"'Throughout the whole earth, and wherever the vault of heaven spreads, there is no country so fair' -- thus even the prosaic elder Pliny spoke of this fatherland. 'Here is eternal spring,' sang Virgil, 'and summer even in months not her own.

"Twice in the year the cattle breed. Twice the trees serve us with fruit. Twice a year the roses bloomed at Paestum, and in the north lay many a fertile plain like Mantua's, 'feeding the white swans with grassy stream.'

"The Apenines shielded the west coast from the northeast winds, and blessed the soil with rivers that hurried to lose themselves in captivating bays. On the north the Alps stood guard. On every other side protecting waters lapped difficult and often precipitous shores.

"Italus, says Thucydides, was a king of the Sicels, who had occupied Oenotria on the way to conquer and name Sicily.

"Their habit of surrounding these settlements with rampart and moat passed down to form features of Roman camps and medieval chateaux. They pastured flocks and herds, tilled the soil, wove clothing, fired pottery. Out of bronze, which had appeared in Italy toward the end of the Neolithic Age (about 2500 B.C.), they forged a hundred varieties of tools and weapons, including combs, hairpins, razors, tweezers, and other timeless implements. They allowed their rubbish to accumulate so lavishly around the villages that their culture has received the name of terramare -- earth marl -- from the fertilizing potency of these remains. So far as we know, they were the direct ancestors of the basic population of Italy in historical times.

"In the valley of the Po the descendants of these terramaricoli, about 1000 B.C. learned from Germany the use of iron, made from it improved implements, and, so armed, spread their 'Villanovan' culture from its center at Villanova, near Bologna, far down into Italy. From them, we may belive, came the blood, languages, and essential arts of the Umbrians, Sabines, and Latins.

"Civilization had already advanced to a precarious height, for specimens of dental bridgework have been found in the graves. Dentistry, like medicine and surgery, had been imported from Egypt and Greece. Both sexes wore the hair long, and the men fondled beards. Garments followed the Ionian style -- an inner shirt like the chiton, and an outer robe that became the Roman toga.

"Cruelty marked these games, for the Etruscans, like the Romans, thought it dangerous to let civilization get too far from the brute. Less heroic persons brandished dumbbells, threw dice, played the flute, or danced. Scenes of bibulous merriment relieve the paintings in the tombs. Sometimes they are symposia for men only, with vinous conversation. Now and then they show both sexes, richly dressed, reclining in pairs on elegant couches, eating and drinking, waited on by slaves, and entertained by dancers and musicians.

"About him, as a committee pitilessly carrying out his commands, were the Twelve Great Gods, so great that it was sacrilege(and we may therefore neglect) to pronounce their names. Especially fearsome were Mantus and Mania, master and mistress of the underworld, each with an executive horde of winged demons.

"Lease appeasable of all was Lasa or Mean, goddess of fate, brandishing snakes or a sword, and armed with stylus and ink to write, and hammer and nails to affix, her unalterable decrees. Pleasanter were the Lares and Penates -- little statuettes kept on the hearth, and symbolizng the spirits of field and home.

"The sacred science of ascertaining the future by studying the livers of sheep or the flight of birds had probably come down to the Etruscans from Babylonia. According to their own traditions it had been revealed to them by a divine boy, grandson of Tinia, who sprang to life from a furrow freshly turned, and at once spoke with the wisdom of a sage.

"Etruscan victims were slaughtered or buried alive at the funerals of the great. In some cases prisoners of war were massacred as a propitiation of the gods. The Phoceans taken at Alalia in 535 B.C. were stoned to death in the forum of Caere, and some 300 Romans captured in 358 B.C. were sacrificed at Tarquinii.

"Those who could afford it were laid to rest in sarcophagi of terra cotta or stone, and the lid was topped with reclining figures carved partly in their likeness, partly in the smiling style of the archaic Greek Apollos. Here, again, Etruscan traditions contributed to medieval art.

"Occasionally the dead were cremated and placed in cinerary urns, which also might be adorned with the figure of the deceased. In many cases the urn or tomb simulated a house. Sometimes the tomb, cut into the rock, was divided into rooms, and was equipped for post-mortem living with furniture, utensils, vases, clothing, weapons, mirrors, cosmetics, and gems.

"But the black wares (bucchero nero) of the sixth century B.C. have an Italian vigor, and perhaps represent an indigenous development of Villanovan styles. Fine vases were found at Vulci and Tarquinli -- imported from Athens or imitated from black-figured Attic shapes. The Francois Vase, a huge amphora discovered at Chiusi by a Frenchman of that name, was apparently the work of the Greek masters Clitias and Ergotimus. The later urns, red-figured on a black ground, are elegant, but again evidently of Greek manufacture. Their abundance suggests that the Attic potters had captured the Etruscan market and driven the native workers into merely industrial production.

"In some tombs we find the first Italian examples of windows, portals, columns, porticoes, and other architectural forms mimicked by painting on inner walls, in the very manner of Pompeii. Often the colors of these frescoes are faded. A few are astonishingly fresh and brilliant after more than a score of centuries. The technique is mediocre. In the earlier pictures there is no perspective, no foreshortening, no use of light and shade to give fullness and depth. The figures are Egyptianly slender, as if seen in a horizontally convex mirror. The faces are regularly in profile, wherever the feet may point.

"In the later examples perspective and foreshortening appear, and the proportions of the body are represented with greater fidelity and skill.

"They established colonies at Verona, Padua, Mantua, Parma, Modena, Bologna, and beyond the Apennines at Rimini, Ravenna, and Adria. From this modest Etruscan outpost the Adriatic took its name.

"They hemmed in Rome with Etruscan settlements at Fidenae, Praeneste (Palestrina), and Capua, perhaps also at Cicero's Tusculum ('little Tuscany').

"The strongest was Alba Longa, lying at the foot of Mr. Alban, probably where Castel Gandolfo now shelters the Pope on summer days. It was from Alba Longa, perhaps in the eighth century before Christ, that a colony of Latins -- greedy for conquest, or driven by the pressure of the birth rate upon the land -- moved some twenty miles to the northwest and founded the most famous of man's habitations.

"This hazardously hypothetical paragraph contains all that history dares say about the origin of Rome. But Roman tradition was not so parsimonious. When the Gauls burned the city in 390 B.C., most historical records were presumably destroyed, and thereafter patriotic fancy could paint a free picture of Rome's birth.

