A History of Rome to 565 A. D Part 24

Under Augustus a law was pa.s.sed which regulated for the future the character, organization and activities of these a.s.sociations. New colleges could only be established in Italy or the provinces if sanctioned by a decree of the Senate or edict of the princeps, and members.h.i.+p in an unauthorized college was a treasonable offence. Trajan authorized the unrestricted formation of funerary colleges (_collegia tenuiorum_) in Rome, and Septimius Severus extended this privilege to Italy and the provinces. Under Marcus Aurelius the colleges were recognized as juristic persons, with power to manumit slaves and receive legacies. Not only persons of free birth but also freedmen and slaves, and in many cases women as well as men, were freely admitted to members.h.i.+p in the colleges.

*The decline of the munic.i.p.alities.* The prosperity of the empire depended upon the prosperity of the munic.i.p.alities and it is in the latter that the first symptoms of internal decay are noticeable. These symptoms were economic decline and the consequent loss of local autonomy. The reasons for the economic decline are hard to trace. Among them we may perhaps place the ruin of many of the wealthier families by the requirements of office-holding, the withdrawal of others who were eligible for the imperial service with its salaried offices; overtaxation, bad management of local finances, and the disappearance of a free peasantry in the surrounding rural districts who had furnished a market for the manufacturers and merchants of the towns. The devastating wars of the third century with the resultant general paralysis of trade and commerce, plus the depopulation caused by plague and barbarian invasions, struck the munic.i.p.alities a crus.h.i.+ng blow from which they never recovered.

As early as the time of Trajan the imperial government found it necessary to appoint officials called curators to reorganize the financial conditions in one or more munic.i.p.alities, sometimes those of a whole province. At first these were irregular officials, senators or equestrians, but by the third century they had become a fixture in munic.i.p.al administration and were chosen from among the local _decuriones_. Another evidence of the same conditions is the change which took place in the position of the local magistracies. In the second century these offices were still an honor for which candidates voluntarily presented themselves, although there were unmistakable signs that in some districts they were coming to be regarded as a burden. In the third century the magistracies had become an obligation resting upon the local senatorial order, and to which appointments were made by the _curia_. The _decurionate_ also had become a burden which all who possessed a definite census rating must a.s.sume. To a.s.sure itself of its revenues in view of the declining prosperity of the communities the imperial government had hit upon the expedient of making the local decurions responsible for collecting the taxes, and consequently had been forced to make the decurionate an obligatory status. The _curia_ and munic.i.p.al magistracies had ended by becoming unwilling cogs in the imperial financial administration.

This loss of munic.i.p.al independence was accompanied by the conversion of the voluntary professional colleges into compulsory public service corporations. From the opening of the princ.i.p.ate the government had depended largely upon private initiative for the performance of many necessary services in connection with the provisioning of the city of Rome, a task which became increasingly complicated when the state undertook the distribution of oil under Septimius Severus, of bread in place of grain and of cheap wine under Aurelian. Therefore such colleges as the s.h.i.+powners (_navicularii_), bakers (_pistores_), pork merchants (_suarii_), wine merchants (_vinarii_), and oil merchants (_olerarii_) received official encouragement. Their members individually a.s.sumed public contracts and in course of time came to receive certain privileges because it was recognized that they were performing services necessary to the public welfare. Marcus Aurelius, Severus and Caracalla were among the emperors who thus fostered the professional guilds. Gradually the idea developed that these services were public duties (_munera_) to which the several colleges were obligated, and hence Severus Alexander took the initiative in founding new colleges until all the city trades were thus organized. The same princeps appointed judicial representatives from each guild and placed them under the jurisdiction of definite courts. The colleges from this time onward operated under governmental supervision and really formed a part of the machinery of the administration, although they had not yet become compulsory and hereditary organizations.

The history of the colleges in the munic.i.p.alities paralleled that of the Roman guilds, although it cannot be traced so clearly in detail. The best known of the munic.i.p.al colleges are those of the artificers (_fabri_), the makers of rag cloths (_centonarii_), and the wood cutters (_dendrophori_).

