The History of Rome, Book I - Theodor Mommsen
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Commerce, in Latium Passive, in Etruria Active
It thus appears that Italy in very ancient times derived
its articles of luxury, just as imperial Rome did, from the East,
before it attempted to manufacture for itself after the models which
it imported. In exchange it had nothing to offer except its raw
produce, consisting especially of its copper, silver, and iron,
but including also slaves and timber for shipbuilding, amber from
the Baltic, and, in the event of bad harvests occurring abroad, its
grain. From this state of things as to the commodities in demand
and the equivalents to be offered in return, we have already
explained why Italian traffic assumed in Latium a form so differing
from that which it presented in Etruria. The Latins, who were
deficient in all the chief articles of export, could carry on only
a passive traffic, and were obliged even in the earliest times to
procure the copper of which they had need from the Etruscans in
exchange for cattle or slaves--we have already mentioned the very
ancient practice of selling the latter on the right bank of the
Tiber.(23) On the other hand the Tuscan balance of trade must
have been necessarily favourable in Caere as in Populonia, in Capua
as in Spina. Hence the rapid development of prosperity in these
regions and their powerful commercial position; whereas Latium
remained preeminently an agricultural country. The same contrast
recurs in all their individual relations. The oldest tombs constructed
and furnished in the Greek fashion, but with an extravagance to which
the Greeks were strangers, are to be found at Caere, while--with the
exception of Praeneste, which appears to have occupied a peculiar
position and to have been very intimately connected with Falerii
and southern Etruria--the Latin land exhibits only slight ornaments
for the dead of foreign origin, and not a single tomb of luxury
proper belonging to the earlier times; there as among the Sabellians
a simple turf ordinarily sufficed as a covering for the dead. The
most ancient coins, of a time not much later than those of Magna
Graecia, belong to Etruria, and to Populonia in particular: during
the whole regal period Latium had to be content with copper by
weight, and had not even introduced foreign coins, for the instances
are extremely rare in which such coins (e.g. one of Posidonia)
have been found there. In architecture, plastic art, and embossing,
the same stimulants acted on Etruria and on Latium, but it was only
in the case of the former that capital was everywhere brought to
bear on them and led to their being pursued extensively and with
growing technical skill. The commodities were upon the whole the
same, which were bought, sold, and manufactured in Latium and in
Etruria; but the southern land was far inferior to its northern
neighbours in the energy with which its commerce was plied. The
contrast between them in this respect is shown in the fact that
the articles of luxury manufactured after Greek models in Etruria
found a market in Latium, particularly at Praeneste, and even in
Greece itself, while Latium hardly ever exported anything of the
kind.
Etrusco-Attic, and Latino-Sicilian Commerce
A distinction not less remarkable between the commerce of the Latins
and that of the Etruscans appears in their respective routes or
lines of traffic. As to the earliest commerce of the Etruscans
in the Adriatic we can hardly do more than express the conjecture
that it was directed from Spina and Atria chiefly to Corcyra.
We have already mentioned(24) that the western Etruscans ventured
boldly into the eastern seas, and trafficked not merely with Sicily,
but also with Greece proper. An ancient intercourse with Attica
is indicated by the Attic clay vases, which are so numerous in the
more recent Etruscan tombs, and had been perhaps even at this time
introduced for other purposes than the already-mentioned decoration
of tombs, while conversely Tyrrhenian bronze candlesticks and gold
cups were articles early in request in Attica. Still more definitely
is such an intercourse indicated by the coins. The silver pieces
of Populonia were struck after the pattern of a very old silver
piece stamped on one side with the Gorgoneion, on the other merely
presenting an incuse square, which has been found at Athens and
on the old amber-route in the district of Posen, and which was in
all probability the very coin struck by order of Solon in Athens.
We have mentioned already that the Etruscans had also dealings, and
perhaps after the development of the Etrusco-Carthaginian maritime
alliance their principal dealings, with the Carthaginians. It is
a remarkable circumstance that in the oldest tombs of Caere, besides
native vessels of bronze and silver, there have been found chiefly
Oriental articles, which may certainly have come from Greek merchants,
but more probably were introduced by Phoenician traders. We must
not, however, attribute too great importance to this Phoenician trade,
and in particular we must not overlook the fact that the alphabet,
as well as the other influences that stimulated and matured native
culture, were brought to Etruria by the Greeks, and not by the
Phoenicians.