"What we should call April 22, 753 B.C., was given as the date, and events were reckoned A.U.C. -- anno urbis conditae -- 'in the year from the city's foundation.'

"A hundred tales and a thousand poems told how Aeneas, offspring of Aphrodite-Venus, had fled from burning Troy, and how, after suffering many lands and men, he had brought to Italy the gods or sacred effigies of Priam's city. Aeneas had married Lavinia, daughter of the king of Latium. Eight generations later their descendant Numitor, said the story, held the throne of Alba Longa, Latium's capital.

"A usurper, Amulius, expelled Numitor and, to end the line of Aeneas, killed Numitor's sons and forced his only daughter, Rhea Silvia, to become a priestess of Vesta, vowed to virginity.

"But Rhea lay down by the banks of a stream and 'opened her bosom to catch the breeze.' Too trustful of gods and men, she fell asleep. Mars, overcome with her beauty, left her rich with twins. Amulius ordered these to be drowned. They were placed on a raft, which kind waves carried to the land, they were suckled by a she-wolf (lupa) or -- said a skeptical variant -- by a shephere's wife, Acca Larentia, nicknamed Lupa because, like a wolf's, her love-making knew no law.

"Tarpeia, daughter of the Roman who had charge of a fortress on the Capitoline, opened a gate to the invaders. They crushed her with their shields in fair recompense and later generations gave her name to that 'Tarpeian Rock' from which condemned men were hurled to death. As the troops of Tatius neared the Palatine, the Sabine women, not insensitive to the compliment of capture, secured an armistice on the plea that they would lose their husbands if the Curites won, and their brothers or fathers if the Curites won

"Romulus persuaded Tatius to share the kingdom with him and join his tribe with the Latins in a common citizensip. Thereafter the freemen of Rome were called Curites or Quirites.

"Servius, says Cicero, was the first 'to hold the royal power without being chosen by the people' -- i.e. by the leading families. He governed well, and built a protective moat and wall around rome. But the great landowners resented his rule and plotted to unseat him. Consequently he allied himself with the richer members of the plebs, and reorganized the army and the voters to strengthen his position.

"Taking a census of persons and property, he classified the citizens according to wealth rather than birth, so that while leaving the old aristocracy intact, he raised up as a balance to it a class of equites, literally, horsemen -- men who could equip themselves with horse (equus) and armor to serve in the cavalry. The census reported some 80,000 persons capable of bearing arms.

"Servius divided the people into thirty-five new tribes, arranging them according to place of residence rather than kinship or rank. Thereby, like Cleisthenes a generation later in Attica, he weakened the political cohesion and voting power of the aristocracy -- the class that rated itself supreme by birth.

"Therefore they had killed Tarquinius Priscus and had raised no hand to protect Servius. But this new Tarquin was worse than the first. He surrounded himself with a bodyguard, degraded freemen with months of forced labor, had citizens crucified in the Forum, put to death many leaders of the upper classes, and ruled with an insolent brutality that won him the hatred of all influential men.

"Sextus was inflamed with desire to try Lucretia's fidelity and enjoy her love. A few days later he returned secretly to the home of Lucretia and overcame her by wile and force. Lucretia sent for her father and her husband, told them what had happened, and then stabbed herself to death. Thereupon Lucius Junius Brutus, a friend of Collatinus, called upon all good men to drive the Tarquins from Rome.

"He himself was a nephew of the King. His father and his brother had been put to death by Tarquin, and he had gained his cognomen Brutus -- i.e. idiot -- by pretending lunacy so that he might be spared for his revenge. Now he rode with Collatinus to the capital, told Lucretia's story to the Senate, and persuaded it to banish all the royal family. The King had meanwhile left the army and hurried to Rome. Brutus, apprised of this, rode out to the army, told Lucretia's story again, and won the soldiers' support. Tarquin fled north, and appealed to Etruria to restore him to his throne.

"An assembly of the citizen-soldiers was now convened. Instead of a king chosen for life it elected two consuls with equal and rival powers, to rule for a year.

"These first consuls, says the tradition, were Brutus and Collatinus. Collatinus resigned, and was replaced by Publius Valerius, who won the name Publicola -- 'friend of the people' -- by putting through the Assembly several laws that remained basic in Rome -- that any man who should try to make himself king might be killed without trial -- that any attempt to take a public office without the people's consent should be punishable with death -- and that any citizen condemned by a magistrate to death or flogging should have the right of appeal to the Assembly.

"The Romans believed that they had taken from Etruria the ceremonies of a returning conqueror's triumph, the purple hemmed robes and ivory curule (chariotlike) seat of the magistrates, and the rods and axes carried before each consul by twelve lictors in token of his authority to strike and kill. The coins of Rome, centuries before she had a fleet, were adorned with the prow of a ship -- long used in the coinage of Etruria to symbolize her commercial activity and naval power.

"From the seventh to the fourth centuries B.C., it was a custom among Roman aristocrats to send their sons to Etruscan cities for higher education. There, among other things, they learned geometry, surveying, and architecture. Roman dress derived from the Etruscan, or both from a common source.

"The first actors, and their name histriones, came to Rome from Etruria. It was Tarquinius Priscus, if we may believe Livy, who built the first Circus Maximus, and imported race horses and pugilists from Etruria for Roman games. The Etruscans gave Rome brutal gladiatorial contests, but they also transmitted to Rome a higher status of woman than could be found in Greece.

Early civilizations thought of virtue in terms of rank, ability, and power. Virtus to the Roman meant manliness, the qualities that make a man (vir). Populus, 'people,' took in only these upper classes. Originally it was in this sense that those famous initials were used -- SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus) -- which were to mark so proudly a hundred thousand monuments. Gradually, as democracy fought its way, the word populus came to include the plebs.

"Legally he could be dealt with as any other piece of property. In theory, and according to the custom of the ancients, his life had been forfeited by defeat, and his enslavement was a merciful commutation of his death. Sometimes he managed his master's property, business, or funds. Sometimes he became a teacher, writer, actor, craftsman, laborer, tradesman, or arist, and paid his master part of his earnings.

"The plebs demanded that these laws should be repealed and the burden of accrued debt reduced -- that the lands won in war, and owned by the state should be distributed among the poor instead of being given, or sold at nominal prices, to the rich -- that plebeians should be eligible to the magistracies and the priesthoods, be permitted to intermarry with the 'orders,' and have a representative of their class among the highest officials of the government.

