ASTONISHING depravity marked the last days of the Republic, to the point where it was even said that annual divorces were as much the fashion in Rome as voluntary celibacy1.335 Seneca says there were women who reckoned their years by their husbands. In the severe, early period of the Republic, celibacy was considered censurable2 and even guilty,336 whereas later it was not only condoned3 but wittily4 approved, to judge by the quips of the dramatist, Plautus, whose cynical5 references to marriage and the burden of a wife read not unlike our own scoffing6 and immoral7 dramatists of the eighteenth century.337
Civil wars and proscriptions had left great voids in Roman families; more prolific8 foreigners, freed224men, and slaves began to dominate the noisy city now beginning to earn her title of Mistress of the World. The visitor to Pompeii today, noting the large and heavy paving blocks, the narrow sidewalks, the deep ruts made in these solid streets by the heavy wagons10, the open shops, the indecent signs, sees Rome in miniature. All this cosmopolitan11 disorder12 marked the greater town that had not twenty thousand inhabitants but a million; the noise and the congestion13 increased out of all proportion to its size because of the character of its dwellers14, for Rome had a large foreign population. As in modern New York or London, it was in the foreign quarters that were found the discomforts15, the loud misunderstandings, and the noisy, tragic17 fights for small things.
The stranger arriving in Rome had hardly entered its gates when he was being jostled and shoved. The narrow streets were filled with pedlars calling their wares18 of all kinds, from matches (sulphurata), in exchange for broken glass where money was scarce, to a dish of boiled peas for an as, or fine smoking sausages for those who had more money. Idlers filled the streets at all hours, but especially at the lunch hour (the sixth) when business ceased and those who patronized the cafés (tabern?) were hurrying to get to their accustomed tables.338
THE FINDING OF ROMULUS AND REMUS
Around billboards19 (programmata) announcing 225new plays or exhibitions, crowds gathered while other groups watched acrobats20, who beat themselves for the comic effects produced; dancers, jugglers, snake charmers, and performers of every kind and nation abounded21. Heavily loaded wagons rumbled22 noisily along while their drivers cursed and lashed23 the tired beasts of burden, or the appearance of a tamed bear threw an entire street into wild and joyous24 confusion. Or perhaps a new troupe25 of gladiators entered town, to the complete cessation of all business and pastimes.339 Here and there in the streets, money-changers and others set up tables in convenient places where they were least apt to be driven away, and hawked26 loudly the bargains that they offered. Money from all the world was then flowing Romeward, and in nothing was this shown more than in expensive funerals, with their hired and vociferous27 mourners, blocking the streets and putting an end for the time being, to other business—and amusements.340 Narrow as were the streets, they were made more so by the tabern?, built up against the houses, this practice becoming so much of a nuisance (as in modern times) that the Emperor Domitian caused a decree to be issued against them, forcing the owners to remove the encroachments and confine themselves to the area of the house.341
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A drunken man taking the entire via in his navigation—to the amusement of the crowd; a member of the city guard hurrying some offender28 to the court; or, reclining in his lectica, a noble, carried by six uniformed slaves, his other numerous attendants clearing the way for him—all these added to the noise and confusion—while through it all children crowded the curb29 with their games.
Such was the Rome that Augustus found, its proud citizens masters of the world, luxurious30, sensual, disdainful of the very idea of duty, idling days away while they scoffed31 at marriage. But the foreigners, the freedmen, and the slaves married, and when the burden of a new child was too much for the small income made by amusing or serving some Roman citizen, the little newcomer was thrown into the Tiber or left unmarked on a busy thoroughfare. One of the first undertakings32 of Augustus was to try to remedy these evil conditions by laws and fiscal33 measures, his principal endeavour being to put an end to the corruption34 of morals and the exhaustion35 of the legitimate36 population.
From the day of the battle of Actium (b. c. 31) when the Roman world practically lay at his feet, Octavius, or Augustus as he was afterward37 called, while gratifying his ambition in adding to his power, studiously and ostentatiously observed the forms of popular government. In this he was paying heed38 to the fate of his uncle and also227 conciliating the people, though with every ingratiating move he increased his power.