Latin commerce assumed a different direction. Rarely as we have
opportunity of instituting comparisons between the Romans and the
Etruscans as regards the reception of Hellenic elements, the cases
in which such comparisons can be instituted exhibit the two nations
as completely independent of each other. This is most clearly
apparent in the case of the alphabet. The Greek alphabet brought
to the Etruscans from the Chalcidico-Doric colonies in Sicily or
Campania varies not immaterially from that which the Latins derived
from the same quarter, so that, although both peoples have drawn
from the same source, they have done so at different times and
different places. The same phenomenon appears in particular words:
the Roman Pollux and the Tuscan Pultuke are independent corruptions
of the Greek Polydeukes; the Tuscan Utuze or Uthuze is formed from
Odysseus, the Roman Ulixes is an exact reproduction of the form of
the name usual in Sicily; in like manner the Tuscan Aivas corresponds
to the old Greek form of this name, the Roman Aiax to a secondary
form that was probably also Sicilian; the Roman Aperta or Apello
and the Samnite Appellun have sprung from the Doric Apellon, the
Tuscan Apulu from Apollon. Thus the language and writing of Latium
indicate that the direction of Latin commerce was exclusively towards
the Cumaeans and Siceliots. Every other trace which has survived
from so remote an age leads to the same conclusion: such as, the
coin of Posidonia found in Latium; the purchase of grain, when
a failure of the harvest occurred in Rome, from the Volscians,
Cumaeans, and Siceliots (and, as was natural, from the Etruscans
as well); above all, the relations subsisting between the Latin
and Sicilian monetary systems. As the local Dorico-Chalcidian
designation of silver coin --nomos--, and the Sicilian measure
--eimina--, were transferred with the same meaning to Latium as
-nummus- and -hemina-, so conversely the Italian designations of
weight, -libra-, -triens-, -quadrans-, -sextans-, -uncia-, which
arose in Latium for the measurement of the copper which was used
by weight instead of money, had found their way into the common
speech of Sicily in the third century of the city under the corrupt
and hybrid forms, --litra--, --trias--, --tetras--, --exas--,
--ougkia--. Indeed, among all the Greek systems of weights and
moneys, the Sicilian alone was brought into a determinate relation
to the Italian copper-system; not only was the value of silver set
down conventionally and perhaps legally as two hundred and fifty
times that of copper, but the equivalent on this computation of a
Sicilian pound of copper (1/120th of the Attic talent, 2/3 of the
Roman pound) was in very early times struck, especially at Syracuse,
as a silver coin (--litra argurion--, i.e. "copper-pound in
silver"). Accordingly it cannot be doubted that Italian bars of
copper circulated also in Sicily instead of money; and this exactly
harmonizes with the hypothesis that the commerce of the Latins
with Sicily was a passive commerce, in consequence of which Latin
money was drained away thither. Other proofs of ancient intercourse
between Sicily and Italy, especially the adoption in the Sicilian
dialect of the Italian expressions for a commercial loan, a prison,
and a dish, and the converse reception of Sicilian terms in Italy,
have been already mentioned.(25) We meet also with several, though
less definite, traces of an ancient intercourse of the Latins with
the Chalcidian cities in Lower Italy, Cumae and Neapolis, and with
the Phocaeans in Velia and Massilia. That it was however far less
active than that with the Siceliots is shown by the well-known
fact that all the Greek words which made their way in earlier times
to Latium exhibit Doric forms--we need only recall -Aesculapius-,
-Latona-, -Aperta-, -machina-. Had their dealings with the originally
Ionian cities, such as Cumae(26) and the Phocaean settlements,
been even merely on a similar scale with those which they had with
the Sicilian Dorians, Ionic forms would at least have made their
appearance along with the others; although certainly Dorism early
penetrated even into these Ionic colonies themselves, and their
dialect varied greatly. While all the facts thus combine to attest
the stirring traffic of the Latins with the Greeks of the western
main generally, and especially with the Sicilians, there hardly
occurred any immediate intercourse with the Asiatic Phoenicians,
and the intercourse with those of Africa, which is sufficiently
attested by statements of authors and by articles found, can only
have occupied a secondary position as affecting the state of culture
in Latium; in particular it is significant that--if we leave out of
account some local names--there is an utter absence of any evidence
from language as to ancient intercourse between the Latins and the
nations speaking the Aramaic tongue.(27)
If we further inquire how this traffic was mainly carried on, whether
by Italian merchants abroad or by foreign merchants in Italy, the
former supposition has all the probabilities in its favour, at
