Read Ebook: Roman Antiquities and Ancient Mythology For Classical Schools (2nd ed) by Dillaway Charles K Charles Knapp

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It was unlawful for patrons and clients to accuse or bear witness against each other, and whoever was found to have done so, might be slain by any one with impunity as a victim to Pluto, and the infernal gods.

It was esteemed highly honorable for a Patrician to have numerous clients, both hereditary and acquired by his own merit. In after times, even cities and whole nations were under the protection of illustrious Roman families.

Those whose ancestors or themselves had borne any curule magistracy, that is, had been Consul, Praetor, Censor or Curule Edile, were called nobiles, and had the right of making images of themselves, which were kept with great care by their posterity, and carried before them at funerals.

These images were merely the busts of persons down to the shoulders, made of wax, and painted, which they used to place in the courts of their houses, enclosed in wooden cases, and seem not to have brought out, except on solemn occasions. There were titles or inscriptions written below them, pointing out the honors they had enjoyed, and the exploits they had performed. Anciently, this right of images was peculiar to the Patricians; but afterwards, the Plebeians also acquired it, when admitted to curule offices.

Those who favored the interests of the Senate were called optimates, and sometimes proc?res or principes. Those who studied to gain the favor of the multitude, were called populares, of whatever order they were. This was a division of factions, and not of rank or dignity. The contests between these two parties, excited the greatest commotions in the state, which finally terminated in the extinction of liberty.

The Romans were divided into various clans, and each clan into several families. Those of the same gens were called gentiles, and those of the same family, agnati. But relations by the father's side were also called agnati, to distinguish them from cognati, relations only by the mother's side.

The Romans had three names, to mark the different clans and families, and distinguish the individuals of the same family--the praenomen, nomen and cognomen.

The praenomen was put first, and marked the individual. It was commonly written with one letter; as A. for Aulus: C. for Caius--sometimes with two; as Ap. for Appius.

The nomen was put after the praenomen, to mark the gens, and commonly ended in ius; as Cornelius, Fabius. The cognomen was put last, and marked the family; as Cicero, Caesar.

Sometimes there was also a fourth name, called the agnomen, added from some illustrious action, or remarkable event. Thus, Scipio was called Africanus, from the conquest of Carthage and Africa: for a similar reason, his brother was called Asiaticus.

These names were not always used; commonly two, and sometimes only the sirname. But in speaking to any one, the praenomen was generally used as being peculiar to citizens, for slaves had no praenomen.

The sirnames were derived from various circumstances, either from some quality of the mind; as Cato, from catus, wise: or from the habit of the body; as Calvus, Crassus, &c.: or from cultivating particular fruits; as Lentulus, Piso, &c. Quintus Cincinnatus was called Serranus, because the ambassadors from the senate found him sowing, when they brought him word that he was made dictator.

When there was only one daughter in the family, she was called by the name of the gens: thus, Tullia, the daughter of Cicero; and retained the same after marriage. When there were two daughters, one was called major, and the other minor. If there were more than two, they were distinguished by their number; thus--prima, secunda, tertia, &c.

The right of liberty comprehended not only liberty from the power of masters, but also from the dominion of tyrants, the severity of magistrates, the cruelty of creditors, and the insolence of more powerful citizens. After the expulsion of Tarquin, a law was made by Brutus, that no one should be king at Rome, and that whoever should form a design of making himself a king, might be slain with impunity. At the same time the people were bound by an oath that they would never suffer a king to be created.

Citizens could appeal from the magistrates to the people, and the persons who appealed could in no way be punished, until the people determined the matter; but they were chiefly secured by the assistance of the tribunes.

To check the cruelty of usurers, a law was afterwards made that no debtors should be kept in irons, or in bonds; that the goods of the debtor, not his person, should be given up to his creditors.

The people, not satisfied with this, as it did not free them from prison, demanded an entire abolition of debt, which they used to call new tables; but this was never granted.

No Roman citizen could marry a slave, barbarian or foreigner, unless by the permission of the people.

