A History of Rome During the Later Republic and Early Principate Part 17

ii. 16. 4). But such a conflict was unusual.

[150] Cato _R.R_. pr. 1. Est interdum praestare mercaturis rem quaerere, nisi tam periculosum sit, et item fenerari, si tam honestum sit. Majores nostri sic habuerunt et ita in legibus posiverunt, furem dupli condemnari, feneratorem quadrupli. Quanto pejorem civem existimarint feneratorem quam furem, hinc licet existimare. Cf. Cic.

_de Off_. i. 42. 150. Improbantur ii quaestus, qui in odia hominum incurrunt, ut port.i.torum, ut feneratorum.

[151] Cic. _de Off_. ii. 25. 89. c.u.m ille ... dixisset "Quid fenerari?"

tum Cato "Quid hominem," inquit, "occidere?"

[152] For such professional money-lenders see Plaut. _Most_. iii. 1. 2 ff.; _Curc_. iv. 1. 19.

[153] Liv. x.x.xii. 27.

[154] On the history and functions of the bankers see Voigt _Ueber die Bankiers, die Buchfuhrung und die Litteralobligation der Romer_ (Abh. d.

Konigl. Sachs. Gesell. d. Wissench.; Phil. hist. Cla.s.se, Bd. x); Marquardt Staatsverw, ii. pp. 64 ff.; Deloume _Les manieurs d'argent a Rome_, pp. 146 ff.

[155] Plin. _H.N_. xxi. 3. 8.

[156] Cf. Cic. _de Off_, iii. 14. 58. Pythius, qui esset ut argentarius apud omnes ordines gratiosus....

[157] Yet the two never became thoroughly a.s.similated. The _argentarius_, for instance, was not an official tester of money, and the _nummularii_ appear not to have performed certain functions usual to the banker, e.g. sales by auction. See Voigt op. cit. pp. 521. 522.

[158] Plaut. _Cure_. iv. 1. 6 ff.

Commonstrabo, quo in quemque hominem facile inveniatis loco.

Ditis d.a.m.nosos maritos sub basilica quaerito.

Ibidem erunt scorta exoleta, quique stipulari solent.

In foro infumo boni homines, atque dites ambulant.

Sub veteribus, ibi sunt qui dant quique accipiunt faenore.

[159] To be bankrupt is _foro mergi_ (Plaut. _Ep_. i. 2. 16), _a foro fugere, abire_ (Plaut. _Pers_. iii. 3. 31 and 38).

[160] Cic. _de Off_. ii. 24. 87. Toto hoc de genere, de quaerenda, de collocanda pecunia, vellem etiam de utenda, commodius a quibusdam optumis viris ad Janum medium sedentibus ... disputatur. For _Ja.n.u.s medius_ and the question whether it means an arch or a street see Richter _Topogr. der Stadt Rom_. pp. 106. 107.

[161] Liv. x.x.xix. 44; xliv. 16. The Porcian was followed by the Fulvian Basilica (Liv. xl. 51). The dates of the three were 184, 179, 169 B.C.

respectively.

[162] Deloume op. cit. pp. 320 ff.; Guadet in Daremberg-Saglio _Dict.

des Antiq. s.v_. Basilicae.

[163] Large transport s.h.i.+ps could themselves come to Rome if their build was suited to river navigation. In 167 B.C. Aemilius Paulus astonished the city with the size of a s.h.i.+p (once belonging to the Macedonian King) on which he arrived (Liv. xlv. 35). On the whole question of this foreign trade see Voigt in Iwan-Muller's _Handbuch_ iv. 2, pp. 373-378.

[164] Voigt op. cit. p. 377 n. 99.

[165] Compare Cunningham _Western Civilisation in its Economic Aspects_ vol. i. p. 165, "It is only under very special conditions, including the existence of a strong government to exercise a constant control, that free play for the formation of a.s.sociations of capitalists bent on securing profit, is anything but a public danger. The landed interest in England has. .h.i.therto been strong enough to bring legislative control to bear on the moneyed men from time to time.... The problem of leaving sufficient liberty for the formation of capital and for enterprise in the use of it, without allowing it licence to exhaust the national resources, has not been solved."