least so far as Latium is concerned. It is scarcely conceivable
that those Latin terms denoting the substitute for money and the
commercial loan could have found their way into general use in the
language of the inhabitants of Sicily through the mere resort of
Sicilian merchants to Ostia and their receipt of copper in exchange
for ornaments. Lastly, in regard to the persons and classes
by whom this traffic was carried on in Italy, no special superior
class of merchants distinct from and independent of the class of
landed proprietors developed itself in Rome. The reason of this
surprising phenomenon was, that the wholesale commerce of Latium was
from the beginning in the hands of the large landed proprietors--a
hypothesis which is not so singular as it seems. It was natural
that in a country intersected by several navigable rivers the great
landholder, who was paid by his tenants their quotas of produce in
kind, should come at an early period to possess barks; and there is
evidence that such was the case. The transmarine traffic conducted
on the trader's own account must therefore have fallen into the
hands of the great landholder, seeing that he alone possessed the
vessels for it and--in his produce--the articles for export.(28)
In fact the distinction between a landed and a moneyed aristocracy
was unknown to the Romans of earlier times; the great landholders
were at the same time the speculators and the capitalists. In
the case of a very energetic commerce such a combination certainly
could not have been maintained; but, as the previous representation
shows, while there was a comparatively vigorous traffic in Rome in
consequence of the trade of the Latin land being there concentrated,
Rome was by no means essentially a commercial city like Caere or
Tarentum, but was and continued to be the centre of an agricultural
community.
Notes for Book I Chapter XIII
1. I. II. Agriculture
2. I. III. Clan Villages, I. V. The Community
3. The system which we meet with in the case of the Germanic joint
tillage, combining a partition of the land in property among the
clansmen with its joint cultivation by the clan, can hardly ever
have existed in Italy. Had each clansman been regarded in Italy,
as among the Germans, in the light of proprietor of a particular
spot in each portion of the collective domain that was marked off
for tillage, the separate husbandry of later times would probably
have set out from a minute subdivision of hides. But the very
opposite was the case; the individual names of the Roman hides
(-fundus Cornelianus-) show clearly that the Roman proprietor owned
from the beginning a possession not broken up but united.
4. Cicero (de Rep. ii. 9, 14, comp. Plutarch, Q. Rom. 15) states:
-Tum (in the time of Romulus) erat res in pecore et locorum
possessionibus, ex quo pecuniosi et locupletes vocabantur--(Numa)
primum agros, quos bello Romulus ceperat, divisit viritim civibus-.
In like manner Dionysius represents Romulus as dividing the land into
thirty curial districts, and Numa as establishing boundary-stones
and introducing the festival of the Terminalia (i. 7, ii. 74; and
thence Plutarch, -Numa-, 16).
5. I. XI. Contracts
6. Since this assertion still continues to be disputed, we
shall let the numbers speak for themselves. The Roman writers on
agriculture of the later republic and the imperial period reckon on
an average five -modii- of wheat as sufficient to sow a -jugerum-, and
the produce as fivefold. The produce of a -heredium- accordingly
(even when, without taking into view the space occupied by
the dwelling-house and farm-yard, we regard it as entirely arable
land, and make no account of years of fallow) amounts to fifty, or
deducting the seed forty, modii. For an adult hard-working slave
Cato (c. 56) reckons fifty-one -modii-of wheat as the annual
consumption. These data enable any one to answer for himself the
question whether a Roman family could or could not subsist on the
produce of a -heredium-. The attempted proof to the contrary is
based on the ground that the slave of later times subsisted more
exclusively on corn than the free farmer of the earlier epoch, and
that the assumption of a fivefold return is one too low for this
earlier epoch; both assumptions are probably correct, but for both
there is a limit. Doubtless the subsidiary produce yielded by
the arable land itself and by the common pasture, such as figs,
vegetables, milk, flesh (especially as derived from the old and
zealously pursued rearing of swine), and the like, are specially
to be taken into account for the older period; but the older Roman
pastoral husbandry, though not unimportant, was withal of subordinate
importance, and the chief subsistence of the people was always
notoriously grain. We may, moreover, on account of the thoroughness
of the earlier cultivation obtain a very considerable increase,
especially of the gross produce--and beyond doubt the farmers of
this period drew a larger produce from their lands than the great
landholders of the later republic and the empire obtained (iii.