"The Senate sought to frustrate the agitation by fomenting wars, but it was shocked to find its calls to the colors ignored. In 494 B.C. large masses of the plebs 'seceded' to the Sacred Mount on the river Anio, three miles from the city, and declared that they would neither fight nor work for Rome until their demands had been met.

"The Senate used every diplomatic or religious device to lure the rebels back. Then, fearing that invasion from without might soon be added to revolt within, it agreed to a cancellation or reduction of debts, and the establishment of two tribunes and three aediles as the elected defenders of the plebs.

"When they returned, the Assembly (451) chose ten men -- decemviri -- to formulate a new code, and gave them supreme governmental power in Rome for two years. This commission, under the presidency of a resolute reactionary, Appius Claudius, transformed the old customary law of Rome into the famous Twelve Tables, submitted them to the Assembly (which passed them with some changes), and displayed them in the Forum for all who would -- and could - to read. This seemingly trivial event was epochal in Roman history and in the history of mankind.

"Her father, Lucius Virginius, protested. When Claudius refused to hear him, he slew his daughter, rushed out to his legion, and asked its aid in overthrowing the new despot. The enraged plebs once more 'seceded' to the Sacred Mount, 'imitating,' says Livy, 'the modereation of their fathers by abstaining from all injury.' Learning that the army was supporting the plebs, the patricians gathered in the senate house, deposed the Decemvirs -- banished Claudius -- restored the consulate -- enlarged the tribunate -- recognized the inviolability of the people's tribunes -- and confirmed to the plebs the right of appealing to the Assembly of the Centuries from the decision of any magistrate.

"Four years later (445) the tribune Caius Canuleius moved that the plebs should have the right of intermarriage with patricians, and that plebeians should be eligible to the consulate. The Senate, again faced by threats of war from vengeful neighbors, yielded the first point, and averted the second by agreeing that thereafter six of the tribunes chosen by the Centurial Assembly should have the authority of consuls.

"Who, among this people, were the citizens? In practice, the citizens were all males above fifteen years of age who were neither slaves nor aliens, and all aliens who had received a grant of Roman citizenship.

Never before or since has citizenship been so jealously guarded or so highly prized. It meant membership in the relatively small group that was soon to rule the whole Mediterranean area. It brought immunity from legal torture or duress, and the right of appeal from any official in the Empire to the Assembly -- or later, the emperor -- at Rome.

Obligations went with these privileges. The citizen, unless quite poor, was liable to military service at call from his sixteenth to his sixtieth year. He could not hold political office until he had served ten years in the army. His political rights were so bound up with his military duties that his most important voting was done as a member of his regiment, or "century."

"In the days of the kings he had voted also in the comitia curiata; i.e. he and other heads of families had come together (cum-ire) in a gathering of the thirty curiae, or wards, into which the three tribes had been divided. To the end of the Republic it was this Curial Assembly that conferred upon the elected magistrates the imperium, or authority to govern.

"After the fall of the monarchy the Curial Assembly rapidly lost its other powers to the comitia centuriata -- the soldiers assembled in 'centuries' originally of one hudnred men.

"It was this Centurial Assembly that chose the magistrates -- passed or rejected the measures proposed to it by officials or the Senate -- heard appeals from the judgments of magistrates -- tried all cases of capital crime charged to Roman citizens -- and decided upon war or peace. It was the broad base of both the Roman army and the Roman government.

"Then came the 'first class' men -- men owning 100,000 asses' worth of property. These had eighty centuries, or 8000 men, in the Assembly.

"The second class embraced citizens owning between 75,000 and 100,000 asses.

"The third, between 50,000 and 75,000 asses.

"The fourth, between 25,000 and 50,000 asses. Each of these classes had twenty centuries.

"The fifth class included citizens owning between 11,000 and 25,000 asses, and had thirty centuries.

"All citizens possessing under 11,000 asses were formed into one century.

"Each century cast one vote, determined by a majority of its members. A small majority in one century could cancel a large majority in another, and give the victory to a numerical minority. Since each century voted in the order of its financial rank, and its vote was announced as soon as taken, the agreement of the first two groups gave at once ninety-eight votes, a majority of the whole, so that the lower classes seldom voted at all.

"Voting was direct. Citizens who could not come to Rome for the meeting had no representation in the Assembly. All this was no mere device to disfranchise the peasants and the plebs. The classification of centuries had been mde by the census to distingish men for taxation as well as for war. The Romans thought it just that the right to vote should be proportioned to taxes paid and military duties required. Citizens with less than 11,000 asses of property had altogether only one centurial vote. Correspondingly they paid a negligible tax and were in normal times exempt from military service. Of the proletariat, until Marius' day, nothing was asked except prolific parentage.

"By a pleasant custom the members brought their sons with them to attend in silence, and to learn statesmanship and chicanery at first hand.

"Theoretically the Senate might dicuss and decide only such issues as were presented to it by a magistrate, and its decisions were merely advice (senatus consulta), without the force of law. Actually its prestige was so great that the matistrates nearly always accepted its recommendations.

"The magistrates held power for a year only, while the senators were chosen for life.

"The conduct of foreign relations -- the making of alliances and treaties -- the waging of war -- the government of the colonies and provinces -- the management and distribution of the public lands -- the control of the treasure and its disbusements ----all these were exclusive functions of the Senate and gave it immense power.

"These senators were not supermen. They made serious mistakes, sometimes vacillated in their policies, often lost the vision of empire in the lust for personal gain. But most of them had been magistrates, administrators, and commanders. Some of them, as proconsuls, had ruled provinces as large as kingdoms. Many of them came of families that had given statesmen or generals to Rome for hundreds of years. It was impossible that a body made up of such men should escape some measure of excellence.

"The Senate was at its worst in victory, at its best in defeat. It could carry forward policies that spanned generations and centuries. It could begin a war in 264 and end it in 146 B.C.

"The aspirant to a political career, if he survived a decade in the army, might seek election as one of the quaestors who, under the Senate and the consuls, managed the expenditure of state funds, and assisted the praetors in preventing and investigating crime. If he pleased his electors or his influential supporters, he might later be chosen one of the four aediles charged with the care of buildings, aqueducts, streets, markets, theaters, brothels, saloons, police courts, and public games.

Presiding over the Centurial Assembly on the morrow, he might offer to its choice only those names that the auspices had approved. In this way the aristocracy discouraged 'upstarts' and demagogues, and in most cases the Assembly, awed or intimidated, submitted to the pious fraud.

