210. Industrial Quarters by the Tiber.—We have said that Rome was not primarily an industrial or commercial city. A million and a half people cannot, however, exist without a great deal of local manufacturing and an elaborate organization for importing staples and luxuries. If we go down the Vicus Tuscus or some other streets leading near the Tiber and toward the southern part of the city, the fine mansions grow fewer, the insulæ become more squalid, and even these last are interspersed with dingy structures of concrete which by the noise and smells proceeding thence are obviously factories.

These industrial plants are for the most part small according to the standards of another age; there is also a marked absence of complicated machinery and a conspicuous dependence simply on patient man-power; but some establishments are really on a great scale. The noble House of Afer, for example, has a practical monopoly of the brick industry.[129] Its products are used all over the city, as may be proved by the name stamped on almost every brick, and in the Afer yards and kilns are employed several thousands of slaves and free workers.

211. Conditions of Industrial Labor.—Slave labor has crowded free labor hard but has not actually destroyed it. You can never get quite the same efficiency from a “speaking tool” as from a man to whom life affords honest prospects. Furthermore, the supply of slaves is unsteady. While the legions were overrunning helpless kingdoms, it was easy enough to buy a hundred more hands for your pottery works or metal factory; but now the campaigns of Trajan (the last period, it will prove, of the great conquests) are over. There are barely enough prisoners in the slave market at present to provide a fair supply of servants.

There are other drawbacks to servile labor: though a slave worker cannot “strike” against terms of employment, his employer cannot cease to feed and clothe him during slack times, when he will gladly lay off free labor. As a result the average industry employs slaves and free men side by side; the latter are a little more self-sufficient, but seemingly they do not object to having slaves as fellow workmen. In any case the hours of labor are long and the conditions hard. A denarius (16 cents) is apparently wages enough to provide an artisan with a few rooms in a dingy insula and to keep his wife and children from starvation—especially if they can get the government grain doles; greater reward he dares seldom to demand.

212. Great Trade through Ostia and the Campanian Ports.—But Rome, as stated, imports more articles than she manufactures. The commerce from the interior of Italy, down the Tiber and along the main roads from the north, the Via Cassia and the Via Flaminia, is not of first importance—mostly garden produce, stone, and timber. Not so that from Ostia, the harbor town, or that coming by the famous southern highways, the Via Appia and the Via Latina. Navigation along the Italian coast to Ostia has its dangerous features, and a great many merchants try to unlade at such south-Latin ports as Antium or preferably at the busy harbor of Puteoli in Campania. The result is that the southern roads are often black with great trains of heavy wagons bumping over the hard pavement all the hundred and fifty odd miles from Puteoli to Rome. However, a very large fraction of the entire commerce of Rome passes up the Tiber from Ostia, and is set down on those long arrays of wharves southwest of the Aventine, known as the Emporium.

213. The Emporium and Its Wharves: the Tiber Barges.—The Emporium is not the most beautiful section of Rome, but it is one of the most important. From its murk and bustle many a lordly eques is swung away every night in his litter for the quiet, aristocratic Quirinal or Esquiline; but it is the Emporium trade which makes possible his great mansion with its hierarchy of soft-footed slaves. To reach the Emporium we go down the Vicus Tuscus past the upper end of the tall gray masses of the far-stretching Circus Maximus, then turn down narrow lanes where the Aventine crowds closely toward the Tiber. Immediately the river opens before us with a scene of teeming life.

We are now below all the regular bridges and at the head of deep-sea navigation. In truth the Tiber is too shallow and uncertain a river to be very practical for large ships, even of the Græco-Roman type. Only small vessels, mostly of the coasting variety, come up to Rome on direct voyages. But the regular procedure is to unload the deep-sea craft at Ostia and then bring up their lading along the twenty odd miles of the crooked river, in light-draft barges. These barges—some worked by long oars, some towed by their crews walking along the shore—are constantly coming and going. To-day as every day the river is alive with them, and many others are moored closely, prow following stern, all along the magnificent stone embankments which serve as quays.

Approaching one of these ungainly flat-bottomed craft, we see it has a little cabin on the poop, and its name, the “Isis of Geminus,”[130] is marked in large red letters upon the black hull. The captain is now standing by the mooring cable passed through a sculptured lion’s mouth, directing a great gang of porters carrying sacks of grain down a bank to the wharf, where Geminus, the owner himself, assisted by a government clerk carefully checks off every sack upon their bills of lading. A little scrutiny reveals that while all kinds of commodities abound on the Emporium two take wide precedence over all others—grain, from Egypt and provincial Africa; and marble, from Numidia, Greece, and Asia Minor.