The organization of these colleges was everywhere encouraged because their members had the obligation of acting as a local fire brigade, but in the exercise of their trades they were not in the service of their respective communities.

It was in the latter part of the third century, when the whole fabric of society seemed threatened with destruction, that the state, with the object of maintaining organized industry and commerce, placed upon the properties of the members of the various colleges in Rome and in the munic.i.p.alities the burden of maintaining the work of these corporations; a burden which soon came also to be laid upon the individual members thereof. In this way the plebeian cla.s.s throughout the empire sank to the status of laborers in the service of the state.

VI. THE COLONATE OR SERFDOM

While the munic.i.p.al decurions, and the Roman and munic.i.p.al plebs had thus sunk to the position of fiscally exploited cla.s.ses, the bulk of the agricultural population of the empire had fallen into a species of serfdom known to the Romans as the colonate, from the use of the word _colonus_ to denote a tenant farmer. This condition arose under varying circ.u.mstances in the different parts of the empire, but its development in Italy and the West was much influenced by the situation in some of the eastern provinces, where the peasantry were in a state of quasi-serfdom prior to the Roman conquest.

*Egypt.* In Egypt under the Ptolemies the inhabitants of village communities were compelled to perform personal services to the state, including the cultivation of royal land not let out on contract, each within the boundaries of the community in which he was registered (his _idia_). 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. During the seasons of sowing and harvest the presence of every villager was required in his _idia_. The crus.h.i.+ng weight of taxation, added to the other obligations of the peasantry caused many of them to flee from their _idia_, and this led to an increasing amount of unleased state land. As a large number of private estates had developed, chiefly because of the encouragement extended to those who brought waste land under cultivation, the government forced the property holders to a.s.sume the contracts for the vacant public lands in their districts. With the introduction of the munic.i.p.al councils in the course of the third century, these were made responsible for the collection of the taxes of each nome.

To enable the councillors, who were property holders, to fulfill this obligation, their tenants were forbidden to leave their holdings. And so, as state or private tenants, the peasants came to be bound to the soil.

The development in Asia Minor was similar. There the royal lands of the Seleucids became the public land of Rome, and out of this the Roman magnates of the later Republic developed vast estates which in turn were concentrated in the hands of Augustus. These imperial domains were cultivated by peasants, who lived in village communities and paid a yearly rental for the land they occupied. The rest of the land of Asia formed the territories dependent upon the Greek cities, and was occupied by a native population who were in part free peasants settled in villages. On the imperial domains the village came to be the _idia_ to which the peasant was permanently attached for the performance of his liturgies or obligatory services, while on the munic.i.p.al territories the agricultural population was bound to the soil as tenants of the munic.i.p.al landholders, the local senators, upon whom had been placed the responsibility for the payment of the taxes of their munic.i.p.alities.

*Africa.* In Africa the transformation was effected differently. There, at the opening of the princ.i.p.ate, outside of the munic.i.p.al territories, the land fell into _ager publicus_, private estates of Roman senators and imperial domains. Under the early emperors, particularly Nero, the bulk of the private estates pa.s.sed by legacy and confiscation into the control of the princeps, who also took over the administration of the public domain in so far as it was not absorbed in new munic.i.p.al areas. This domain land was divided into large districts (_tractus_, _regiones_) which were directly administered by imperial procurators. Each district comprised a number of estates (_saltus_, _fundi_). Whatever slave labor had at one time been used in African agricultural operations was, by the early princ.i.p.ate, largely displaced by free laborers, called _coloni_. These _coloni_ were either Italian immigrants or tributary native holders of the public land.