One of the first laws he proposed was the lex Julia (de maritandis ordinibus) which was rejected by the comitia tributa, b. c. 18, but was adopted in a. d. 4. To this was added as a supplement the lex Papia Popp?a, the two being known as the lex Julia et Papia or as nov? leges, or simply leges, the latter reference indicating that they were referred to as the laws par39 excellence40. Not only marriage, but everything connected with it was treated in these two laws, which really constituted a code, the most extensive after the laws of the Twelve Tables.
These laws made a great impression on Roman society. How completely customs had swung to extremes since the days of Romulus is shown in this lex Papia, as Gaius calls it. Instead of securing the father in his right over the life of children, as the stern head of the house who might decide at will whether he should let his offspring live, the law now decreed that it was through the children that he gained a status in the community. Persons who were not married and had no children were unable to inherit; the unmarried person not being able to take any part of what had been left to him, and the married person without children (orbus) being able to take only one half.342 Among228 the provisions of the lex Julia, or the leges, were those entitling that candidate for office who had the greatest number of children to preference. Of the two consuls41 it was decreed that he should be the senior whose children were the most numerous; a relief from all personal taxes and burdens was granted to citizens who had three children if they lived in Rome, four if they lived in Italy, and five if they lived in the provinces.
With the establishment of the caduca, by which there was instituted a punishment for sterility42 and a reward for legitimate procreation, it can be seen that there would follow some diminution43 in the number of children exposed, though according to Tacitus,343 “marriages and the rearing of children did not become more frequent, so powerful are the attractions of the childless state.”
By giving the people, or the common treasury44, the benefit of the clause forfeiting45 the inheritance on account of sterility, the law was recognizing the populus as the common father, a legal concept that is becoming more and more the attitude of the twentieth century, and was then first trenchantly46 expressed.
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Suppressed in part by the constitution of Caracalla as to the privileges of paternity to the claim upon the caduca, and by Constantine as to the penalties for celibacy, these laws were not completely and textually abrogated47 until Justinian. They were the beginning, however, of the new movement; out of the degeneration and degradation48 of the waning49 days of the Republic there had come at least this forward step, though the patricians50 complained that these provisions gave rise to despised informers and opportunities for tyrannical misuse51 of power.
The child now had some other than a future use; it had an immediate52 value. Occasionally, in times past, strangers had picked up children exposed by their parents and had reared them as slaves, or maimed and blinded them for the profession of begging. Augustus set aside a reward of two thousand sesterces (about $40.00) for the person who would rear an orphan53. This was the seed of a growing humanity, the first intimation of an inclination54 to treat children with kindness, though it contrasts with Augustus’s own personal conduct when his anger was aroused. Both his daughter and granddaughter were so profligate55 that he banished56 them; when his granddaughter Julia was delivered of a child after sentence, he ordered that the child be “neither owned as a relative nor brought up.”344
From the death of Augustus, 14 a. d., to the230 reign9 of Nerva, 96 a. d., the violent sway of the army and the tragic fate of successive emperors cloud the history of Roman law and progress.
The Emperor Claudius distinguished57 himself by ordering that Claudia, a child by his first wife, “who was in truth the daughter of his freedman Boter, be thrown naked at her mother’s door.”345
There were no successors to the great jurists of the type of Capito and Labeo, whose opinions in Augustan days were accepted by even the emperor himself. With the coming of Nerva there was a great change in the attitude toward children. Despite a short reign of two years and a reputation for a weak will, it was to his initiative that the State owed the movement to put an end to the practice of abandoning infants, by having the government subsidize poor parents.
Apparently58 there was no other way of stopping this ruinous custom in a degenerate59 day. It was useless to appeal to the rich to rear families, and the poor who were still producing children were becoming poorer. One of Nerva’s noteworthy acts to alleviate60 conditions was the founding of colonies, and it was in accordance with the same general plan that, a few months before he died, he ordered that assistance should be given parents who found themselves without the means of bringing up their offspring.
This order was issued in the year 97, and so successful was the experiment under his successor,231 who accepted and enlarged the plan, that in the year 100, five thousand children were receiving aid from the State. Much credit is given to Trajan for following up the ideas of Nerva, but it was to Nerva that Rome owed Trajan, one of the most humane61 of her emperors.