"The candidate appeared in person, dressed in a plain white (candidus) toga to emphasize the simplicity of his life and morals, and perhaps the more easily to show the scars he had won in the field. If elected, he entered office on the ensuing March 15.

"The consul took on sanctity by leading the state in the most solemn religious rites. In peace he summoned and presided over the Senate and the Assembly, initiated legislation, administered justice, and in general executed the laws.

"In war he levied armies, raised funds, and shared with his fellow consul command of the legions. If both of them died or were captured during their year of office, the Senate declared an interregnum, and appointed an interrex (or interval-king) for five days, while a new election was being prepared.

"I am finishing up the historical research on the History of Jesuit mining, Exloration, and subjection (slavery) of the Indians. This may well rewrite some of the Western History. of the US. and Mexico.

First, by limiting them to the city of Rome and to times of peace. In war the tribunes obeyed the consuls.

"Secondly, by persuading the Tribal Assembly to elect wealthy plebeians as tribunes. The prestige of wealth and the diffidence of poverty moved the people to choose the rich to defend the poor.

"Thirdly, by allowing the number of tribunes to be raised from four to ten. If only one of these ten would listen to reason or money, his veto could frustrate the rest.

"In the course of time the tribunes became so dependable that they could be trusted to convene the Senate, take part in its deliberations, and become life members of it after their terms.

"If all these maneuvers failed, dictatorship remained. The Romans recognized that in times of national chaos or peril, their liberties and privileges, and all the checks and balances that they had creatd for their own protection, might impede the rapid and united action needed to save the state. In such cases the Senate could declare an emergency, and then either consul could name a dictator.

"In every instance but one the dictators came from the upper classes. But it must be said that the aristocracy rarely abused the possibilities of this office. The dictator received almost complete authority over all persons and property, but he could not use public funds without the Senate's consent, and his term was limited to six months or a year. All dictators but two obeyed these restrictions, honoring the story of how Cincinnatus, called from the plow to save the state (456 B.C), returned to his farm as soon as the task was done.

"For the rest, early Roman law was a priestly rule, a branch of religion, surrounded with sacred sanctions and solemn rites. Law was both lex and ius -- command and justice. It was a relation not only between man and man but between man and the gods. Crime was a disturbance of that relation, of the pax decorum or peace of the gods. Law and punishment were in theory designed to maintain or restore that relation and peace.

"The priests declared on what days the courts might open and the assemblies meet. All questions regarding marriage or divorce, celibacy or incest, wills or transfers, or the rights of children, required the priest as now so many of them require the lawyer.

"Only the priests knew the formulas without which hardly anything cold be legally done. They were in Rome the first iurisconsulti, consultants in the law, counselors. They were the first to give responsa, or legal opinions.

"Tarentum was obstinate, and called over to her aid Pyrrhus, King of Epirus. This gallant warrior, fevered with memories of Achilles and Alexander, crossed the Adriatic with an Epirote force, defeated the Romans at Heraclea (280), and gave an adjective to European languages by mourning the costliness of his victory.

"All the Greek cities of Italy now joined him, and the Lucanians, Bruttians, and Samnites declared themselves his allies. He dispatched Cineas to Rome with offers of peace, and freed his 2000 Roman prisoners on their word to return if Rome preferred war. The Senate was about to make terms when old blind Appius Claudius, who had long since retired from public life, had himself carried to the senate house and demanded that Rome should never make peace with a foreign army on Italian soil. The Senate sent back to Pyrrhus the prisoners whom he had released, and resumed the war.

"The young king won another victory. Then, disgusted with the sloth and cowardice of his allies,l he sailed with his depleted army to Sicily. He relieved the Carthaginian siege of Syracuse and drove the Carthaginians from nearly all their possessions on the island. His imperious rule offended the Sicilian Greeks, who thought they could have freedom without order and courage. They withdrew their support, and Pyrrhus returned to Italy, saying of Sicily, 'What a prize I leave to be fought for by Carthage and Rome!'

"His army met the Romans at Beneventum, where for the first time he suffered defeat (275). The light-armed and mobile maniples proved superior to the unwieldy phalanxes, and began a new chapter in military history. Pyrrhus appealed to his Italian allies for new troops. They refused, doubting his fidelity and persistence. He returned to Epirus, and died an adventurer's death in Greece.

"In these ways hundreds of Italian towns that still live today received their foundation or the Romanization. The Latin language and culture were spread throughout a peninsula still largely polyglot and barbarous, and Italy was slowly forged into a united state. The first step had been taken in a political synthesis brutal in execution, majestic in result.

"The Semitic settlers at these posts married some of the natives and bribed the rest to peace. About 813 B.C. a new group of colonists, perhaps from Phoenicia, perhaps from expanding Utica, built their homes upon a promontory ten miles northwest of the modern Tunis. The narrow peninsula could be easily defended, and the land, watered by the Betradas (Medjerda) River, was so fertile that it quickly recovered from repeatd devastation.

"Classic tradition ascribed the founding of the city to Elissa, or Dido, daughter of the king of Tyre. Her husband having been slain by her brother, she had sailed with other adventurous souls to Africa.

"Her settlement was called Kart-hadasht -- Newtown -- to distingish it from Utica. The Greeks transformed the name into Karchedon, the Romans into Carthage. The Latins gave the name Africa to the region around Carthage and Utica, and followed the Greeks in calling its Semitic population Poeni -- i.e. Phoenicians. The sieges of Tyre by Shalmaneser, Nebuchadrezzar, and Alexander drove many wealthy Tyrians to Africa.. Most of them went to Carthage, and made it a new center of Phoenician trade.

"Urban industry was relatively immature, except for metalwork. The Carthaginians, like their Asiatic forebears, preferred to trade what others made. They led their pack mules east and west and across the Sahara to find elephants, ivory, gold, or slaves. Their immense galleys carried goods to and from a hundred ports between Asia and Britain, for they refused to turn back, like most other mariners, at the Pillars of Hercules.

"It took the Balearic Islands, and reached out even to Madeira. It conquered Malta, Sardinia, Corsica, and the western half of Sicily. It treated these subject lands with varying degrees of severity, charging them annual tribute, conscripting their population for its army, and strictly controlling their foreign relations and their trade. In return it gave them military protection, local self-government, and economic stability.

"Most of them wore a fez or a turban, shoes or sandals, and a long loose gown. The upper classes adopted the Greek style of dress, dyed their robes with purple, and fringed them with glass beads.