The estates were usually managed as follows. The procurators leased them to tenant contractors (_conductores_), who retained a part of their lease holds under their own supervision, and sublet the remainder to tenant farmers (_coloni_). The relation of these _coloni_ to the contractors as well as to the owners of private estates or their bailiffs (_vilici_), was regulated by an edict of a certain Mancia, apparently a procurator under the Flavians. By this edict the _coloni_ were obliged to pay a definite proportion of their crop as rental, and in addition to render a certain number of days' work, personally and with their teams, on the land of the person from whom they held their lease. The _coloni_ comprised both landless residents on the estates and small landholders from neighboring villages. They were encouraged to occupy vacant domain land and bring it under cultivation. Over plough land thus cultivated they obtained the right of occupation for life, but orchard land became an hereditary possession, while in both cases the occupant was required to pay rental in kind to the state. Hadrian also tried to further the development of peasant landholders by permitting the _coloni_ to occupy any lands not tilled by the middlemen, and giving them rights of possession over all types of land. However, the forced services still remained and these const.i.tuted the chief grievance of the _coloni_. And here the government was on the horns of a dilemma, for if the middlemen were restrained from undue exactions often large areas remained untilled, and if the _coloni_ were oppressed they absconded and left their holdings without tenants.

It was in the course of the third century that the failure to create an adequate cla.s.s of independent small farmers caused the state to fall back upon the development of large private estates as the only way of keeping the land under cultivation and maintaining the public revenues. As a result of this change of policy the middlemen were transformed from tenants into proprietors, and, like the landholders of Egypt, they were forced to a.s.sume the lease of vacant public land adjacent to their estates. But to make it possible for the proprietors to fulfill this obligation the state had to give them control over the labor needed to till the soil. Hence the _coloni_ were forbidden to leave the estates where they had once established themselves as tenants. In Africa the estate became the _idia_ or _origo_ corresponding to the village in Egypt.

In the munic.i.p.al territories the landholders of the towns played the role of the middlemen on the imperial domains.

*Italy.* In Italy, unlike Africa, conditions upon the private, rather than the imperial, domains determined the rise of the colonate. At the close of the Republic the land of Italy was occupied by the _latifundia_ and peasant holdings, the former of which were by far the most important factor in agricultural life. It will be recalled that the _latifundia_ were great plantations and ranches whose development had been facilitated by an abundant supply of cheap slave labor. However, even in the first century B. C. these plantations were partly tilled by free peasants, either as tenants or day laborers, and under the princ.i.p.ate there was a gradual displacement of slaves by free _coloni_. The causes for this transformation lay in the cutting off of the main supply of slaves through the suppression of the slave-trading pirates and the cessation of aggressive foreign wars, the decrease in the number of slaves through manumissions, the growth of humanitarian tendencies which checked their ruthless exploitation, and the realization that the employment of free labor was in the long run more profitable than that of slaves, particularly when the latter were becoming increasingly expensive to procure. The _coloni_ worked the estates of the landowners for a certain proportion of the harvest. As elsewhere, in Italy it was fiscal necessity which converted the free _coloni_ into serfs. With the spread of waste lands, due partly to a decline of the population, the state intervened on behalf of the landlords as it had in the provinces and attached the peasants to the domain where they had once been voluntary tenants.

Elsewhere throughout the empire, although the process cannot be traced in detail, a similar transformation took place.

Perhaps the ultimate responsibility for the development of the colonate may rest upon the attempt of the imperial government to incorporate within the empire vast territories in a comparatively low state of civilization, and upon the fiscal system whereby it was designed that the expenses imposed by this policy should be met. In the West the administration strove to develop a strong cla.s.s of prosperous peasants as state tenants; in the East its object was to maintain this cla.s.s which was already in existence. But the financial needs of the state caused such a heavy burden to be laid upon the agricultural population that the ideal of a prosperous free peasantry proved impossible of realization. The ravages of war and plague in the second and third centuries also fell heavily upon the peasants. As a last resource to check the decline of agriculture the government placed the small farmer at the disposal of the rich landlord and made him a serf. The results were oppression, poverty, lack of initiative, a decline in the birth rate, flight and at the end an increase of uncultivated, unproductive land. The transplanting of conquered barbarians within the empire swelled the cla.s.s of the _coloni_ but proved only a partial palliative to the general shrinkage of the agricultural elements. But the converse to the development of the colonate was the creation of a powerful cla.s.s of landholders who were the owners of large domains exempt from the control of munic.i.p.al authorities.

