Part 22 (2/2)

The proportion of slaves to the free population in many of the states was astonis.h.i.+ngly large. In Corinth and aegina there were ten slaves to every freeman. In Attica the proportion was four to one; that is to say, out of a population of about 500,000, 400,000 were slaves. [Footnote: The population of Attica in 317 B.C. is reckoned at about 527,000. That of Athens in its best days was probably not far from 150,000.] Almost every freeman was a slave owner. It was accounted a real hards.h.i.+p to have to get along with less than half a dozen slaves.

This large cla.s.s of slaves was formed in various ways. In the prehistoric period, the fortunes of war had brought the entire population of whole provinces into a servile condition, as in certain parts of the Peloponnesus. During later times, the ordinary captives of war still further augmented the ranks of these unfortunates. Their number was also largely added to by the slave traffic carried on with the barbarian peoples of Asia Minor. Criminals and debtors, too, were often condemned to servitude; while foundlings were usually brought up as slaves.

The relation of master and slave was regarded by the Greek as being, not only a legal, but a natural one. A free community, in his view, could not exist without slavery. It formed the natural basis of both the family and the state,--the relation of master and slave being regarded as ”strictly a.n.a.logous to the relation of soul and body.” Even Aristotle and other Greek philosophers approved the maxim that ”slaves are simply domestic animals possessed of intelligence.” They were regarded as just as necessary in the economy of the family as cooking utensils.

In general, Greek slaves were not treated harshly--judging their treatment by the standard of humanity that prevailed in antiquity. Some held places of honor in the family, and enjoyed the confidence and even the friends.h.i.+p of their master. Yet at Sparta, where slavery a.s.sumed the form of serfdom, the lot of the slave was peculiarly hard and unendurable.

If slavery was ever justified by its fruits, it was in Greece. The brilliant civilization of the Greeks was its product, and could never have existed without it. As one truthfully says, ”Without the slaves the Attic democracy would have been an impossibility, for they alone enabled the poor, as well as the rich, to take a part in public affairs.” Relieving the citizen of all drudgery, the system created a cla.s.s characterized by elegant leisure, refinement, and culture.

We find an almost exact historical parallel to all this in the feudal aristocracy of mediaeval Europe. Such a society has been well likened to a great pyramid, whose top may be gilded with light, while the base lies in dark shadows. The civilization of ancient h.e.l.las was splendid and attractive, but it rested with a crus.h.i.+ng weight upon all the lower orders of Greek society.

SECTION III. ROMAN HISTORY.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE ROMAN KINGDOM.

(Legendary Date, 753-509 B.C.)

DIVISIONS OF ITALY.--The peninsula of Italy, like that of Greece, divides itself into three parts--Northern, Central, and Southern Italy. The first comprises the great basin of the Po, lying between the Alps and the Apennines. In ancient times this part of Italy included three districts-- Liguria, Gallia Cisalpina, which means ”Gaul on this (the Italian) side of the Alps,” and Venetia.

The countries of Central Italy were Etruria, Latium, and Campania, facing the Western, or Tuscan Sea; Umbria and Picenum, looking out over the Eastern, or Adriatic Sea; and Samnium and the country of the Sabines, occupying the rough mountain districts of the Apennines.

Southern Italy comprised the countries of Apulia, Lucania, Calabria, and Bruttium. Calabria occupied the ”heel,” and Bruttium formed the ”toe,” of the peninsula. This part of Italy, as we have already learned, was called Magna Graecia, or ”Great Greece,” on account of the number and importance of the Greek cities that during the period of h.e.l.lenic supremacy were established in these regions.

The large island of Sicily, lying just off the mainland on the south, may be regarded simply as a detached fragment of Italy, so intimately has its history been interwoven with that of the peninsula. In ancient times it was the meeting-place and battleground of the Carthaginians, Greeks, and Romans.

EARLY INHABITANTS OF ITALY.--There were, in early times, three chief races in Italy--the Italians, the Etruscans, and the Greeks. The Italians, a branch of the Aryan family, embraced many tribes (Latins, Umbrians, Sabines, Samnites, etc.), that occupied nearly all Central Italy. The Etruscans, a wealthy, cultured, and maritime people of uncertain race, dwelt in Etruria, now Tuscany. Before the rise of the Romans they were the leading race in the peninsula. Of the establishment of the Greek cities in Southern Italy, we have already learned in connection with Grecian History (p. 111).

Some five hundred years B.C., the Gauls, a Celtic race, came over the Alps, and settling in Northern Italy, became formidable enemies of the infant republic of Rome.

THE LATINS.--Most important of all the Italian peoples were the Latins, who dwelt in Latium, between the Tiber and the Liris. These people, like all the Italians, were near kindred of the Greeks, and brought with them into Italy those same customs, manners, beliefs, and inst.i.tutions which we have seen to have been the common possession of the various branches of the Aryan household (see p. 5). There are said to have been in all Latium thirty towns, and these formed an alliance known as the Latin League. The city which first a.s.sumed importance and leaders.h.i.+p among the towns of this confederation was Alba Longa, the ”Long White City,” so called because its buildings stretched for a great distance along the summit of a whitish ridge.

THE BEGINNINGS OF ROME.--The place of preeminence among the Latin towns was soon lost by Alba Longa, and gained by another city. This was Rome, the stronghold of the Ramnes, or Romans, located upon a low hill on the south bank of the Tiber, about fifteen miles from the sea.

The traditions of the Romans place the founding of their city in the year 753 B.C. The town was established, it would seem, as an outpost to guard the northern frontier of Latium against the Etruscans.

Recent excavations have revealed the foundations of the old walls and two of the ancient gates. We thus learn that the city at first covered only the top of the Palatine Hill, one of a cl.u.s.ter of low eminences close to the Tiber, which, finally embraced within the limits of the growing city, became the famed ”Seven Hills of Rome.” From the shape of its enclosing walls, the original city was called _Roma Quadrata_, ”Square Rome.”

THE EARLY ROMAN STATE: KING, SENATE, AND POPULAR a.s.sEMBLY.--The early Roman state seems to have been formed by the union of three communities.

These const.i.tuted three tribes, known as Ramnes (the Romans proper, who gave name to the mixed people), t.i.ties, and Luceres. Each of these tribes was divided into ten wards, or districts (_curiae_); each ward was made up of _gentes_, or clans, and each clan was composed of a number of families. The heads of these families were called _patres_, or ”fathers,” and all the members patricians, that is, ”children of the fathers.”

At the head of the nation stood the King, who was the father of the state.

He was at once ruler of the people, commander of the army, judge and high priest of the nation, with absolute power as to life and death.

Next to the king stood the Senate, or ”council of the old men,” composed of the ”fathers,” or heads of the families. This council had no power to enact laws: the duty of its members was simply to advise with the king, who was free to follow or to disregard their suggestions.

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