Another evidence of the humanity of Nerva was the fact that he prohibited the making of eunuchs, a practice that had met with the disfavour of the Emperor Domitian years before, and a practice that led the Pope Clement62 XIV., to decree, centuries later, that no more castrats should sing in churches. And these things he did when the extravagance of his predecessors63 had made it necessary for him to sell the imperial furniture and jewels in order to replenish64 the treasury. One of his coins shows him seated in the curule chair, dispensing65 charity to a boy and girl, the mother standing16 near, with the legend “Tutela Italia.”
One need only to read the gentle replies of the Emperor Trajan to the younger Pliny, to see that, in that reign at least, there was a great change and that the conception of duty in the modern sense was creeping into a military world. Pliny himself, in a letter to Cannius, describes how he settled five hundred thousand sesterces (about $20,000) on the city of Como for the maintenance of children, “who were born of good families”—an act as traceable to the growing protective tendency as to Pliny’s patriotism66 and love of glory.
232
According to the tablet of Velia346 to the Emperor Trajan, the landed proprietors67 of the place received on mortgage at five per cent.,347 less than half the usual rate of that time, what would be about $50,000 of our money, the interest of which was to go to the maintenance of three hundred poor children.
The means employed to help parents and prevent them from exposing their children were skilfully68 contrived69. Through the municipality, Trajan lent money to certain proprietors to improve their land, and the interest paid on this loan constituted a benevolent70 fund by which the children were taken care of, or rather, by which their parents were rewarded for not murdering them. From the table of Velia we learn also that fifty-one proprietors of that section received on land twelve times the value of the loan, or 1,116,000 sesterces ($52,820) the annual interest of which, 55,800 sesterces ($2,650), constituted a fund for the support of three hundred children, two hundred and sixty-four boys and thirty-six girls. The boys received annually71 192 sesterces, and the girls 144 sesterces. Illegitimate children were given less, the boys 144 sesterces, and the girls 120 sesterces,233 although in the tablet there were only two illegitimate children, one boy and one girl. The fact that the number of girls assisted was only one-tenth the number of boys, goes to show, that this new institution was not due so much to the fact that the sentiment of charity had infiltrated72 through pagan society, as to the fact that pagan society was endeavouring to repair the ravages73 of degenerate and pauperistic days, shown in the diminution of the class of freedmen in Rome.348
Writing to Pliny at Bithynia, to which place he had been sent by Trajan as imperial legate, the Emperor mildly answers an inquiry74 as to what the law shall be in that province regarding deserted75 children. Trajan rules that deserted children, who are found and brought up, shall be allowed their freedom without being obliged to repay the money expended76 for their maintenance.
“The question concerning such children who were exposed by their parents,” says Trajan, “and afterward preserved by others, and educated in a state of servitude, though born free, has been frequently discussed; but I do not find in the constitutions of the princes, my predecessors, any general regulation upon this head extending to all the provinces. There are, indeed, some rescripts of Domitian to Avidius Niguinus and Armenius Brocchus, which ought to be observed; but Bithynia is not comprehended in the provinces therein mentioned. I am of opinion, therefore, that the234 claims of those who assert their right of freedom upon this principle, should be allowed, without compelling them to purchase their liberty by repaying the money advanced for their maintenance.”349
A new note this, for in order to encourage the saving of children who had been exposed, the custom had been rigidly77 followed that the person who saved a child was able to regard it as his slave, without regard to what its condition had been previous to exposure.
As shown in the correspondence of Pliny and Trajan, there is much truth, in the contention78 that the Emperor shows up better than the philosopher and poet.
The noteworthy thing about this remarkable79 exchange of letters is that a new spirit is revealed. It is a living, working philosophy that we discover, practical results of that philosophy bringing a kindlier treatment of slaves, a greater respect for women, a more thoughtful regard for the education of the young, and a gentler assistance of the helpless and distressed80.
True, Cicero, a century and a half before had preached doctrines81 that paved the way, and for generations earlier there had been such a kindlier spirit in the air. But not until now do we find a man of Pliny’s dominating prominence82, or nearness to power, suggesting that he will pay a third of the expenses of the cost of founding a university235 in his own town. His reason, he says, is to save youths from going to Milan for their education and thereby83 getting away from the proper home influences.