CHAPTER XX

RELIGION AND SOCIETY

I. SOCIETY UNDER THE PRINc.i.p.aTE

*Imperial Rome.* Roman society under the Princ.i.p.ate exhibits in general the same characteristics as during the last century of the Republic. Rome itself was a thoroughly cosmopolitan city, where the concentration of wealth and political power attracted the ambitious, the adventurous and the curious from all lands. Whole quarters were occupied by various nationalities, most prominent among whom were the Greeks, the Syrians, and the Jews, speaking their own languages and plying their native trades.

With the freeborn foreign population mingled the thousands of slaves and freedmen of every race and tongue. During the first and second century the population of Rome must have been in the neighborhood of one million, but in the third century it began to decline as a result of pestilence and the general bankruptcy of the empire. Inevitably in such a city there were the sharpest contrasts between riches and poverty, and the luxurious palaces of the wealthy were matched by the squalid tenements of the proletariat.

In outward appearance Rome underwent a transformation which made her worthy to be capital of so vast an empire. This was largely due to the great number of public buildings erected by the various emperors and to the lavish employment of marble in public and private architecture from the time of Augustus. The temples, basilicas, fora, aqueducts, public baths, theatres, palaces, triumphal arches, statues, and parks combined to arouse the enthusiastic admiration of travelers and the pride of its inhabitants. But, although after the great fire of 64 A. D. many improvements were made in the plan of the city, restrictions placed upon the height of buildings, and fireproof construction required for the lower stories, still the streets remained narrow and dingy, the lofty tenements were of flimsy construction, in perpetual danger of collapse, and devastating conflagrations occurred periodically.

The task of feeding the city plebs and providing for their entertainment was a ruinous legacy left by the Republic to the princ.i.p.ate. Although the number of recipients of free corn was not increased after Augustus, the public spectacles became ever more numerous and more magnificent. Under Tiberius eighty-seven days of the year were regularly occupied by these entertainments but by the time of Marcus Aurelius there were one hundred and thirty-five such holidays. In addition came extraordinary festivals to celebrate special occasions, like the one hundred and twenty-three day carnival given by Trajan at his second Dacian triumph in 106 A. D. The spectacles were of three main types; the chariot races in the circus, the gladiatorial combats and animal baiting in the amphitheatre, and the dramatic and other performances in the theatre. The expense of these celebrations fell upon the senatorial order and the princeps. Indeed the most important function of the consuls.h.i.+p, praetors.h.i.+p and, until its disappearance in the third century, the aediles.h.i.+p, came to be the celebration of the regular festivals. The sums provided for such purposes by the state were entirely inadequate and so the cost had to be met largely from the magistrates' private resources. The extraordinary spectacles were all given at the expense of the princeps who also at times granted subventions to favored senators from the imperial purse. The cost of the public shows placed as heavy a drain upon the fortunes of the senatorial order as did the _summa honoraria_ upon the holders of munic.i.p.al offices.

A new feature of Roman society under the princ.i.p.ate was the growth of the imperial court. In spite of the wishes of Augustus and some of his successors to live on a footing of equality with the rest of the n.o.bility, it was inevitable that the exceptional political power of the princeps should give a corresponding importance to his household organization.

Definite offices developed within the imperial household not only for the conduct of public business but also for the control of slaves and freedmen in the domestic service of the princeps. The chief household officials were the chamberlain _a cubiculo_ and the chief usher (_ab admissione_).

Because of their intimate personal a.s.sociation with the princeps their influence over him was very great, and as a rule they did not hesitate to use their position to enrich themselves at the expense of those who sought the imperial favor. From among the senators and equestrians the princeps chose a number of intimate a.s.sociates and advisors who were called his "friends." When forming part of his cortege away from Rome they were known as his companions (_comites Augusti_). In connection with the imperial audiences a certain degree of ceremonial developed, with fixed forms of salutation which differentiated the rank and station of those attending these functions. In the society of the capital the personal tastes of the princeps set the fas.h.i.+on of the day.

