ROME UNDER THE CIESARS.* MR. INGE's work is partly descriptive,
partly judicial. He draws a picture of Roman society, tells us what it believed and thought, how it lived, how it was governed,—to put it briefly, what was its condition and manner of life, moral, social, and political. Such chapters as those on "Grades of Society," "Amusements," "Luxury," are mostly descriptive. Those, on the other hand, that deal with such subjects as " Morality " and " Religion " cannot avoid being, in a degree, judicial. The writer has to give us, more or less decidedly, his opinion on the vexed question,—Were these Romans better or worse than ourselves, more or less humane and pure, more or less true to duty as individual men, as sharers in family life, as citizens ? Learning is the special quali- fication for the one kind of work, fairness of mind and sobriety of judgment for the other. And these Mr. Inge possesses. His learning is not exhaustive. Such could hardly be expected in so young a man. And he is capable, as we shall see, of making a serious mistake. But he has read widely and carefully. His temper of mind is all that could be desired- Possibly he is too fond of qualifications and reserves to be very effective. A reader might say, after reading his book, that he does not know whether "society in Rome under the Caesars" was good or bad. But then, it might fairly be answered to him that a more definite impression would probably be in.. correct. Here, there was a falling away from the higher standard of earlier time ; there, can be seen the beginning of better things. It was a time of corruption, but with the stirrings in it of changes which were to raise and purify.
Mr. Inge's first chapter naturally deals with religion. He dwells on its political character as practised in the Roman State. He gives it at least all the credit to which it is entitled when he says that "the offender against the moral law was felt to be severely punished by the simple anathema which declared him sacer." But what is meant by "moral law"? Patriotism, with its cognate virtues, the Roman religion encouraged. There were others to which it was indifferent. Among us "piety "is felt to be a sham unless it includes purity, liberality, humanity. The " pious " Roman might easily be wanting in • Society i, Rome under the (Imam By William Ralph Ingo, MA. London : John Murray. 1888.
these. The " good " man, in our sense, is better expressed by the word sanctus, an expression of rare praise.
In speaking of the hold which religious belief had on the Roman world, Mr. Inge rightly points out that "the leading writers of any age are seldom the truest exponents of the belief of the masses," and argues with much force that some kind of religious faith was much more common than we suppose. Even the incredulity of the learned is often exag- gerated. Mr. Inge himself makes a curious error in this direction when he says (p. 14) that Cicero, "himself an augur, quotes with approval Cato's saying that he wondered how one augur could meet another without laughing." What Cato said was that he wondered how one haruspex could meet another without laughing. There was all the difference in the world between an augur and an haruspex, as much as between a Bishop and an unlicensed preacher. No one would have been more annoyed than Cicero to see them confounded. Nothing seemed to him more absurd than that an ex-auctioneer should not be made a town counsellor when a practising haruspex was admitted into the Senate (Ad Diversos, vi., 18).
Chap. iii., "Morality," is naturally one of the most im- portant in Mr. Inge's volume. He divides the subject into the three sections of "Integrity," "Humanity," and" Purity." On the first count, his judgment is adverse to Roman morality, which at the best was narrow and technical. Their quibbling in the matter of the capitulation at the Caudine Forks is a typical instance of their observance ef obligations. And we may be sure that individuals are not better than the State in which they arc aggregated. In the matter of humanity, the Empire '.as better than the Republic. Mr. Inge asserts this, but remarks,—" It is not so much a real advance in morality as an increase in the sentiment of humanity." This is a qualification that we do not quite understand. It seems to rest on a narrow conception of the word "morality," and is inconsistent with the subsequent remark that this improvement was partly due to "Stoicism, which preached the brotherhood of man with great persistency." A society that has begun to accept this doctrine has so far made an advance in morality. The evidence which Mr. Inge has collected on this point, especially as it regards slavery, is particularly interesting. Under this head falls the important subject of the games and gladiatorial shows. Here the advance is to be seen rather in the opinion of the cultured than in the feeling of the masses. The mob that Trajan pleased with his ten thousand gladiators was as brutal as that of earlier days ; but then, Seneca is much more enlightened in his condemnation of such spectacles than Cicero. Purity is a subject on which much cannot be written in a work of this kind. To this, as much as to anything, applies the argument which Mr. Inge urges more than once, that we know little or nothing about the life of any class in Roman society except the highest. It is neither to the aristocracy of a country, corrupted by luxury and idleness, nor to the poor, too often degraded by the physical conditions of their life, that we have to look for the highest standard of morality. At the same time, we must remember that the middle class was much less numerous and independent in Rome than it is among us. Here, again, Mr. Inge feels compelled to give an adverse judgment.
The latter, and what we have called the descriptive part of Mr. Inge's volume, naturally furnishes the most agreeable reading. A considerable public will be interested in hearing about the troubles, the work, and the pay of schoolmasters and literary men. The time of the Cmsars seems to have been more favourable to the teacher than to the author. That the tutor of Augustus's grandchildren should have received about £250 per annum, was nothing wonderful. In fact, the salary seems very small. But in the next century, 23,600 was a possible income for a fashionable teacher. Authors were far worse paid. The lively literature was precarious, and even degrading. To what unspeakable humiliation of servility did not Martial descend to earn the favours of Domitian, scanty favours too, for he seems to have been a poor man when he left Rome not long after his patron's death P As for the sale of books—for the author had a public as well as a patron to look to—it is an obscure subject. Pliny's ignorance of the fact that his books were being sold at Lugdunum does not imply that they were being sold without his leave. The copies were produced at Rome, as they are now produced in London, and found their way to any places where there might be a demand for them. Pliny is surprised that there should be such a demand at Lugdunum, as any author might be who heard of his books being sold in some obscure village. The prices of books it is not easy to compare with our own. Martial's book that was sold for fourpence (xiii., 3), would not fill more than ten octavo pages ; and the handsome volume of i., 118, that fetched more than three shillings, about twice as many. Perhaps we may conjecture that in the years between the publication of Book i. and of Book xiii., he had become a popular author, whom it paid well to publish a cheap edition.
About social habits and customs, Mr. Inge gives us plenty of interesting information. Some of them seem curious enough to the modern mind, although, as the writer points out, "the description of the day of an idle and wealthy English family bears a fairly close resemblance to the records of the day of a Roman noble," the advantage of the com- parison not being wholly on the side of the Englishman. But the morning call at 7 a.m., if not earlier, and the dinner, beginning at 2 p.m. (" ab octava bibit Marius ") and occupying the rest of the day, it is difficult to realise. But cultured gentle- men like Spurinna, and indefatigable students like the elder Pliny, did not give up this time to the pleasures of the table. But both the busy and the idle seem to have done with very little sleep. As for Pliny, one is not surprised to hear that it visited him and left him in the midst of his reading. For a considerable part of the year he seems to have risen at midnight. But of all Roman customs, there is none that seems quite so bizarre as the mimus, or "clown," as we may call him, who made fun at a funeral. Imagine the obsequies of a King, where grief is solemn if not always sincere, and such an inci- dent happening as Suetonius relates. One Favor, the Grimaldi of the period, personated the dead Vespa.sian, who was notorious for his parsimony. The "lords of the treasury "were asked, just as the master of the ring at a circus might be asked, how much the affair cost. "A hundred thousand pounds," they said "Give me a thousand," said the false Vespasian, "and you may throw me into the Tiber."
Mr. Inge has treated a difficult subject with adequate know- ledge, discretion, and taste.
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