Tracing the thin thread of child progress through these livid days we are brought in touch with the little known but better side of Roman life; for despite the general debauchery of the upper classes and the unwholesome pictures of Juvenal, there is evidence that there were Roman families untouched by the general immorality84 where women of the type of Marcia or Helvia, addressed in the letters of Seneca, presided over homes in which there was an atmosphere of virtue85 and self-restraint, and where tales of deeds of the Romans of the earlier days still had their charm and their influence.
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1
celibacy
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| n.独身(主义) | |
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censurable
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| adj.可非难的，该责备的 | |
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condoned
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| v.容忍，宽恕，原谅( condone的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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wittily
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| 机智地，机敏地 | |
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cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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scoffing
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| n. 嘲笑, 笑柄, 愚弄 v. 嘲笑, 嘲弄, 愚弄, 狼吞虎咽 | |
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immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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prolific
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| adj.丰富的，大量的；多产的，富有创造力的 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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cosmopolitan
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| adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的 | |
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disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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congestion
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| n.阻塞，消化不良 | |
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dwellers
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| n.居民，居住者( dweller的名词复数 ) | |
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discomforts
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| n.不舒适( discomfort的名词复数 )；不愉快，苦恼 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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wares
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| n. 货物, 商品 | |
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billboards
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| n.广告牌( billboard的名词复数 ) | |
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acrobats
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| n.杂技演员( acrobat的名词复数 )；立场观点善变的人，主张、政见等变化无常的人 | |
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abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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rumbled
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| 发出隆隆声，发出辘辘声( rumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 轰鸣着缓慢行进； 发现…的真相； 看穿（阴谋） | |
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lashed
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| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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troupe
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| n.剧团，戏班；杂技团；马戏团 | |
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hawked
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| 通过叫卖主动兜售（hawk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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vociferous
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| adj.喧哗的，大叫大嚷的 | |
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offender
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| n.冒犯者，违反者，犯罪者 | |
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curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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scoffed
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| 嘲笑，嘲弄( scoff的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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undertakings
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| 企业( undertaking的名词复数 )； 保证； 殡仪业； 任务 | |
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fiscal
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| adj.财政的，会计的，国库的，国库岁入的 | |
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corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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par
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| n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的 | |
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excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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consuls
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| 领事( consul的名词复数 )； （古罗马共和国时期）执政官 （古罗马共和国及其军队的最高首长，同时共有两位，每年选举一次） | |
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42
sterility
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| n.不生育，不结果，贫瘠，消毒，无菌 | |
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diminution
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| n.减少；变小 | |
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treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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45
forfeiting
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| （因违反协议、犯规、受罚等）丧失，失去( forfeit的现在分词 ) | |
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46
trenchantly
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47
abrogated
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| 废除（法律等）( abrogate的过去式和过去分词 )； 取消； 去掉； 抛开 | |
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48
degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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49
waning
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| adj.（月亮）渐亏的，逐渐减弱或变小的n.月亏v.衰落( wane的现在分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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50
patricians
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| n.（古罗马的）统治阶层成员( patrician的名词复数 )；贵族，显贵 | |
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51
misuse
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| n.误用，滥用；vt.误用，滥用 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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orphan
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| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
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inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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profligate
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| adj.行为不检的；n.放荡的人，浪子，肆意挥霍者 | |
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banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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degenerate
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| v.退步，堕落；adj.退步的，堕落的；n.堕落者 | |
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alleviate
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| v.减轻，缓和，缓解(痛苦等) | |
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humane
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| adj.人道的，富有同情心的 | |
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clement
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| adj.仁慈的；温和的 | |
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predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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replenish
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| vt.补充；(把…)装满；(再)填满 | |
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dispensing
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| v.分配( dispense的现在分词 )；施与；配（药） | |
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patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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proprietors
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| n.所有人，业主( proprietor的名词复数 ) | |
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skilfully
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| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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71
annually
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| adv.一年一次，每年 | |
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72
infiltrated
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| adj.[医]浸润的v.（使）渗透，（指思想）渗入人的心中( infiltrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ravages
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| 劫掠后的残迹，破坏的结果，毁坏后的残迹 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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expended
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| v.花费( expend的过去式和过去分词 )；使用（钱等）做某事；用光；耗尽 | |
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rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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contention
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| n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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80
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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81
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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prominence
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| n.突出；显著；杰出；重要 | |
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83
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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84
immorality
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| n. 不道德, 无道义 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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