*Clients.* Characteristic of the times was the new form of clientage which was a voluntary a.s.sociation of master and paid retainer. Under the republic eminent men had throngs of adherents to greet them at their morning reception and accompany them to the forum. It had now become obligatory for practically every man of wealth to maintain such a retinue, which should be at his beck and call at all hours of the day and be prepared to serve him in various ways. In return the patron helped to support his clients with fees, food, and gifts of clothing, and rendered them other favors. The clients were recruited partly from freedmen, partly from citizens of low birth, and partly from persons of the better cla.s.s who had fallen upon evil days. In general the lot of these pensioners does not seem to have been a very happy one-even the slaves of their patrons despised them-and their large numbers are to be attributed to the superior attractions of city over country life, and to the stigma which in Rome rested upon industrial employment.

*Slaves and freedmen.* In the early princ.i.p.ate slave-holding continued on as large a scale as in the late republic. The palaces of the wealthy in Rome could count slaves by hundreds; on the larger plantations they were numbered by thousands. Trained slaves were also employed in great numbers in various trades and industries. Their treatment varied according to their employment and the character of their owners, but there was a steady progress towards greater humanitarianism, largely due to the influence of philosophic doctrines. In the age of the Antonines this produced legislation which limited the power of the master over his slave. As time went on the number of slaves steadily diminished, in part because of the cessation of continual foreign wars after the time of Augustus, in part because of the great increase of manumissions. Not only were large numbers set free at the death of their owners as a final act of generosity, but also many found it profitable to liberate their slaves and provide them with capital to engage in business for themselves. Many slaves also had good opportunities for acc.u.mulating a small store of money (_peculium_) with which they could purchase their freedom.

The result of these wholesale manumissions was a tremendous increase in the freedmen cla.s.s. Foreseeing the effect that this would have upon the Roman citizen body, Augustus endeavored to restrict the right of emanc.i.p.ation. By the _lex Fufia Caninia_ (2 B. C.) testamentary manumissions were limited to a fixed proportion of the total number of slaves held by the deceased, and not more than one hundred allowed in any case. The _lex Aelia Sentia_ (4 A. D.) placed restrictions upon the master's right of manumission during his lifetime, and the Junian law of about the same time prevented slaves liberated without certain formalities from receiving Roman citizens.h.i.+p although granting them the status of Latins. Even freedmen who became Romans lacked the right of voting or of holding office in Rome or the munic.i.p.alities, unless they received from the princeps the right to wear the gold ring which gave them the privileges of freeborn citizens. In spite of these laws the number of the freedmen grew apace, and there is no doubt that in the course of the princ.i.p.ate the racial characteristics of the population of Rome and of the whole peninsula of Italy underwent a complete transformation as a result of the infusion of this new element, combined with the emigration of Italians to the provinces.

The importance of the role played by the freedmen in Roman society was in proportion to their numbers. From them were recruited the lower ranks of the civil service, they filled every trade and profession, the commerce of the empire was largely in their hands, they became the managers of estates and of business undertakings of all sorts. The eager pursuit of money at all costs was their common characteristic, and "freedman's wealth" was a proverbial expression for riches quickly acquired. The more successful of their cla.s.s became landholders in Italy and aped the life and manners of the n.o.bility. Their lack of good taste, so common to the _nouveaux riches_ of all ages, afforded a good target for the jibes of satirists and is caricatured in the novel of Petronius. We have already seen the influence of the few among them who by the emperors' favor attained positions of political importance. Despise the freedmen though they might, the Romans found them indispensable for the conduct of public and private business.

