From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 (47 page)

Economic, social and political factors had brought about a profound change in the composition and outlook of the senatorial nobility by the end of Nero’s reign.
⁸
The downfall of the Republic with its civil wars and proscription had wrought havoc in the ranks of the nobles, and many of those that survived had little sympathy for the new emerging régime which provided less scope for the free exercise of their ambitions and talents. The names of members of old families, as the Scipios, Metelli and Claudii Marcelli, were disappearing from the consulship under Augustus; the Porcii, Luculli, Lutatii, Hortensii, Servilii Caepiones and Calpurnii Bibuli produced no more consuls;
the last Scipio and the last Appius Claudius Pulcher perished in the scandal that ruined Julia in 2 B.C., while the Sempronii Gracchi survived only a little longer. The Claudii and Domitii endured, to provide emperors, but Nero was to prove the last of the Domitii Ahenobarbi who had given Rome eight consuls in the previous eight generations. The names of Sulla, Cinna, Crassus, Pompeius, and Cornelius Lentulus still managed to appear in the consular fasti of the Julio-Claudian period, but not thereafter. While so many of the older nobility were sinking into obscurity or extinction, many of the newer men that had emerged in the revolutionary period fared little better: the younger Cicero, Vatinius, Trebonius, Gabinius, and Ventidius had no consular descendants. Some too of the new families whom Augustus had ennobled for their services failed to perpetuate their lines: Quirinius had no children, and consulars bearing the names of Statilius Taurus, Sentius Saturninus and Vinicius are not found after the reign of Claudius. And few of the Republican, or even of the Augustan, nobles, who did survive to hold the consulship, received army commands: the legates who controlled the armies in the imperial provinces increasingly were drawn from men of less social distinction, sons or grandsons of Roman knights some of them coming even from Narbonese Gaul. Thus a new nobility was gradually replacing the older aristocracy.

Whence came these newer men to dilute and then to supersede the older blood in the Senate? It has already been seen that the enfranchisement of Italy during the Social War opened up a new reservoir of supply, which Sulla may not have totally neglected when he added some 300 knights to the Senate (p. 69). Caesar’s new senators included many more of these Roman knights from Italy, men of substance and property; the freedmen, centurions or provincials that he admitted were few in number (p. 125). Under Augustus the Senate received yet more of the ‘flower of Italy’, wealthy men from the colonies and municipalities, not only from central parts but from all Italy from the foothills of the Alps down to Bruttium and Apulia. The civilized regions of the West also began slowly to supply their contingent. Caesar had pointed the way, with a handful from Cisalpine and Narbonese Gaul and from Spain: the younger Balbus of Gades had become quaestor in 44 B.C. Under Augustus and Tiberius the Senate will have been largely limited to the
senatores Italici
; but under Tiberius in 35 a consul came from Narbonensis, with a second in Gaius’ principate: Claudius then opened the doors of the Senate-House wider for the Gauls (p. 251); soon Seneca, from Spanish Corduba, and Burrus, from Gallic Vasio, had gathered great powers into their hands, and provincial senators became more common. But under Nero they still came mainly from Italian families abroad: the senators who were descendants of native provincials belong to the succeeding period.

It is clearly impossible to describe adequately in a few lines the rich and varied social life of the age.
⁹
Various aspects of it, not least the economic background, have already received some mention, but it may be well to glance at some others. As already seen, Roman society was somewhat sharply divided into classes, ranging from aristocrats to slaves. The nobles and senators devoted much time to public administration and law, both at home and abroad, but how did they pass the rest of their lives? Let us see briefly how a member of the upper class might spend a day.

After getting up early, probably about dawn, he would spend only a few minutes dressing, washing and eating: his main bath and meal came later in the day. Since he did not wear special night-clothes, he would already have on his
subligaculum
(a kind of loin-cloth) and, if it was cold, his tunic, which was a long shirt of wool or linen; in winter he might put on another one for warmth. Before going out, and for any formal business in the house, he would put on his toga, the carefully arranged cloak that every Roman citizen had to wear in public (naturally the ordinary Roman working on his land or at his bench did not wear his toga, but he had to put it on if he went to any public gathering). The broad stripe of purple on his tunic and the crescent ornament on his shoes would mark out the senator from other classes. If he had a private barber (
tonsor
), he might be shaved at home; otherwise he would later go to a barber’s shop, which was often a social centre for exchanging gossip and news. Shaving must have been a painful and often bloody business, but at this period it was
de rigueur
. Meantime his wife might be giving similar time to her make-up and to her hair-dressing which from the time of Messalina became increasingly elaborate; in these tasks she would be helped by her
ornatrices
, slaves who attended their mistress while others were waiting on their master.