"The women led for the most part a veiled and secluded life. They could rise to a high place in the priesthoods but otherwise had to be contented with the sovereignty of their charms. Both sexes used jewelry and perfume, and occasionallly displayed a ring in the nose.

"We know little of their morals except from their enemies. Greek and Roman writers describe them as heavy eaters and drinkers, loving to gather in dinner clubs, and as loose in their sex relations as they were corrupt in their politics. The treacherous Romans employed fides Punica - Carthaginian faith -- as a synonum for treachery.

"Polybius reported that 'at Carthage nothing that results in profit is regarded as disgraceful.' Plutarch denounced the Carthaginians as 'hard and gloomy, docile to their rulers, hard to their subjects, running to extremes of cowardice in fear and of savagery in anger, stubborn in decisions, austere, and unresponsive to amusement or the graces of life.''

"But Plutarch, though usually fair, was always a Greek. Polybius was bosom friend of the Seipio who burned Carthage to the ground.

"The Carthaginians appear at their worse in their religion, which again we know only from their enemies. Their ancestors in Phoenicia had worshiped Baal-Moloch and Astarte as personifying the male and female principles in nature, and the sun and moon in the sky. The Carthaginians addressed similar devotions to corresponding deities -- Baal-Haman and Tanith. Tanith above all aroused their loving piety. They filled her temples with gifts, and took her name in their oaths.

"Third in honor was the god Melkart, 'Key of the City.' Then Eshmun, god of wealth and health. Then a host of minor gods -- 'baals' or lords. Even Dido was worshiped.

"To Baal-Haman, in great crises, living children were sacrificed, as many as three hundred in a day.

"They were placed upon the inclined and outstretched arms of the idol and rolled off into the fire beneath. Their cries were drowned in the noise of trumpets and cymbals. Their mothers were required to look upon the scene without moan or fear, lest they be acdused of impiety and lose the credit due them from the god.

"In time the rich refused to sacrifice their own children and bought substitutes among the poor. When Agathoeles of Syracuse besieged Carthage, the upper classes, fearing their subterfuge had offended the god, cast two hundred aristocratic infants into the fire. It should be added that these stories are told us by Diodorus, a Sicilian Greek, who looked with equanimity upon the Greek custom of infanticide.

"Of its architecture the Romans left not a stone upon a stone. We are told that its style was a mixture of Phoenician and Greek, that its temples were massive and ornate. That the temple and statue of Baal-Haman were plated with gold valued at a thousand talents. That even the proud Greeks considered Carthage one of the world's most beaautiful capitals.

"The museums of Tunis contain some pieces of sculpture from sarcophagi found in tombs near the site of Carthage. The finest is a strong and graceful figure, perhaps of Tanith, in a manner essentially Greek. Smaller statues, unearthed from Carthaginian graves in the Baleres, are crude and often repulsively grotesque, as if designed to impress children or frighten deveils away.

"The citizens met occasionally in an Assembly empowered to accept or reject, but not to discuss or amend, proposals referred to it by a Senate of three hundred elders. The Senate, however, was not obliged to submit to the assembly any measures upon which it could itself agree. The people elected the Senate, but open bribery reduced the virtue or danger of this democratic procedure, and replaced an aristocracy of birth with an oligarchy of wealth.

"From nominations presented by the Senate, the Assembly annually chose two shofetes to head the judicial and administrative branches of the state. Above all these bodies was a court of 104 judges who, in contravention of the law, held office for life. As it was empowered to sepervise all administration, and to require an accounting from every official at the end of his term, this court acquired, by the time of the Punic Wars, supreme control over every governmental agency and every citizen.

"The commander of the armies was nominated by the Senate and chosen by the Assembly. He was in a better position than the Roman consul, for his command could be continued as long as the Senate desired. The Roman, however, led against Carthage legions of landowning patriots, whereas the Carthaginian army was a mercenary force of foreign -- chiefly Libyan -- origin, feeling no affection for Carthage, but loyal only to its paymaster and occasionally to its general. The Carthaginian navy was without question the most powerful of its time. Five hundred quinqueremes, gaily painted, slim and swift, ably protected Carthaginian colonies, markets, and trade routes.

"The Punic leader ws not twenty-eight years old, at his prime in body and mind. In addition to a Carthaginian gentleman's schooling in the languages, literature, and history of Phoenicia and Greece, he had received a soldier's training through nineteen years in camp. He had disciplined his body to hardship, his appetite to moderation, his tongue to silence, his thought to objectivity. He could run or ride with the swiftest, hunt or fight with the bravest. He was 'the first to enter the battle' says the hostile Livy, 'and the last to abandon the field.'

"The veterans loved him because in his commanding presence and piercing eyes they saw their old leader Hamilcar return to them in fresh youth. The recruits liked him because he wore no distinctive dress, never rested until he had provided for his army's needs, and shared with them all sufferings and gains. The Romans accused him of avarice, cruelty, and treachery, for he honored no scruples in seizing supplies for his troops, punished disloyalty severely, and laid many snares for his foes.

"Yet we find him often merciful, always chivalrous. The Romans could not readily forgive himn for winning battles with his brains rather than with the lives of his men.

"In 230 Rome took her first step toward the conquest of Greece by clearing the Adriatic of pirates and seizing a part of the Illyrian coast as a further protection for Italian trade. Safe now on south and east, she resolved to drive the Gauls over the Alps and make Italy a completely united state.

"To secure herself on the west she signed a treaty with Hasdrubal by which the Carthaginians in Spain agreed to stay south of the Ebro River. At the same time she made an alliance with the semi-Greek towns of Saguntum and Ampurias in Spain.

"In the following year (225) a Gallic army of 50,000 foot and 20,000 horse swept down the peninsula. The inhabitants of the capital were so frightened that the Senate returned to the primitive custom of human sacrifice and buried two Gauls alive in the Forum as an appeasement of the gods.

"The legions met the invaders near Telamon, killed 40,000, took 10,000 prisoners, and marched on to subjugate all Cisalpine Gaul. In three years the task was completed.

"Protective colonies were established at Placentia and Cremona, and from the Alps to Sicily Italy was one."

"The Punic leader ws not twenty-eight years old, at his prime in body and mind. In addition to a Carthaginian gentleman's schooling in the languages, literature, and history of Phoenicia and Greece, he had received a soldier's training through nineteen years in camp. He had disciplined his body to hardship, his appetite to moderation, his tongue to silence, his thought to objectivity. He could run or ride with the swiftest, hunt or fight with the bravest. He was 'the first to enter the battle' says the hostile Livy, 'and the last to abandon the field.'