*Commerce and industry.* The restoration of peace within the empire, the suppression of piracy, the extension of the Roman military highways throughout all the provinces, the establishment of a single currency valid for the whole empire, and the low duties levied at the provincial customs frontiers combined to produce an hitherto unexampled development of commercial enterprise. Traders from all parts of the provinces thronged the ports of Italy, and one merchant of Hierapolis in Phrygia has left a record of his seventy-two voyages there. But Roman commerce was not confined within the Roman borders, it also flourished with outside peoples, particularly those of the East. From the ports of Egypt on the Red Sea large merchant fleets sailed for southern Arabia and India, while a brisk caravan trade through the Parthian and Bactrian kingdoms brought the silks of China to the Roman markets. Even the occasional presence of Roman merchants in China is vouched for by Chinese records. Among all the races of the empire the most active in these mercantile ventures were the Syrians, whose presence may be traced not only in the commercial centers of the East, but also in the harbors of Italy and throughout all the western provinces.

The increased opportunities for trading stimulated the development of manufacturing, for not only could raw materials be more easily procured but towns favorably situated for the manufacture of particular types of goods could find a wider market for their products. However, industrial organization never attained a high degree of development. In the production of certain wares, such as articles of bronze, silver, gla.s.s, and, especially, pottery and bricks, the factory system seems to have been employed, with a division of labor among specialized artisans. In general, however, this was not the case and each manufactured article was the product of one man's labor. In Italy, and probably throughout the western provinces, the bulk of the work of this sort was done by slaves and freedmen.

At the same time the art of agriculture had been developed to a very high degree, and Columella, an agricultural writer of the time of Nero, shows a good knowledge of the principles of fertilization and rotation of crops.

However, this material prosperity, which attained its height early in the second century of our era, declined from reasons which have already been described until the whole empire reached a state of economic bankruptcy in the course of the third century. The progressive bankruptcy of the government is shown by the steady deterioration of the coinage. Under Nero the denarius, the standard silver coin, was first debased. This debas.e.m.e.nt continued until under Septimius Severus it became one half copper.

Caracalla issued a new silver coin, the Antoninia.n.u.s, one and a half times the weight of the denarius of the day. Both these coins rapidly deteriorated in quality until they became mere copper coins with a wash of silver. Aurelian made the first attempt to correct this evil by issuing only the Antoninia.n.u.s and giving this a standard value.

To pa.s.s a moral judgment upon society under the princ.i.p.ate is a difficult task. The society depicted in the satires of Juvenal and in Martial, in the court gossip of Suetonius, or in the polemics of the Christian writers seems hopelessly corrupt and vicious. But their picture is not complete.

The letters of Pliny reveal an entirely different world with a high standard of human conduct, whose ideals are expressed in the philosophic doctrines of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. And the funerary inscriptions from the munic.i.p.alities, where life was more wholesome and simple than in the large cities, pay a sincere tribute to virtue in all its forms. The luxurious extravagance of imperial Rome has been equalled and surpa.s.sed in more recent times, and, apart from the vices of slavery and the arena, modern society has little wherewith to reproach that of the princ.i.p.ate.

II. THE INTELLECTUAL WORLD

*Literature.* The princ.i.p.ate had two literatures; one Greek, the other Roman. But the forms of literary production were the same in each, and the Roman authors took rank with those of Greece in their respective fields.

For the Romans could boast that they had adapted the Latin tongue to the literary types of the older culture world, while preserving in their work a spirit genuinely Roman.

*The Augustan age.* The feeling of relief produced by the cessation of the civil wars, and the hopes engendered by the policy of Augustus inspired a group of writers whose genius made the age of Augustus the culminating point in the development of Roman poetry, like the age of Cicero in Roman prose. Foremost among the poets of the new era was Virgil (7019 B. C.), the son of a small landholder of Mantua, whose _Aeneid_, a national epic, the glorification alike of Rome and of the Julian house, placed him with Homer in the front rank of epic poets for all time. His greatest contemporary was Horace (658 B. C.), the son of a freedman from South Italy. It was Horace who first wrote Latin lyrics in the complicated meters of Greece, and whose genial satire and insight into human nature have combined with his remarkable happiness of phrase to make him the delight of cultivated society both in antiquity and modern times. The leading elegiac poets were Propertius, Tibullus and Ovid (43 B. C.17 A. D.). In his _Fasti_ and _Metamorphoses_ the latter recounted with masterly narrative skill the legends of Greek and Roman mythology. His elegies reveal the spirit of the pleasure-seeking society of new Rome and show the ineffectiveness of the attempt of Augustus to bring about a moral regeneration of the Roman people. This, probably, was the true ground for his banishment from Rome. Livy (59 B. C.17 A. D.) was the one prose writer of note in the Augustan age. His history of Rome is a great work of art, an _Aeneid_ in prose, which celebrated the past greatness of Rome and the virtues whereby this had been attained-those virtues which Augustus aimed to revive.