Latium); but moderation must be exercised in forming such estimates,
because we have to deal with a question of averages and with a mode
of husbandry conducted neither methodically nor with large capital.
The assumption of a tenfold instead of a fivefold return will be
the utmost limit, and yet it is far from sufficing. In no case
can the enormous deficit, which is left even according to those
estimates between the produce of the -heredium- and the requirements
of the household, be covered by mere superiority of cultivation.
In fact the counter-proof can only be regarded as successful, when
it shall have produced a methodical calculation based on rural
economics, according to which among a population chiefly subsisting
on vegetables the produce of a piece of land of an acre and a quarter
proves sufficient on an average for the subsistence of a family.
It is indeed asserted that instances occur even in historical times
of colonies founded with allotments of two -jugera-; but the only
instance of the kind (Liv. iv. 47) is that of the colony of Labici
in the year 336--an instance, which will certainly not be reckoned
(by such scholars as are worth the arguing with) to belong to the
class of traditions that are trustworthy in their historical details,
and which is beset by other very serious difficulties (see book
ii. ch. 5, note). It is no doubt true that in the non-colonial
assignation of land to the burgesses collectively (-adsignatio
viritana-) sometimes only a few -jugera- were granted (as e. g.
Liv. viii. ii, 21). In these cases however it was the intention
not to create new farms with the allotments, but rather, as a rule,
to add to the existing farms new parcels from the conquered lands
(comp. C. I. L. i. p. 88). At any rate, any supposition is better
than a hypothesis which requires us to believe as it were in
a miraculous multiplication of the food of the Roman household.
The Roman farmers were far less modest in their requirements than
their historiographers; they themselves conceived that they could
not subsist even on allotments of seven -jugera- or a produce of
one hundred and forty -modii-.
7. I. VI. Time and Occasion of the Reform
8. Perhaps the latest, although probably not the last, attempt
to prove that a Latin farmer's family might have subsisted on two
-jugera- of land, finds its chief support in the argument that Varro
(de R. R. i. 44, i) reckons the seed requisite for the -jugerum-
at five -modii- of wheat but ten -modii- of spelt, and estimates
the produce as corresponding to this, whence it is inferred that
the cultivation of spelt yielded a produce, if not double, at least
considerably higher than that of wheat. But the converse is more
correct, and the nominally higher quantity sown and reaped is simply
to be explained by the fact that the Romans garnered and sowed the
wheat already shelled, but the spelt still in the husk (Pliny, H.
N. xviii. 7, 61), which in this case was not separated from the
fruit by threshing. For the same reason spelt is at the present
day sown twice as thickly as wheat, and gives a produce twice as
great by measure, but less after deduction of the husks. According
to Wurtemberg estimates furnished to me by G. Hanssen, the average
produce of the Wurtemberg -morgen- is reckoned in the case of
wheat (with a sowing of 1/4 to 1/2 -scheffel-) at 3 -scheffel- of
the medium weight of 275 Ibs. (= 825 Ibs.); in the case of spelt
(with a sowing of 1/2 to 1 1/2 -scheffel-) at least 7 -scheffel- of
the medium weight of 150 lbs. ( = 1050 Ibs.), which are reduced
by shelling to about 4 -scheffel-. Thus spelt compared with wheat
yields in the gross more than double, with equally good soil perhaps
triple the crop, but--by specific weight--before the shelling not
much above, after shelling (as "kernel") less than, the half. It
was not by mistake, as has been asserted, but because it was fitting
in computations of this sort to start from estimates of a like
nature handed down to us, that the calculation instituted above was
based on wheat; it may stand, because, when transferred to spelt,
it does not essentially differ and the produce rather falls than
rises. Spelt is less nice as to soil and climate, and exposed
to fewer risks than wheat; but the latter yields on the whole,
especially when we take into account the not inconsiderable expenses
of shelling, a higher net produce (on an average of fifty years in
the district of Frankenthal in Rhenish Bavaria the -malter- of wheat
stands at 11 -gulden- 3 krz., the -malter- of spelt at 4 -gulden-30
krz.), and, as in South Germany, where the soil admits, the growing
of wheat is preferred and generally with the progress of cultivation
comes to supersede that of spelt, so the analogous transition of
Italian agriculture from the culture of spelt to that of wheat was
undeniably a progress.
9. I. II. Agriculture
10. -Oleum- and -oliva- are derived from --elaion--, --elaia--,
and -amurca- (oil-less) from --amorgei--.