"The veterans loved him because in his commanding presence and piercing eyes they saw their old leader Hamilcar return to them in fresh youth. The recruits liked him because he wore no distinctive dress, never rested until he had provided for his army's needs, and shared with them all sufferings and gains. The Romans accused him of avarice, cruelty, and treachery, for he honored no scruples in seizing supplies for his troops, punished disloyalty severely, and laid many snares for his foes.

"Yet we find him often merciful, always chivalrous. The Romans could not readily forgive himn for winning battles with his brains rather than with the lives of his men.

"Hannibal spent eight months in subduing the Saguntines. He did not dare advance toward Italy while leaving to the Romans so excellent a port for landing in his rear.

"In 218 he crossed the Ebro, challenging fate as Caesar would at the Rubicon. He had an army of 50,000 infantry and 9000 cavalry, none of them mercenaries, most of them Spaniards and Libyans.

"Three thousand Spaniards deserted when they learned that he planned to cross the Alps, and Hannibal released 7000 others who protested against his enterprise as impossible. It was hard enough to force a passage through the Pyrenees. More unexpected was the fierce resistance of some Gallic tribes allied with Marseilles. A summer of fighting was required to reach the Rhone, and a major battle to cross it.

"Early in September, after a climb of nine days, he reached the summit and found it covered with snow. There he let his men and animals rest for two days and then began the downward march through passes steeper than the ascent, over roads sometimes buried by landslides and often paved with ice. Many soldiers and beasts lost their footing and tumbled to their deaths.

"Hannibal spurred on his despairing forces by pointing out to them, in the distant south, the green fields and sparkling streams of Italy. That paradise, he promised the, would soon be theirs. After seventeen days in the Alps they reached the plain and rested.

"So many men and horses had been lost in the crossing that the army was now reduced to 26,000 -- less than half the force that had left New Carthage four months before. Had the Cisalpine Gauls resisted him as the Transalpine Gauls had done, Hannibal's progress might have ended there. But the Boii and other tribes welcomed him as a savior and joined him as allies.

"Hannibal's Numidian cavalry put the Romans to flight and Scipio, dangerously wounded, was saved by the brave interposition of the son who was destined to meet Hannibal again at Zama sixteen years later.

"At Lake Trasimene Hannibal encountered another Roman army, 30,000 strong, led by the tribune Caius Flaminius, and accompanied by slave dealers bringing fetters and chains for the prospective prisoners, whom they hoped to sell.

"He himself suffered from severe ophthalmia, took no time to treat it, and lost the use of one eye. Then he marched down the eastern coast, inviting the Italian tribes to join him. None did. On the contrary, every city closed its gates against him and prepared to fight. As he moved south, his Gallic allies, interested only in their northern homes, began to desert him.

"Plots against his life were so numerous that he had to assume ever new disguises. He begged his government to send him supplies and men by some Adriatic port. It refused. He asked his younger brother Hasdrubal, whom he had left in Spain, to organize an army and cross Gaul and the Alps to join him, but the Romans had invaded Spain, and Hasdrubal did not dare to leave it.

"After a year this 'masterly inaction' irritated the Roman populace. The assembly overruled the Senate, as well as all precedents and logic, by electing Minucius Rufus codictator with Fabius. Against Fabius' advice Minucius advanced against the enemy, fell into a trap, was severely beaten, and thereafter understood why Hannibal said that he feared Fabius, who would not fight, more than Marcellus, who would.

"A year later Fabius was deposed, and the Roman armies were entrusted to Lucius Aemilius Paulus and Caius Terrentius Varro. Paulus the aristocrat counseled caution. Varro of the plebs was all for action.

As usual, caution lost the argument. Varro sought and found the Carthaginians at Cannae, in Apulia, some ten miles from the Adriatic coast. The Romans had 80,000 infantry, 6000 cavalry. Hannibal had 19,000 veterans, 16,000 unreliable Gauls, 10,000 horse. He had lured Varro to fight in a broad plain ideal for cavalty.

"He had placed the Gauls at his center, expecting that they would give way. They did. When the Romans followed them into the pocket, the subtle Carthaginian, himself in the thick of the fray, ordered his veterans to close in upon the Roman flanks and bade his cavalry smash through the opposed horsemen to attack the legions from behind. The Roman army was surrounded, lost all chance of maneuvering, and was almost annihilated. 44,000 of them fell, including Paulus and eighty senators who had enlisted as soldiers. 10,000 escaped to Canusium, among them Varro and the Scipio who was to win the surname of Africanus Major (216). Hannibal lost 6000 men, two thirds of them Gauls. It was a supreme example of generalship, never bettered in history.

"The class war ceased, and all groups rushed to the rescue of the state. Taxes had already risen apparently beyond tolerance. Now the citizens, even widows and children, voluntarily brought their secret savings to the Treasury. Every male who could bear arms was called to the colors. Slaves were accepted in the levies and were promised freedom in the event of victory.

"Not a single soldier would consent to receive pay. Rome prepared to contest every inch of ground against the new lion of Carthage."

What on earth is going on here? The experience and emotions of defeat seem to be leading toward victory. War between the classes disappeared. People united. They followed their constitution. Everyone seemed willing to forego personal financial profit and to give "all" to the state.

What happened to that urge for personal survival? Why was the state becoming more important than the individual? "Is a puzzlement!"

Any reactions to the GREEN quote which begins "The Romans most ...?"

"The Roman historians, perhaps romancing, tell us that the victor cut off the youth's head and sent it through Apulia to be cast over the ramparts into Hannibal's camp. Broken in spirit by the fate of a brother whom he had dearly loved, Hannibal withdrew his thinned-out forces to Bruttium.

"It weakened democracy by showing that a popular assembly cannot wisely choose generals or direct a war. It began the transformation of Roman life and morals by hurting agriculture and helping trade -- by taking men from the countryside and teaching them the violence of battle and the promiscuity of the camp -- by bringing the precious metals of Spain to finance new luxuries and imperialistic expansion -- and by enabling Italy to live on the extorted wheat of Spain, Sicily, and Africa.

"What institutions had formed them to such ruthless strength in character and policy -- what homes and schools, what religion and moral code?

How did they take from the soil -- and by what economic organization and skill did they mold to their uses, the wealth required to equip their growing cities and those ever new armies that never knew rest?

What were they like in their streets and shops, their temples and theaters, their science and philosophy, their old age and death?

