials in it are rarely read by any of us. Our fathers did otherwise. The churchyard of old England and of New England was in the middle of the village, and "short cuts" from one part of the village to another led through its enclosure. Perhaps it was this fact which tempted our ancestors to set forth their life histories more fully than we do, who know that few, if any, will come to read them. Or is the world getting more reserved and sophisticated? Are we coming to put a greater restraint upon the expression of our emotions? Do we hesitate more than our fathers did to talk about ourselves? The ancient Romans were like our fathers in their willingness or desire to tell us of themselves. Perhaps the differences in their burial practices, which were mentioned above, tempted them to be communicative, and sometimes even garrulous. They put their tombstones in a spot still more frequented than the churchyard. They placed them by the side of the highways, just outside the city walls, where people were coming or going constantly. Along the Street of Tombs, as one goes out of Pompeii, or along the great Appian Way, which runs from Rome to Capua, Southern Italy and Brundisium, the port of departure for Greece and the Orient, they stand on both sides of the roadway and make their mute appeals for our attention. We know their like in the enclosure about old Trinity in New York, in the burial ground in New Haven, or in the churchyards across the water. They tell us not merely the date of birth and death of the deceased, but they let us know enough of his life to invest it with a certain individuality, and to give it a flavor of its own.

Some 40,000 of them have come down to us, and nearly 2,000 of the inscriptions upon them are metrical. This particular group is of special interest to us, because the use of verse seems to tempt the engraver to go beyond a bare statement of facts and to philosophize a bit about the present and the future. Those who lie beneath the stones still claim some recognition from the living, for they often call upon the pa.s.ser-by to halt and read their epitaphs, and as the Roman walked along the Appian Way two thousand years ago, or as we stroll along the same highway to-day, it is in silent converse with the dead. Sometimes the stone itself addresses us, as does that of Olus Granius:[22] "This mute stone begs thee to stop, stranger, until it has disclosed its mission and told thee whose shade it covers. Here lie the bones of a man, modest, honest, and trusty--the crier, Olus Granius. That is all. It wanted thee not to be unaware of this. Fare thee well." This craving for the attention of the pa.s.ser-by leads the composer of one epitaph to use somewhat the same device which our advertisers employ in the street-cars when they say: "Do not look at this spot," for he writes: "Turn not your eyes this way and wish not to learn our fate," but two lines later, relenting, he adds: "Now stop, traveller...within this narrow resting-place,"[23] and then we get the whole story. Sometimes a dramatic, lifelike touch is given by putting the inscription into the form of a dialogue between the dead and those who are left behind. Upon a stone found near Rome runs the inscription:[24]

"Hail, name dear to us, Stepha.n.u.s,...thy Moschis and thy Diodorus salute thee." To which the dead man replies: "Hail chaste wife, hail Diodorus, my friend, my brother." The dead man often begs for a pleasant word from the pa.s.ser-by. The Romans, for instance, who left Ostia by the highway, read upon a stone the sentiment:[25] "May it go well with you who lie within and, as for you who go your way and read these lines, 'the earth rest lightly on thee' say." This pious salutation loses some of the flavor of spontaneity in our eyes when we find that it had become so much of a convention as to be indicated by the initial letters of the several words: S(it) t(ibi) t(erra) l(evis). The traveller and the departed exchange good wishes on a stone found near Velitrae:[26]

"May it go well with you who read and you who pa.s.s this way, The like to mine and me who on this spot my tomb have built."

One cla.s.s of pa.s.sers-by was dreaded by the dweller beneath the stone--the man with a paint-brush who was looking for a conspicuous spot on which to paint the name of his favorite political candidate. To such an one the hope is expressed "that his ambition may be realized, provided he instructs his slave not to paint this stone."[27]

These wayside epitaphs must have left an impress on the mind and character of the Roman which we can scarcely appreciate. The peasant read them as he trudged homeward on market days, the gentleman, as he drove to his villa on the countryside, and the traveller who came from the South, the East, or the North. In them the history of his country was set forth in the achievements of her great men, her praetors and consuls, her generals who had conquered and her governors who had ruled Gaul, Spain, Africa, and Asia. In them the public services, and the deeds of charity of the rich and powerful were recorded and the homely virtues and self-sacrifices of the humbler man and woman found expression there. Check by jowl with the tomb of some great leader upon whom the people or the emperor had showered all the t.i.tles and honors in their power might stand the stone of the poor physician, Dionysius,[28] of whom it is said "to all the sick who came to him he gave his services free of charge; he set forth in his deeds what he taught in his precepts."

But perhaps more of the inscriptions in verse, and with them we are here concerned, are in praise of women than of men. They make clear to us the place which women held in Roman life, the state of society, and the feminine qualities which were held in most esteem. The world which they portray is quite another from that of Ovid and Juvenal. The common people still hold to the old standards of morality and duty. The degeneracy of smart society has made little progress here. The marriage tie is held sacred; the wife and husband, the parent and child are held close to each other in bonds of affection. The virtues of women are those which Martinia.n.u.s records on the stone of his wife Sofroniola:[29]

"Purity, loyalty, affection, a sense of duty, a yielding nature, and whatever qualities G.o.d has implanted in women."

(Cast.i.tas fides earitas pietas obsequium Et quaec.u.mque deus faemenis inesse praecepit.)

Upon a stone near Turin,[30] Valerius wrote in memory of his wife the simple line:

"Pure in heart, modest, of seemly bearing, discreet, n.o.ble-minded, and held in high esteem."

(Casta pudica decens sapiens Generosa probata.)

Only one discordant note is struck in this chorus of praise. This fierce invective stands upon an altar at Rome:[31] "Here for all time has been set down in writing the shameful record of the freedwoman Acte, of poisoned mind, and treacherous, cunning, and hard-hearted. Oh! for a nail, and a hempen rope to choke her, and flaming pitch to burn up her wicked heart."

A double tribute is paid to a certain Statilia in this nave inscription:[32] "Thou who wert beautiful beyond measure and true to thy husbands, didst twice enter the bonds of wedlock...and he who came first, had he been able to withstand the fates, would have set up this stone to thee, while I, alas! who have been blessed by thy pure heart and love for thee for sixteen years, lo! now I have lost thee." Still greater sticklers for the truth at the expense of convention are two fond husbands who borrowed a pretty couplet composed in memory of some woman "of tender age," and then subst.i.tuted upon the monuments of their wives the more truthful phrase "of middle age,"[33] and another man warns women, from the fate of his wife, to shun the excessive use of jewels.[34]

It was only natural that when men came to the end of life they should ask themselves its meaning, should speculate upon the state after death, and should turn their thoughts to the powers which controlled their destiny.