*The age of Nero.* From Augustus to Nero there are no names of note in Roman literature, but under the latter came a slight reawakening of literary productivity. Seneca (4 B. C.65 A. D.), a Spaniard from Corduba, Nero's tutor, minister and victim, is best known as the exponent of the practical Stoic religion and the only Roman tragedian whose works have survived. His nephew Lucan (3965 A. D.) portrayed in his epic, the _Pharsalia_, the struggle of the republicans against Julius Caesar. His work shows a reawakening of a vain republican idealism and is the counterpart to the Stoic opposition in the senate. Petronius (d. 66 A. D.), the arbiter of the refinements of luxury at Nero's court, displayed his originality by giving, in the form of a novel, a skilful and lively picture of the society of the freedmen in the Greek munic.i.p.alities of South Italy.

*The Flavian era.* Under the Flavians, Pliny the Elder (2379 A. D.), a native of Cisalpine Gaul, compiled his _Natural History_, which he aimed to make an encyclopaedia of information on the whole world of nature. It is a work of monumental industry but displays a lack of critical ac.u.men and scientific training. At about the same time there taught in Rome the Spaniard Quintilian (d. 95 A. D.), who wrote on the theory and practice of rhetoric, expressing in charming prose the Ciceronian ideal of life and education. His countryman Martial (d. 102 A. D.) gave in satiric epigrams glimpses of the meaner aspects of contemporary life.

*Tacitus and his contemporaries.* The freer atmosphere of the government of Nerva and Trajan allowed the senatorial aristocracy to voice feelings carefully suppressed under the terror of Domitian. Their spokesman was Tacitus (55116 A. D.), a man of true genius, who ranks next to Thucydides as the representative of artistic historical writing in ancient times. His _Treatise on the Orators_, his _Life of Agricola_, and his descriptive account of the German peoples (_Germania_) were preludes to two great historical works, the _Annals_ and the _Histories_, which together covered the period from 1496 A. D. His att.i.tude is strongly influenced by the persecutions of senators under Domitian, and is the expression of his personal animosity and that of the descendants of the older republican n.o.bility towards the princ.i.p.ate in general. A friend of Tacitus, the younger Pliny (62113 A. D.), imitated Cicero in collecting and publis.h.i.+ng his letters. This correspondence is valuable as an ill.u.s.tration of the life and literary diletantism of educated circles of the day, as also for the light it throws upon the administrative policies of Trajan. An embittered critic of the age was the satirist Juvenal (d. about 130 A. D.), from Aquinum in Italy, who wrote from a stoical standpoint but with little learning and narrow vision. Somewhat later the first literary history of Rome was written by Suetonius (75150 A. D.), who is better known as the author of the _Lives of the Caesars_ (from Julius to Domitian), a series of gossipy narratives which set the style for future historical writing in Rome.

With Hadrian begins the period of archaism in Roman literature, that is, an artificial return to the Latin of Cato, Ennius and Plautus, an unmistakable symptom of intellectual sterility.

*Provincial literature.* The progress of Romanization in the provinces is clearly marked by the partic.i.p.ation of provincials in the literary life of Rome. From the Cisalpine, from Narbonese Gaul, and from Spain, men with literary instincts and ability had been drawn to the capital as the sole place where their talents would find recognition. But gradually some of the provinces developed a Latin culture of their own. The first evidences of this change came from the age of the Antonines, when a Latin literature made its appearance in the province of Africa. Its earliest representative was the sophist Apuleius, the author of the romance ent.i.tled _The Golden a.s.s_.