The first duty of the day would be to receive formally the clients who had called to pay their respects to their patron and were waiting in his ante-room. To these
salutatores
, who came wearing their togas (
togati
), he would distribute food or money (
sportula
); the whole proceedings were governed by strict rules of etiquette. As most Romans owed
obsequium
to some superior, our senator might himself in turn have to go to pay his respects to some one more elevated, perhaps the emperor himself. After holding his own levée he might then take a stroll, accompanied by some of his clients, perhaps to the Forum, the heart of Rome’s life. Here he might attend a court, from interest if not officially, or perform some social duty for a friend; he might go to the public
recitatio
of the latest work of a writer that he knew, though the wiser authors would not start their ‘readings’ before the afternoon. If he went home for lunch (
prandium
), it would be a light meal, which his wife and children might
take with him; while the parents reclined, the children were seated at table. After a siesta or some time spent in reading, he might visit the Baths, the theatre, the races in the Circus, or the Games in the amphitheatre. Then followed dinner (
cena
), the main meal of the day; not all Romans were gourmands, and many men must often have dined quietly and simply with a few friends. A
synthesis
would be worn in place of the toga, and the company, often nine in number, reclined on benches arranged to form three sides of a square (
triclinium
), the fourth side being left open to give the servers access to the table which was placed in the centre. Since knives and spoons but not forks were used, slaves frequently attended the diners with ewers of water and towels for their hands. The talk might be on social or literary topics; politics would usually be avoided. On occasions a man would entertain his clients, and would normally show them more courtesy, it may be hoped, than those hosts who did not offer all their guests the same fare. At times larger banquets might be given, and though not all the disgust expressed by the satirists need be taken at its full value and not every dinner was an orgy, gluttonous over-eating, and over-drinking must often have ensued. Such feasts, however, tended to last many hours, which provided opportunities between the courses for professional entertainment, whether music, poetry or dancing-girls. While a Nero or Trimalchio might prolong the feast till midnight or after, the more temperate host after bidding his guests goodnight might read, or be read to by a slave, before retiring to his often austerely furnished bedroom and to his bed of which the frame and fittings might be a work of art but which, with mattress and bolster resting on strips of webbing, might not provide excessive comfort.

The manifold business interests of the rich Equites and the multifarious activities of the middle and lower classes in field and farm, in city shop or factory, defy description, but one difference from our own society may be noted. Physicians, surgeons, and teachers, whom we regard as members of the professional classes, were recruited mainly from Greeks or other foreigners who were freedmen or slaves. For the population in the city there were three outstanding centres of attraction: the Baths, ‘Bread and Circuses’. The Baths, though not without their corrupting influences, were of great physical benefit. Attached to them was a
palaestra
, where sports, ball-games, gymnastics and athletics could be practised; after exercise a man could enter a
sudatorium
, then the
caldarium
where he cleansed himself with hot water and a scraper (strigil); next he cooled off in the
tepidarium
, and finally took a cold plunge in the
frigidarium
. Many Baths had existed in the later Republic, built for profit or given by the wealthy; in a census taken by Agrippa in 33 B.C. there were 170. Soon afterwards he built the first great public Bath; it bore his name and entrance was free. The next benefaction came from Nero, and later emperors followed suit. Further, these Baths served an important social function: they
were centres where men (and women) could meet and talk and stroll, and if a few bathers were ennervated by over-indulgence, the majority including the poor, gained much good from these fine health-giving centres.

‘The people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions and all else, now meddles no more and eagerly longs for just two things,
panem et circenses
.’ That Juvenal’s well-known observation was more than the rhetoric of a satirist is shown by a more sober remark in a letter from Fronto to Marcus Aurelius, but in the Julio-Claudian period the evil had not yet assumed such threatening proportions.
¹⁰
Julius Caesar had cut down the list of recipients of free corn to 150,000, but this may represent roughly the male citizen population of Rome in his day (with women and children, some 600,000; in addition there were the foreigners and slaves). In any case most citizens came to feel that they had a claim on the State for free corn. In 2 B.C. Augustus had reviewed the list and increased the recipients to 200,000 possibly including some boys from the age of ten. Each recipient had a ticket (
tessera
) which he exchanged every month at the Porticus Minucia for his ration; later the
tessera
was used simply as an identification disk. The process of distribution was improved by Claudius. Another form of benefit that the privileged citizens of the capital enjoyed was the distribution of money (
congiaria
) that emperors made as their personal gifts on occasions. Augustus made at least seven such distributions (a normal amount being 75
denarii
, which in his day equalled the pay of a legionary for four months), and his successors followed his example; the distributions may have been made in the Atrium Libertatis behind the Senate-House. Non-citizens in Rome could not share in these benefactions and had to be content with
missilia
, tickets that were thrown to spectators at the Games which entitled them to presents.

The Romans had no seventh day of rest, but they had a remarkable number of days in the year that were available for holidays and games, days marked
dies nefasti
in the calendar when public business was suspended. The calendars record 45
feriae publicae
, old surviving religious festivals (as the Saturnalia and Lupercalia) which might be accompanied by spectacles, as the footraces at the Robigalia. There were also six old Games (Ludi Romani, Plebei, Apollinares, Ceriales, Megalenses and Florales) which together lasted at least 59 days. Sulla and Caesar added their Victory Games, Augustus his Ludi Fortunae Reducis (11 B.C.) and Livia established Ludi Palatini in Augustus’ memory. Another type of holiday was created when the Senate decreed the commemoration of an important event in an emperor’s life, such as his birthday: eighteen holidays celebrated events connected with the life or memory of Augustus. In all, by Claudius’ reign, there were 159 holidays a year, on 93 of which games were given at public expense. Thus nearly half the year consisted of official holidays, although naturally not everyone could afford to take so much time off from his work.