[166] Plut. Numa 17. On the history of these gilds see Waltzing _Corporations professionelles chez les Remains_ pp. 61-78.

[167] The praetor was Rutilius (Ulpian in Dig. 38. 2. 1. 1), perhaps P.

Rutilius Rufus, the consul of 105 B.C. (Mommsen Staatsr. in. p. 433).

See the last chapter of this volume. For the principle on which such _operae_ were exacted from freedmen see Mommsen l.c.

[168] Inliberales ac sordidi quaestus (Cic. _de Off_. i. 42. 150).

[169] Gell. vii. (vi.) 9; Liv. ix. 46; Mommsen _Staatsr_. i. p. 497.

[170] Cf. Cic. _de Off_. i. 42. 151 Omnium autem rerum, ex quibus aliquid adquiritur, nihil est agricultura melius, nihil uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine libero dignius.

[171] See de Boor _Fasti Censorii_. A disturbing element in this enumeration is the uncertainty of numerals in ancient ma.n.u.scripts. But the fact of the progressive decline is beyond all question. No accidental errors of transcription could have produced this result in the text of Livy's epitome.

[172] Liv. _Ep_. xvi.

[173] Ibid. lvi.

[174] Ibid. xlvi. xlviii.

[175] Euseb. Arm. a. Abr. 1870 Ol. 158.3 (Hieron. Ol. 158.2 = 608 A.U.C.).

[176] Liv. _Ep_. lvi.

[177] Eorum qui arma ferre possent (Liv. i. 44); [Greek: _ton echonton taen strateusimon haelikian] (Dionys. xi. 63); [Greek: ton en tais haelikiais_] (Polyb. ii. 23).

[178] Besides the _proletarii_ all under military age would be excluded from these lists. Mommsen (_Staatsr_. ii. p. 411) goes further and thinks that the _seniores_ are not included in our lists.

[179] The limit to the incidence of taxation was a property of 1500 a.s.ses (Cic. _de Rep_. ii. 22. 40), the limit of census for military service was by the time of Polybius reduced to 4000 a.s.ses (Polyb. vi.

19). Gellius (xvi. 10. 10) gives a reduction to 375 a.s.ses at a date unknown but preceding the Marian reform. Perhaps the numerals are incorrect and should be 3,750.

[180] Liv. xl. 38.

[181] Gell. i. 6. Cf. Liv. _Ep_. lix.

[182] See Wallon _Hist. de l'Esclavage_ ii. p. 276.

[183] _Concubinatus_ could not, by the nature of the case, become a legal conception until the Emperor Augustus had devised penalties for _stuprum_. It was then necessary to determine what kind of _stuprum_ was not punishable. But the social inst.i.tution and its ethical characteristics, although they may have been made more definite by legal regulations, could not have originated in the time of the Princ.i.p.ate.

For the meaning of _paelex_ in Republican times see Meyer _Der romische Konkubinat_ and a notice of that work in the _English Historical Review_ for July 1896.

[184] Cunningham _Western Civilisation_ p. 156. Cf. Soltau in _Kulturgesch. des kla.s.s. Altertums_ p. 318.

[185] Plin. _H.N_. xviii. 3. 22; Varro _R.R_. i. 1. 10.

[186] Colum. 1. 1. 18. The Latin translation was probably made shortly after the destruction of Carthage, _circa_ 140 B.C. (Mahaffy _The Work of Mago on Agriculture_ in _Hermathena_ vol. vii. 1890). Mahaffy believes that the Greek translation by Ca.s.sius Dionysius (Varro _R.R_.

i. 1. 10) was later, and he a.s.sociates it with the colonies planted by C. Gracchus in Southern Italy.

[187] Saturnia in 183 (Liv. x.x.xix. 55), Graviscae in 181 (Liv. xl. 29), Luna in 180 and again in 177 (Liv. xli. 13; Mommsen in C.I.L. i. n.

539). See Marquardt _Staatsverw_, i. p. 39.

[188] Plut. _Ti. Gracch_. 8; Nitzsch _Die Gracchen_ p. 198.

[189] Nitzsch _Die Gracchen_ p. 198.