A father among the Romans had the power of life and death over his children. He could not only expose them when infants, but when grown up he might imprison, scourge, send them bound to work in the country, and also put them to death by any punishment he pleased.

Things with respect to property among the Romans were variously divided. Some were said to be of divine right, and were held sacred, as altars, temples, or any thing publicly consecrated to the gods, by the authority of the Pontiffs; or religious, as sepulchres--or inviolable, as the walls and gates of a city.

Others were said to be of human right, and called profane. These were either public and common, as the air, running water, the sea and its shores; or private, which might be the property of individuals.

None but a Roman citizen could make a will, or be witnesses to a testament, or inherit any thing by it.

Testaments were always subscribed by the testator, and usually by the witnesses, and sealed with their seals or rings. They were likewise tied with a thread drawn thrice through holes and sealed; like all other civil deeds, they were always written in Latin. A legacy expressed in Greek was not valid.

They were deposited either privately in the hands of a friend, or in a temple with the keeper of it. Thus Julius Caesar is said to have intrusted his testament to the oldest of the vestal virgins.

A father might leave whom he pleased as guardian to his children;--but if he died, this charge devolved by law on the nearest relation by the father's side. When there was no guardian by testament, nor a legal one, the praetor and the majority of the tribunes of the people appointed a guardian. If any one died without making a will, his goods devolved on his nearest relations.

Women could not transact any business of importance without the concurrence of their parents, husbands, or guardians.

The capitol or temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, was the effect of a vow made by Tarquinius Priscus, in the Sabine war. But he had scarcely laid the foundation before his death. His nephew Tarquin the proud, finished it with the spoils taken from the neighboring nations.

The structure stood on a high ridge, taking in four acres of ground. The front was adorned with three rows of pillars, the other sides with two. The ascent from the ground was by a hundred steps. The prodigious gifts and ornaments with which it was at several times endowed, almost exceed belief. Augustus gave at one time two thousand pounds weight of gold, and in jewels and precious stones to the value of five hundred sestertia.

Livy and Pliny surprise us with accounts of the brazen thresholds, the noble pillars that Scylla removed thither from Athens, out of the temple of Jupiter Olympius; the gilded roof, the gilded shields, and those of solid silver; the huge vessels of silver, holding three measures--the golden chariot, &c.

This temple was first consumed by fire in the Marian war, and then rebuilt by Sylla. This too was demolished in the Vitellian sedition. Vespasian undertook a third, which was burnt about the time of his death. Domitian raised the last and most glorious of all, in which the very gilding amounted to twelve thousand talents--on which Plutarch has observed of that emperor, that he was, like Midas, desirous of turning every thing into gold. There are very little remains of it at present, yet enough to make a Christian church.

The pantheon was built by Marcus Agrippa, son-in-law to Augustus Caesar, and dedicated most probably to all the gods in general, as the name implies. The structure is a hundred and fifty-eight feet high, and about the same breadth. The roof is curiously vaulted, void places being here and there for the greater strength. The rafters were pieces of brass of forty feet in length. There are no windows in the whole edifice, only a round hole at the top of the roof, which serves very well for the admission of light. The walls on the inside are either solid marble or incrusted. The front, on the outside, was covered with brazen plates, gilt, the top with silver plates, which are now changed to lead. The gates were brass, of extraordinary work and magnitude.

There are two other temples, particularly worth notice, not so much for the magnificence of the structure, as for the customs that depend upon them, and the remarkable use to which they were put. These are the temples of Saturn and Janus.

The other was a square building, some say of entire brass, so large as to contain a statue of Janus, five feet high, with brazen gates on each side, which were kept open in war, and shut in time of peace.

Theatres, so called from the Greek ???????, to see, owe their origin to Bacchus.

That the theatres and amphitheatres were two different sorts of edifices, was never questioned, the former being built in the shape of a semicircle; the other generally oval, so as to make the same figure as if two theatres should be joined together. Yet the same place is often called by these names in several authors. They seem, too, to have been designed for quite different ends: the theatres for stage plays, the amphitheatres for the greater shows of gladiators, wild beasts, &c. The following are the most important parts of both.