"After eight days the child was formally accepted into the family and the clan by a solemn ceremony at the domestic hearth. A clan (gens) was a group of freeborn families tracing themselves to a common andestor, bearing his name, united in a common worship, and bound to mutual aid in peace and war.

"The male child was designated by an individual first name (praenomen), such as Publius, Marcus, Caius -- by his clan name (nomen), such as Cornelius, Tullius, Julius, -- and by his family name (cognomen), such as Scipio, Cicero, Caesar. Women wer most often designated simply by the clan name -- Cornelia, Tullia, Claudia, Julia.

"If his wife was accused of a crime, she was committed to him for judgment and punishment. He could condemn her to death for infidelity, or for stealing the keys to his wine.

"Over his children he had the power of life, death, and sale into slavery. All that the son acquired became legally his father's property. Nor could he marry without his father's consent. A married daughter remained under her father's power, unless he allowed her to marry cum manu -- gave her into the hand or power of her husband.

"Over his slaves he had unlimited authority. These, and his wife and children, were mancipia to him -- literally, 'taken in hand.' No matter what their age or status, they remained in his power until he chose to emancipate them -- to let them 'out of hand.'

"These rights of the paterfamilias were checked to some degree by custom, public opinion, the clan council, and praetorian law. Otherwise they lasted to his death, and could not be ended by his insanity or even by his own choice.

"Their effect was to cement the unity of the family as the basis of Roman morals and government and to establish a discipline that hardened the Roman character into stoic strength. They were harsher in the letter than in practice. The most extreme of them were seldom used, the rest seldom abused. They did not bar a deep and natural pietas, or reverential affection, between parents and children.

"On the other hand, she could inherit, though not beyond 100,000 sesterces ($15,000), and she could own without limit. In many instances, as the earlier passed into the later Republic, she became wealthy because her husband put his property in her name to escape bankruptcy obligation, damage suits, inheritance taxes, and other evelasting jeopardies.

"She played a role in religion as priestess. Nearly every priest had to have a wife and lost his office when she died. Within the home (domus) she was honored mistress, mea domina, madame. She was not, like the Greek wife, confined to a gynacceum, or woman's quarters. She took her meals with her mate, although she sat while he reclined.

"She did a minimum of servile work, for nearly every citizen had a slave. She might spin, as a sign of gentility, but her chief economic function was to superintend the servants. She made it a point, however, to nurse her children herself. They rewarded her patient motherhood with profound love and respect.

"The child was taught, by the eloquent silence of example, that the undying fire in the hearth was the sign and substance of the goddess Vesta, the sacred flame that symbolized the life and continuity of the family. Therefore this must never be extinguished, but must be tended with 'religious' care, and fed with a portion of each meal.

"Over the hearth he saw the little icons, crowned with flowers, that represented the gods or spirits of the family -- the Lar that guarded its fields and buildings, its fortune and destiny, and the Penates, or gods of the interior, who protected the accumulations of the family in its storerooms, cupboards, and barns. Hovering invisible but potent over the threshold was the god Janus, two-faced not as deceitful but as watching all entry and exit at every door.

"The child's father, he learned, was the ward and embodiment of an inner genius, or generative power, which would not die with the body, but must be nourished forever at the paternal grave. His mother was also the carrier of a deity and had likewise to be treated as divine. She had a Juno in her as the spirit of her capacity to bear, as the father enclosed a genius as the spirit of his power to beget. The child too had his genius or Juno, as both his guardian angel and his soul -- a godly kernel in the mortal husk.

"The earth itself was a deity -- sometimes Tellus, or Terra Mater -- Mother Earth -- sometimes Mars as the very soil he trod, and its divine fertility -- sometimes Bona Dea, the Good Goddess who gave rich wombs to women and fields.

"On the farm there was a helping god for every task or spot -- Pomona for orchards -- Faunus for cattle -- Pales for pasturage -- Sterculus for manure heaps -- Saturn for sowing -- Ceres for crops -- Fornax for baking corn in the oven -- Vulcan for making the fire.

"Over the boundaries presided the great god Terminus, imaged and worshiped in the stones or trees that marked the limits of the farm. Other religions may have looked to the sky, and the Roman admitted that there too were gods. But his deepest piety and sincerest propitiations turned to the earth as the source and mother of his life -- the home of his dead and the magic nurse of the sprouting seed.

"Every December the Lares of the soil were worshiped in the joyful Feast of the Crossroads, or Compitalia. Every January rich gifts sought the favor of Tellus for all planted things. Every May the priests of the Arval (or Plowing) Brotherhood led a chanting procession along the boundaries of adjoining farms, garlanded the stones with flowers, sprinkled them with the blood of sacrifical victims, and prayed to Mars (the earth) to bear generous fruit.

"Some lived in sacred animals, like the sacrificed horse or bull, or in the sacred geese that a playful piety preserved unharmed on the Capitol. Some were spirits of procreation. Tutumus supervised conception. Lucina protected menstruation and delivery.

Priapus was a Greek god of fertility soon domiciled in Rome. Maidens and matrons (if we may believe the indignant Saint Augustine) sat on the male member of his statue as a means of ensuring pregnancy. Scandalous figures of him adorned many a garden. Little phallic images of him were worn by simple persons to bring fertility or good luck or to avert the 'evil eye.'

"Never had a religion so many divinities. Varro reckoned them as 30,000, and Petronius complained that in some towns of Italy there were more gods than men. But deus, to the Roman, meant saint as well as god.

"Under these basic conceps lurked a polymorphous mass of popular beliefs in animism, fetishism, totemism, magic, miracles, spells, superstitions, and taboos, most of them going back to the prehistoric inhabitants of Italy, and perhaps to Indo-European ancestors in their ancient Asiatic home. Many objects, places, or persons were sacred (sacer) and therefore taboo -- not to be touched or profaned -- e.g. newborn children, menstruating women, condemned criminals.

"Hundreds of verbal formulas or mechanical contraptions were used to achieve natural ends by supernatural means. Amulets were well-nigh universal. Nearly every child wore a bulla, or golden talisman, suspended from his neck. Small images were hung upon doors or trees to ward off evil spirits. Charms or incantations were used to avert accidents, cure disease, bring rain, destroy a hostile army, wither an enemy's crops or himself.