214. The Marble and Grain Trades.—The marble trade, indeed, demands a special section of the wharves. For the government buildings the imperial procurators in the marble-producing provinces are constantly sending in valuable cargoes, and for monolithic columns and extra large blocks specially constructed barges are used to bring them from Ostia. Even now a great labor gang is painfully disembarking a splendid column of Egyptian porphyry for the new Temple of Venus and Rome.

Behind the Emporium stretches an ugly complex of offices, warehouses, porters’ barracks, and the like, but most conspicuous and ugly of all are the public horrea. These are tall gaunt storehouses for the keeping of grain, enormous fabrics of dull gray concrete, “elevators” in fact, carefully maintained by the government for the victualing of the capital. There are said to be more than three hundred horrea, and the largest are named for the emperors who built them—the Horreum of Augustus, of Domitian, and the like. Thousands of men are employed around them, and the state of their contents can give anxious nights to the Imperial Council. Unlovely as they seem, they are vital to the life of Rome.

It is no small task to provide grain for so huge a city, and that, too, without the aid of railways or steamships. Even a top-lofty Emperor like Domitian can fear the howls of the crowds in the circus if the price of wheat becomes high and the customary free distributions are not forthcoming. Hence these horrea must be large enough to supply a large margin against possible delay in the annual arrival of the “Alexandrian” or “African” fleets on which the provisioning of the capital depends.

215. The Public Grain Doles.—All the world knows that one of the most precious prerogatives of a plebeian in Rome is the right to receive about 5 modii (about 10 gallons dry measure) of grain every month at government charges. Is it not only right that the wearers of the toga should live on the bounty of the subject world?

In the past there have been, indeed, efforts to make the populace pay part of the price of their grain, with the government simply discharging the balance. This half measure has broken down because of unpopularity. All that the authorities can do now is to see that the list of recipients is limited to genuine citizens, and that the alien riffraff of the great city is strictly excluded.

There are now, as since the time of Augustus, about 200,000 citizens upon the precious “Frumentary Lists.” The recipients are not paupers, but include very many “small citizens” of the worthier kind. It is an honor in many circles to win the precious tessera (metal or bone ticket) entitling one to stand in line at the numerous grain dispensaries all over the city and get the monthly allowance.[131] Every adult male Roman in the city receives this privilege, but under some circumstances the tessera can be alienated. You hear of persons selling theirs or even bequeathing them by will; and some of the holders are thus not merely freedmen but even ex-criminals.

216. Distribution of the Free Bread: Extraordinary Bonuses (Congiaria and Donativa).—For a long time this food has simply been portioned out unbaked at the numerous grain stations all over the city; after which it has to be made into bread at home, or to be handed over to private bakers who will return so many loaves per measure, deducting a commission in kind. There is a growing tendency, however, towards government bakeshops as a new means of pampering the “Sovereign People” and towards passing out the food in the form of handsomely baked bread.

The custom nevertheless is not yet universal.[132] The private bakeries continue to flourish, and since each baker must grind his own flour, no sound is more common all over the city than the rasping of the millstones worked either by long-suffering donkeys, blindfolded to keep them from eating, or by the most recalcitrant and sodden class of slaves.

These distributions of free grain are part of the normal life of Rome. Inevitably they multiply the number of parasites, busybodies, and sheer beggars. Ever since Gaius Gracchus started the evil system, thoughtful men have groaned over its consequences, but all have been helpless, and the demoralization increases when an Emperor, to insure popularity at the beginning of his reign, or to confirm it later, orders a special congiarium to all the citizens.

This gift can take the form of special distributions of oil, wine, and meat to all the lucky holders of the tesseræ; but presents even more lavish are possible. When Trajan died in 118 A.D. and Hadrian was proclaimed, the latter, not quite certain of public favor, put all the insulæ to roaring in his praise by proclaiming a gift of three aurei (gold pieces of $4.00 each) to every “frumentary citizen” in Rome. What wonder that later donativa (bonuses) become necessary at dangerously frequent intervals to prevent even the most loyal plebeians from praying for a new reign![133]

217. The Trade in Sculptures and Portrait Statues.—But it is time to return to the region about the Emporium. Near the marble wharves are naturally the huge establishments where all the day long the chip, chip of many mallets and chisels indicates that great masses of sculptured stone are being turned out—magnificent capitals, pediment groups, bas-reliefs that are splendid works of art, for all the needs of the government buildings and the mansions of the wealthy.

Many large concerns devote themselves to manufacturing single statues, life-size or miniature. Standing around in their courtyards are rows of sculptured deities, mostly copies of good Greek masterpieces, representing the whole host of Olympus from Jupiter down to the inferior demigods; there are also numerous statues displaying orators posing in their togas, magistrates in their official robes, and generals in their armor, but with the features left in the rough—to be finished up on order at short notice to adorn some atrium or small-town forum.