As combats of wild beasts formed a chief part of the amusements, they were secured in dens around the arena or stage, which was strongly encircled by a canal, to guard the spectators against their attacks. These precautions, however, were not always sufficient, and instances occurred in which the animals sprung across the barrier.

This huge pile was commenced by Vespasian, and was reared with a portion of the materials of Nero's golden palace: its form was oval, and it is supposed to have contained upwards of eighty thousand persons. A large part of this vast edifice still remains.

Pompey the great was the first who undertook the raising of a fixed theatre, which he built nobly of square stone. Some of the remains of this theatre are still to be seen at Rome.

The Roman forums were public buildings about three times as long as they were broad. All the compass of the forum was surrounded by arched porticos, some passages being left as places of entrance.

The Augustan forum, built by Augustus Caesar, containing statues in the two porticos, on each side of the main building. In one were all the Latin kings, beginning with AEneas: in the other all the Roman kings, beginning with Romulus, and most of the eminent persons in the commonwealth, and Augustus himself among the rest, with an inscription upon the pedestal of every statue, expressing the chief actions and exploits of the person it represented.

The forum of Trajan, erected by the emperor Trajan, with the foreign spoils he had taken in the wars; the covering was all brass, and the porticos exceedingly beautiful.

The porticos are worthy of observation: they were structures of curious work and extraordinary beauty annexed to public edifices, sacred and civil, as well for ornament as use.

They generally took their names either from the temples which they stood near, from the builders, from the nature and form of the building, or from the remarkable paintings in them.

They were sometimes used for the assemblies of the senate; sometimes the jewellers and such as dealt in the most precious wares took their stand here to expose their goods for sale; but the general use they were put to, was the pleasure of walking or riding in them, like the present piazzas in Italy.

Arches were public buildings designed for the encouragement and reward of noble enterprises, erected generally to the honor of such eminent persons as had either won a victory of extraordinary consequence abroad, or had rescued the commonwealth, at home, from any considerable danger.

At first they were plain and rude structures, by no means remarkable for beauty or taste: but in latter times no expense was thought too great to render them in the highest manner splendid and magnificent. The arches built by Romulus were only of brick, that of Camillus of plain square stone, but those of Caesar, Drusus, Titus, &c. were all of marble.

Their figure was at first semicircular, whence probably they took their names; afterwards they were built four square, with a spacious arched gate in the middle, and small ones on each side. Upon the vaulted part of the middle gate, hung little winged images representing victory, with crowns in their hands, which, when they were let down, they put upon the conqueror's head, as he passed under the triumphal arch.

The columns or pillars, over the sepulchres of distinguished men, were great ornaments to the city: they were at last converted to the same design as the arches, for the honorable memorial of some noble victory or exploit. The pillars of the emperors Trajan and Antoninus deserve particular attention for their beauty and curious workmanship.

The former was set up in the middle of Trajan's forum, being composed of twenty-four great stones of marble, but so skilfully cemented as to appear one entire stone. The height was one hundred forty-four feet; it is ascended on the inside by one hundred eighty-five winding stairs, and has forty little windows for the admission of light. The whole pillar is incrusted with marble, in which are expressed all the noble actions of the emperor, and particularly the Decian war.

But its noblest ornament was the gigantic statue of Trajan on the top, being no less than twenty feet high; he was represented in a coat of armour proper to the general, holding in his left hand a sceptre, in his right a hollow globe of fire, in which his own ashes were deposited after his death.

The column of Antoninus was raised in imitation of this, which it exceeded only in one respect, that it was one hundred seventy six feet high--for the work was much inferior to the former, being undertaken in the declining age of the empire. The ascent on the inside was by one hundred six steps, and the windows, in the sides, fifty-six; the sculpture and the other ornaments were of the same nature as those of the first, and on the top stood a colossal statue of the emperor, naked, as appears from his coins.

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