11. But there is no proper authority for the statement that the
fig-tree which stood in front of the temple of Saturn was cut down
in the year 260 (Plin. H. N. xv. 18, 77); the date CCLX. is wanting
in all good manuscripts, and has been interpolated, probably with
reference to Liv. ii. 21.
12. I. XI. Property
13. I. VI. Class of --Metoeci-- Subsisting by the Side of the
Community
14. I. XI. Guardianship
15. I. XII. Oldest Table of Roman Festivals
16. The comparative legal value of sheep and oxen, as is well known,
is proved by the fact that, when the cattle-fines were converted
into money-fines, the sheep was rated at ten, and the ox at a
hundred asses (Festus, v. -peculatus-, p. 237, comp. pp. 34, 144;
Gell. xi. i; Plutarch, Poplicola, ii). By a similar adjustment the
Icelandic law makes twelve rams equivalent to a cow; only in this
as in other instances the Germanic law has substituted the duodecimal
for the older decimal system.
It is well known that the term denoting cattle was transferred to
denote money both among the Latins (-pecunia-) and among the Germans
(English fee).
17. I. XIV. Decimal System
18. There has lately been found at Praeneste a silver mixing-jug,
with a Phoenician and a hieroglyphic inscription (Mon. dell Inst.
x. plate 32), which directly proves that such Egyptian wares as
come to light in Italy have found their way thither through the
medium of the Phoenicians.
19. comp. I. XIII. Culture of the Olive
20. -Velum- is certainly of Latin origin; so is -malus-, especially
as that term denotes not merely the mast, but the tree in general:
-antenna- likewise may come from --ana-- (-anhelare-, -antestari-),
and -tendere- = -supertensa-. Of Greek origin, on the other
hand, are -gubenare-, to steer (--kubernan--); -ancora-, anchor
(--agkura--); -prora-, ship's bow (--prora--); -aplustre-,
ship's stern (--aphlaston--); -anquina-, the rope fastening the
yards (--agkoina--); -nausea-, sea-sickness (--nausia--). The
four chief winds of the ancients- -aquilo-, the "eagle-wind," the
north-easterly Tramontana; -voltumus- (of uncertain derivation,
perhaps the "vulture-wind"), the south-easterly; -auster- the
"scorching" southwest wind, the Sirocco; -favonius-, the "favourable"
north-west wind blowing from the Tyrrhene Sea--have indigenous
names bearing no reference to navigation; but all the other Latin
names for winds are Greek (such as -eurus-, -notus-), or translations
from the Greek (e.g. -solanus- = --apelioteis--, -Africus- =
--lips--).
21. This meant in the first instance the tokens used in the service
of the camp, the --xuleiphia kata phulakein brachea teleos echonta
charakteira-- (Polyb. vi. 35, 7); the four -vigiliae- of the
night-service gave name to the tokens generally. The fourfold
division of the night for the service of watching is Greek as well
as Roman; the military science of the Greeks may well have exercised
an influence--possibly through Pyrrhus (Liv. xxxv. 14)--in the
organization of the measures for security in the Roman camp. The
employment of the non-Doric form speaks for the comparatively late
date at which theword was taken over.
22. I. XI. Character of the Roman Law
23. I. VII. Relation of Rome to Latium
24. I. X. Etruscan Commerce
25. I. XI. Clients and Foreigners, I. XIII. Commerce, in Latium
Passive, in Etruria Active
26. I. X. Greek Cities Near Vesuvius
27. If we leave out of view -Sarranus-, -Afer-, and other local
designations (I. X. Phoenicians and Italians in Opposition to the
Hellenes), the Latin language appears not to possess a single word
immediately derived in early times from the Phoenician. The very
few words from Phoenician roots which occur in it, such as -arrabo-
or -arra- and perhaps also -murra-, -nardus-, and the like, are
plainly borrowed proximately from the Greek, which has a considerable
number of such words of Oriental extraction as indications of its
primitive intercourse with the Aramaeans. That --elephas-- and
-ebur- should have come from the same Phoenician original with or
without the addition of the article, and thus have been each formed
independently, is a linguistic impossibility, as the Phoenician
article is in reality -ha-, and is not so employed; besides the
Oriental primitive word has not as yet been found. The same holds
true of the enigmatical word -thesaurus-; whether it may have been
originally Greek or borrowed by the Greeks from the Phoenician
or Persian, it is at any rate, as a Latin word, derived from the
Greek, as the very retaining of its aspiration proves (xii. Foreign
Worships).