A great array of statues of the Emperor are also kept in stock. These are needed in every government building, and the demand is constant; but it must be admitted that Hadrian’s handsome bearded features are often outrageously distorted by the careless journeymen, so that loyal folk protest even as does the governor of Pontus, Arrianus, who has just written his master, “Your statue at Trapezus [on the Euxine] is beautifully placed, but it is not the least like you. Please send on another at once from Rome!”

Special markets and warehouses also exist for almost every other major commodity. Near the Circus Maximus there is the noisy, fetid cattle market where horses, kine, and asses change hands amid coarse chaffering very much as in the trade for slaves. There are likewise great repositories for oil, flax, lumber, wool, spices, etc.—some private, some under government supervision; the clang from all kinds of smithies and metal workshops is incessant, and the factories for manufacturing bronze statues are almost as large as those for the stone sculptures.

218. The Tiber Trip to Ostia: the Merchant Shipping.—If, however, one would learn the real sum of Roman industry and commerce, it is needful to charter a slim swiftly-pulling wherry and to glide down the yellow Tiber to Ostia. All the way the craft has to dodge the enormous barges, but the shores are covered with delightful villas, small villages, or with prosperous farms raising poultry, flowers, vegetables, and the like for the city trade. In the distance across the level campagna can be seen the impressive array of the solemn arches of the great aqueducts, reaching back into the hills and bringing their supply of pure water to Rome. Ostia itself, however, is strictly a harbor town, with an elaborate series of breakwaters, dredged basins, naval docks, mercantile docks, and a perfect jumble of shipping.

The vessels have come from all parts of the Mediterranean, and there is even a battered trader that has coasted all the way from Britain with a cargo of tin ore. The smaller craft can trust sometimes to their oars in a calm, but all the larger must depend on their unwieldy lateen sails which swing from two or three long yards crossing as many masts.

By far the largest merchantmen are the Egyptian corn ships, and one of these, that is just being moved to the quay by a gang of shouting half-naked stevedores, is of somewhat unusual size. We are informed she is fully 180 feet long and 45 feet in beam.[134] She is provided with elaborate and decidedly comfortable cabins for many passengers, so that it is easy to believe the story that when the Jew Paullus (previously mentioned) on his compulsory trip to Rome was wrecked off Malta, 276 persons were rescued from the Alexandrian merchantman whereon he and his guards had embarked.

219. Imperial Naval Vessels.—At Ostia, too, can be seen a few triremes of the Imperial Navy. Enemies to the Roman dominion have practically disappeared from the seas, but there is still a certain danger of pirates or local insurrection; therefore, although the clumsy four- and five-bankers of the Punic War periods disappeared soon after the battle of Actium, small patrol squadrons of swift triremes, pulling about 170 oars, or of smaller craft are maintained by the government. These ships are extremely like the Athenian triremes of the golden age of Greece and call for no special description here.[135] The Romans are not naturally a seafaring people. Nearly all the larger merchant ships are manned if not owned by Greeks or Levantines; and it has been with real satisfaction that the Emperors have felt that they could allow their navy to dwindle down to insignificance. With the army, as will be seen, things are very different.[136]

220. The Harbor Town of Ostia.—Ostia has all the accompaniments of a busy port: a great mass of squalid lodging-houses for sailors, innumerable taverns overrun with dirty loiterers of both sexes, a great many uncouth faces along the quays, ear-ringed Syrians, and even quaintly jabbering negroes. There are, however, some good houses for the rich merchants and directors of the shipping, and a forum flanked with handsome temples and government buildings befitting the harbor town of the Mistress of the World.

In the outskirts of Ostia one can quickly get out into delightful country stretching all along the seashore. The villas of city magnates look forth upon the blue Tyrrhenian Sea, or are bowered in lush groves surrounded by rich gardens and fruitful orchards. The melons raised around Ostia are in demand by every epicure in the capital. Who can believe a prophecy that this active bustling port, with its enormous shipping, and all these villas, groves, and gardens will some day vanish like a dream, and that Ostia will lie in a desolate fever-stricken country,—with hardly a house in sight along the deserted shores, and with the harbor town of the Eternal City reduced itself to a few miserable cabins?

221. The Roman Guilds (Collegia).—Ere turning one’s glance from the economic life of Rome it is needful to regard the organization of industry. Nearly all free workmen are members of “guilds” (collegia) which nominally exist for the purpose of worshiping some patron deity; thus the bakeries are the special votaries of Vesta the hearth goddess, the fullers of Minerva the protectress of wool-working, the smiths of Vulcan, and so with others.