The chief amusements were four, each with its appropriate building: the theatre for acting, the stadium for athletics, the circus for horse-racing, and the amphitheatre for gladiatorial and animal contests. Romans had a choice of three theatres, those of Pompey, Balbus and Marcellus, which together may have seated some 50,000 people; each of them was thus far larger than a modern theatre. The decline of tragedy and comedy at the expense of farce and mime has already been noted (p. 164 f.). Tragedy developed into a mixture of opera, ballet and music-hall, comedy into the mime which illustrated the seamy side of life. A form of entertainment, which became popular from the time of Augustus was that of the
pantomimus
, a dancer who was accompanied by music and chorus and who in dumb show represented various themes of tragedy or comedy. Two such actors, Pylades and Bathyllus, displayed great skill and achieved immense popularity under Augustus. So popular were such actors that under Tiberius the mob rioted over their rival merits and caused the death of several soldiers.

Attempts had been made as early as the early second century B.C. to introduce Greek athletic games and musical contests into Rome, but they had met with an unenthusiastic response. Augustus fared little better; he founded the Actiaca which were to be celebrated every four years in Rome and Actium, but they are not heard of after A.D. 16. Nero’s Greek Games (p. 259) met with little success after his death, though soon afterwards the emperor Domitian achieved a better result with his Capitoline Games.

The chief Games, however, were the chariot-races held in the Circuses, the old Circus Maximus, that of Flaminius, and Caligula’s new one on the Vatican. The Maximus, in the hollow between the Aventine and Palatine hills, was gradually improved: Augustus decorated the
spina
(the axial wall around which the chariots raced) with the obelisk of Rameses II from Egypt (now in the Piazza del Popolo) and with a ‘box’ (
pulvinar
) for himself and friends on the Palatine side above the
cavea
, the seats. Stone seats were introduced for senators by Claudius, and for Equites by Nero. In all it seated some 150,000 spectators. In it various games might be staged (athletics, races on horseback, the Trojan Game for nobles’ sons), but the chief feature was the chariot-races. These might last up to fifteen days, with as many as twenty-four races a day; each race comprised seven laps of the course by teams of two (
bigae
) or generally four horses (
quadrigae
). Four teams would race at a time, representing the factions of the Whites, Greens, Blues and Reds. These ‘sides’ were supported with great fervour by their followers (Caligula and Nero both backed the Greens) and gambling was heavy. Racing involved great skill by the charioteers, and risk to limb or life for man and beast was severe, especially when the two turning-posts (
metae
) were being rounded. Pedigree horses won great fame: one that achieved a hundred victories was then called a
centenarius
. Not less renowned were the star charioteers, such as Scirtus of the
Whites under Tiberius. But the excitement of the race was not the only attraction: here Sulla met his last wife Valeria when she pulled a thread from his toga, and Ovid, the poet of love, could point out the opportunities provided by the Circus for flirtation and gallantry.
^10a

More brutal was the carnage that went on in the amphitheatre. The first permanent one in Rome was built by Statilius Taurus in 29 B.C. Here were staged the gladiatorial combats which were the responsibility (
munera
) of magistrates, praetors under Augustus and quaestors under Claudius. Under the Julio-Claudians the number of gladiators was limited to 120 a time, less perhaps for humane reasons than to check the popularity of the magistrate. The emperors gradually assumed chief responsibility; Augustus gave eight special shows, and built a flooded arena near the Janiculum where mock sea-fights (
naumachiae
) could be staged. From Rome the practice spread widely through Italy and the western provinces; few cities of note would lack an amphitheatre, and before long Rome gained the greatest of them all, the Amphitheatrum Flavium, dedicated in A.D. 80 and better known as the Colosseum. The Greek East was less receptive to this barbarous practice, but cosmopolitan Corinth and gradually Greek cities in Asia Minor succumbed.
¹¹

Gladiators, who were recruited from condemned criminals and prisoners of war, were trained in schools (
ludi
) and were classified according to their equipment as Samnites, Thracians,
murmilliones, retiarii
(armed with net and trident),
laquearii
and others. When successful, a gladiator might receive great rewards and become a popular idol (the Thracian Celadus is described on a
grafitto
at Pompeii as ‘decus puellarum, suspirium puellarum’), but his hour of fame was likely to be brief and he would have to survive many a further combat before he could hope for his
rudis
, the wooden sword that symbolized his discharge. Courage and skill might occasionally save a man, but even more pitiful and degrading for the spectators were the
munera sine missione
, butcheries from which no one might survive, and also the practice of exposing unarmed victims
ad bestias
, to the mercy of the lions.