Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero | Page 6

of Rome, and in his treatise de
Republica, praised with genuine affection her "nativa praesidia."[15]
He says of Romulus, "that he chose a spot abounding in springs,
healthy though in a pestilent region; for her hills are open to the breezes,
yet give shade to the hollows below them." And Livy, in the passage
already quoted, in language even more perfect than Cicero's, wrote of
all the advantages of the site, ending by describing it as "regionum
Italiae medium, ad incrementum urbis natum unice locum." It is curious
that all these panegyrics were written by men who were not natives of
Rome; Virgil came from Mantua, Livy from Padua, Cicero from
Arpinum. They are doubtless genuine, though in some degree rhetorical;
those of Cicero and Livy can hardly be called strictly accurate. But

taken together they may help us to understand that fascination of the
site of Rome, to which Virgil gave such inimitable expression.
On this site, which once had been crowded only when the Roman
farmers had taken refuge within the walls with their families, flocks,
and herds on the threatening appearance of an enemy, by the time of
Cicero an enormous population had gathered. Many causes had
combined to bring this population together, which can be only glanced
at here. As in Europe and America at the present day, so in all the
Mediterranean lands since the age of Alexander, there had been a
constantly increasing tendency to flock into the towns; and the rise of
huge cities, such as Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage, Corinth, or Rhodes,
with all the inevitably ensuing social problems and complications, is
one of the most marked characteristics of the last three centuries B.C.
In Italy in particular, apart from the love of a pleasant social life free
from manual toil, with various convenient resorts and amusements, the
long series of wars had served to increase the population, in spite of the
constant loss by the sword or pestilence; for the veteran soldier who
had been serving, perhaps for years, beyond sea, found it hard to return
to the monotonous life of agriculture, or perhaps found his holding
appropriated by some powerful landholder with whom it would be
hopeless to contest possession. The wars too brought a steadily
increasing population of slaves to the city, many of whom in course of
time would be manumitted, would marry, and so increase the free
population. These are only a few of the many causes at work after the
Punic wars which crammed together in the site of Rome a population
which, in the latter part of the last century B.C., probably reached half a
million or even more.[16]
Let us now descend from the Janiculum, and try to imagine ourselves
in the Rome of Cicero's time, say in the last year of the Republic, 50
B.C., as we walk through the busy haunts of this crowded population.
We will not delay on the right bank of the Tiber, which had probably
long been the home of tradesmen in their gilds,[17] and where farther
down the rich were buying land for gardens[18] and suburban villas;
but cross by the Pons Aemilius, with the Tiber island on our left, and
the opening of the Cloaca maxima, which drained the water from the

Forum, facing us, as it still does, a little to our right. We find ourselves
close to the Forum Boarium, an open cattle-market, with shops
(tabernae) all around it, as we know from Livy's record of a fire here,
which burnt many of these shops and much valuable merchandise.[19]
Here by the river was in fact the market in the modern sense of the
word; the Forum Romanum, which we are making for, was now the
centre of political and judicial business, and of social life.
We might go direct to the great Forum, up the Velabrum, or valley
(once a marsh), right in front of us between the Capitol on the left and
the Palatine on the right. But as we look in the latter direction, we are
attracted by a long low erection almost filling the space between the
Palatine and the Aventine, and turning in that direction we find
ourselves at the lower end of the Circus Maximus, which as yet is the
chief place of amusement of the Roman people. Two famous shrines,
one at each end of it, remind us that we are on historic ground. At the
end where we stand, and where are the carceres, the starting-point for
the competing chariots, was the Ara maxima of Hercules, which
prompted Evander to tell the tale of Cacus to his guest; at the other end
was the subterranean altar of Consus the harvest-god, with which was
connected another tale, that of the rape of the Sabines. All the
associations of this quarter