"Witches appear in Horace, Virgil, Tibullus, Lucian. They were believed to eat snakes, fly through the air at night, brew poisons from esoteric herbs, kill children, and raise the dead. All but a few skeptics seem to have believed in miracles and portents -- in speaking or sweating statues -- in gods dscending from Olympus to fight for Rome -- in lucky odd and unlucky even days -- and in the presaging of the future by strange events. Livy's history must contain several hundred such portents, reported with philosophic gravity. The elder Pliny's volumes so abound in portents and magic cures that they might well have been called Supernatural History.

"Among these original national gods Jupiter or Jove was the favorite, though not yet, like Zeus, their king. In the early centuries of Rome he was still a half-impersonal force -- the brighter expanse of the sky, the light of the sun and the moon, a bolt of thunder or (as Jupiter Pluvius) a shower of fertilizing rain. Even Virgil and Horace occasionally use 'Jove' as a synonym for rain or sky.

"In time of drought the richest ladies of Rome walked in barefoot procession up the Capitoline hill to the Temple of Jupiter Tonans -- Jove the Thunderer -- to pray for rain. Probably his name was corruption of Diuspater, or Diespiter, Father of the Sky.

"Perhaps primitively one with him was Janus, originally Dianus -- first the two-faced spirit of the cottage door, then of the city gate, then of any opening or beginning, as of the day or year. The portals of his temple were open only in time of war, so that he might go forth with Rome's armies to overcome the gods of the foe. As old as Jupiter in the respect of the people was Mars, at first a god of tillage, then of war, then almost a symbol of Rome. Every tribe in Italy named a month after him.

"No special training was necessary for membership in these sacred colleges. Any citizen might be enrolled in them or leave them. They formed no separate order or caste and were politically powerless except as tools of the state.

"Minor pontifical colleges had special functions. The Salii, or Leapers, ushered in each New Year with a ritual dance to Mars -- the fetiales sanctified the ratification of treaties and declarations of war -- the Luperci, or Brotherhood of the Wolf, carried on the strange rites of the Lupercalia.

"The college of the Vestal Virgins tended the state hearth, and sprinkled it daily with holy water from the fountain of the sacred nymph Egeria. These white-clad, white-veiled nuns were chosen from among girls of six to ten years of age. They took a vow of virginity and service for thirty years. In return they received many public honors and privileges. If any of them was found guilty of sexual relations, she was beaten with rods and buried alive.

"As the priests were occasonally open to financial persuasion, their pronouncements were sometimes adjusted to the needs of the purchaser. For example, inconvenient legislation could be stopped by announcing that the auspices were unfavorable for further business on that day. The Assembly might be induced by 'favorable' auspces to vote for a war. In major crises the government professed to learn the pleasure of Heaven by consulting the Sibylline Books -- the recorded oracles of the Sibyl, or priestess of Apollo, at Cumae.

"The essence of the ceremony was a sacrifice -- literally making a thing sacer, i.e. belonging to a god. In the home the offering would normally be a bit of cake or wine placed on the hearth,or dropped into the domestic fire. In the village it would be the first fruits of the crops, or a ram, a dog, or a pig. On great occasions, a horse, a hog, a sheep or an ox. On supreme occasions the last three were slaughtered together in the su-ove-taur-ilia. Holy formulas pronounced over the victim turned it into the god who was to receive it. In this sense the god himself was sacrificed. Since only the viscera were burned on the altar, while priests and people ate the rest, the strength and glory of the god (men hoped) passed into the feasting worshipers.

"Sometimes human beings were offered in sacrifice. It is significant that a law had to be passed as late as 97 B.C. forbidding this.

"Prayer was still imperfectly evolved from magic incantation. The words for it -- carmen -- meant not only a chant but a charm. Pliny frankly reckoned prayer as a form of magical utterance.

"If the formula was properly recited, and was addressed to the correct deity according to the indigitamenta, or classified directory of the gods, compiled and kept by the priests, the requst was certain to be granted. If not granted, there must have been an error in the ritual. Akin to magic were also the vota, or vowed offerings, with which the people sought to gain the help of the gods. Sometimes great temples rose in fulfillment of such vows. The multitude of votive offerings found in Roman remains suggests that the religion of the people was warm and tender with piety and gratitude -- a feeling of kinship with the hidden forces in nature, and an anxious desire to be in harmony with them all.

"By contrast the state religion was uncomfortably formal, a kind of legal and contractual relation between the government and the gods. When new cults flowed in from the conquered East, it was this official worship that declined first, while the picturesque and intimate faith and ritual of the countryside patiently and obstinately survived.

"Ceremonies gave drama to the life of man and the soil, but they multiplied as if they, and not the devotion of the part to the whole, were the proper essence of religion. The gods were, with some exceptions, awesome spirits without moral aspect or nobility.

"Nevertheless, the old religion made for morality, for order and strength in the individual, the family, and the state. Before the child could learn to doubt, faith molded its character into discipline, duty, and decency.

"Religion gave divine sanctions and support to the family. It instilled in parents and children a mutual respect and piety nevr surpassed. It gave sacramental significance and dignity to birth and death -- encouraged fidelity to the marriage vow -- and promoted fertility by making parentage indispensable to the peace of the dead soul.

"By ceremonies sedulously performed before each campaign and battle it raised the soldier's morale, and led him to believe that supernatural powers were fighting on his side. It strengthened law by giving it celestial origins and religious form -- by making crime a disturbance of the order and peace of Heaven -- and by placing the authority of Jove behind every oath. It invested every phase of public life with religious solemnity, -- prefaced every act of government with ritual and prayer -- and fused the state into such intimate union with the gods that piety and patriotism became one -- and love of country rose to a passion stronger than in any other society known to history.

"These pages will suggest a contrast between the stoic Rome of Fabius and the epicurean Rome of Nero. But the contrast must not be exaggerated by a biased selection of the evidence. There were epicureans in Fabius' days and stoics in Nero's.

"From beginning to end of Roman history the sexual morality of the common man remained coarse and free, but not incompatible with a successful family life. In all free classes virginity was demanded of young women. Powerful tales were told to exalt it. The Roman had a strong sense of property and wanted a wife of such steady habits as would reasonably ensure him against leaving his goods to his rival's breed.

"In Rome, as in Greece, premarital unchastity in men was not censured if it preserved a decent respect for the hypocrisies of mankind. From the elder Cato to Cicero we find express justifications of it.

"What increases with civilization is not so much immorality of interest as opportunity of expression. In early Rome prostitues were not numerous. They were forbidden to wear the matron's robe that marked the reputable wife, and were confined to the dark corners of Rome and Roman society.