These “colleges” are not labor unions for the protection of the wage-earners against exploitation; they are more like the guilds that are to be developed in the Middle Ages. The chief members are the employing “masters,” and paid journeymen and apprentices have little share in the control of the organization. However, most industries in Rome are on so small a scale and the situation is so complicated by the competition of slave labor that the friction between wage-earners and their employers seldom becomes dangerously acute.

The trade guilds are carefully watched by the government lest they become the hotbeds of sedition and disturbing intrigue,[137] on the other hand their existence is often useful in helping to mobilize industry in behalf of the army and to keep up the public works in general.

They have a fairly tight organization, with their own officials, “prætors” and “presidents,” and the like, and the election to such a post by one’s fellow craftsmen is no slight honor. The guilds, too, have their special corporate property; and many of them possess elaborate guild halls for their feasts and meetings.

222. Very Ancient Guilds: the Flute-Blowers.—Some of the colleges are of decidedly recent origin, but eight of them boast that their history goes back to the very early days of Rome. These are the fullers, cobblers, carpenters, goldsmiths, coppersmiths, dyers, potters, and last but not least, the flute-blowers, so important at funerals and all public festivals.

From the “good old times” come many quaint stories about these guilds, and everybody remembers especially the tale concerning the flute-blowers. About 314 B.C. the censors saw fit to forbid these somewhat riotous and irregular gentry from joining in the sacred banquets to Jupiter in which they had formerly participated. In anger the whole college struck and retired in dudgeon to the friendly city of Tibur. Soon the Senate found it difficult to conduct the religious rites properly without the aid of the flute-players, and endeavored to cajole them home, but the strikers had found their fare and quarters in Tibur very pleasant and refused any reasonable terms. The people of Tibur, however, wearied of their guests and to get rid of them gave the whole corporation a generous banquet, during which all the members became so drunk that they could be loaded into wagons, trundled back to Rome and then laid down in a helpless stupor in the very Forum. The next morning the entire guild awoke, rubbed its collective eyes and found a vast crowd of jeering friends pressing around. The result was an honorable compromise. The censors relented, and the flute-players, in return for giving solemn attention to their religious duties, were awarded the right to three days of high carnival, with songs, dances, and every kind of coarse gayety.

223. Importance of the Guilds.—The complete list of the guilds is very long. Besides those mentioned, among the more prominent are the barbers, perfumers, fruit sellers, garment cutters, pack carriers, mule drivers, gig drivers, and fishermen, not to mention the great guild of the bakers. There is as yet no formal compulsion upon a craftsman to join a college, but in fact any “non-union” workman is subject to discrimination and sabotage which make his life unhappy. Cases are known of funerals being halted amid an unseemly scuffle when a non-member of the guild of bier-carriers has been discovered helping to carry the litter for the dead.

Certain crafts have perforce to be distributed all over the city but inevitably fellow guildsmen like to flock together. In the industrial quarters each craft tries to concentrate upon a certain street which is then called by its name. Well known is the case of how Catiline’s gang had its rendezvous at Marcus Læcas’s house on Scythemaker’s Street. There is no annual “labor day” when all the guild members of the city hold festival together. On the contrary each college has its own separate festival, when the united craft is entitled to parade through Rome with horns, pipes, cymbals, and gaudy banners; its officers appearing in the guise of magistrates. The whole company with their families ordinarily head for the outskirts, where, beside convenient temples and hospitable taverns, the good people can spread themselves for picnics under the trees, join in vulgar dances, and very often spend the night under improvised tents of leaves—everybody sleeping the sounder because of much strong wine.

224. Multitude of Beggars.—To these honest plebeians must be added another less noble multitude. Rome literally swarms with beggars. The parasitical habits taught by slavery and by the grain doles go far to make begging somewhat respectable. At every turn you can run on whining wretches often repulsively mutilated in order to excite sympathy. They have their regular stand, however, upon the bridges, where they crouch on dirty mats shouting their “da! da!” “Give! Give!” and at the gates where travelers take or leave their carriages they are thicker than the flies. Near Ostia and along the Emporium may also be seen real or pretended sailors escaped from shipwreck, identifiable by their heads, which are shaven because of vows made in peril, and who hold out their caps for coppers while “delighting in garrulous ease to tell the story of their perils.”

Downright thieves, professional robbers, and petty pilferers are held in reasonable restraint by the active police, but the absence of street lights makes it risky business to go about after dark without torches and a good escort. Serious burglaries are often reported, and every now and then the body is found of some wayfarer who was stabbed while resisting a hold-up. As for certain districts going down the river toward Ostia, or along the Via Appia toward the Pomptine Marshes, their reputation is so bad that even in daylight a company of armed slaves is desirable.