NOTES, OF THE POPULOUSNESS OF ANCIENT NATIONS.
39 An ingenious writer has honoured this discourse with an answer full of politeness, erudition, and good sense. So learned a refutation would have made the author suspect that his reasonings were entirely overthrown, had he not used the precaution from the beginning to keep himself on the sceptical side; and having taken this advantage of the ground, he was enabled, though with much inferior forces, to preserve himself from a total defeat. That reverend gentleman will always find, where his antagonist is so entrenched, that it will be difficult to enforce him. Varro, in such a situation, could defend himself against Hannibal, Pharnaces against Cæsar. The author, however, very willingly acknowledges that his antagonist has detected many mistakes both in his authorities and reasonings; and it was owing entirely to that gentleman’s indulgence that many more errors were not remarked. In this edition advantage has been taken of his learned animadversions, and the essay has been rendered less imperfect than formerly.
40 Columella says (lib. 3, cap. 8) that in Egypt and Africa the bearing of twins was frequent and even customary; gemini partus familiares, ac pæne solennes sunt. If this was true, there is a physical difference both in countries and ages, for travellers make no such remarks of these countries at present; on the contrary, we are apt to suppose the northern nations more fertile. As those two countries were provinces of the Roman Empire, it is difficult, though not altogether absurd, to suppose that such a man as Columella might be mistaken with regard to them.
41 This too is a good reason why the smallpox does not depopulate countries so much as may at first sight be imagined. Where there is room for more people they will always arise, even without the assistance of naturalisation bills. It is remarked by Don Geronimo de Ustariz that the provinces of Spain which send most people to the Indies are most populous, which proceeds from their superior riches.
42 The same practice was common in Rome, but Cicero seems not to think this evidence so certain as the testimony of free citizens. (Pro Cælio.)
43 Epistle 122. The inhuman sports exhibited at Rome may justly be considered too as an effect of the people’s contempt for slaves, and was also a great cause of the general inhumanity of their princes and rulers. Who can read the accounts of the amphitheatrical entertainments without horror? Or who is surprised that the emperors should treat that people in the same way the people treated their inferiors? One’s humanity on that occasion is apt to renew the barbarous wish of Caligula, that the people had but one neck. A man could almost be pleased by a single blow to put an end to such a race of monsters. “You may thank God,” says the author above cited (Epistle 7), addressing himself to the Roman people, “that you have a master (viz., the mild and merciful Nero) who is incapable of learning cruelty from your example.” This was spoken in the beginning of his reign; but he fitted them very well afterwards, and no doubt was considerably improved by the sight of the barbarous objects to which he had from his infancy been accustomed.
44 We may here observe that if domestic slavery really increased populousness, it would be an exception to the general rule, that the happiness of any society and its populousness are necessary attendants. A master, from humour or interest, may make his slaves very unhappy, and yet be careful, from interest, to increase their number. Their marriage is not a matter of choice with them, no more than any other action of their life.
45 Ten thousand slaves in a day have been often sold for the use of the Romans at Delus in Cilicia.—Strabo, lib. 14.
46 As servus was the name of the genus, and verna of the species, without any correlative, this forms a strong presumption that the latter were by far the least numerous. It is a universal observation which we may form upon language that where two related parts of a whole bear any proportion to each other in numbers, rank, or consideration, there are always correlative terms invented which answer to both the parts, and express their mutual relation. If they bear no proportion to each other, the term is only invented for the less, and marks its distinction from the whole. Thus man and woman, master and servant, father and son, prince and subject, stranger and citizen are correlative terms; but the words—seaman, carpenter, smith, tailor, etc., have no correspondent terms which express those who are no seaman, no carpenter, etc. Languages differ very much with regard to the particular words where this distinction obtains, and may thence afford very strong inferences concerning the manners and customs of different nations. The military government of the Roman emperors had exalted the soldiery so high that they balanced all the other orders of the state; hence miles and paganus became relative terms, a thing till then unknown to ancient, and still so to modern languages. Modern superstition has exalted the clergy so high that they overbalance the whole state; hence clergy and laity are terms opposed in all modern languages, and in these alone. And from the same principles I infer that if the number of slaves bought by the Romans from foreign countries had not extremely exceeded those bred at home, verna would have had a correlative which would have expressed the former species of slaves; but these, it would seem, composed the main body of the ancient slaves, and the latter were but a few exceptions.
47 Verna is used by the Roman writers as a word equivalent to scurra, on account of the petulance and impudence of those slaves. (Mart., lib. 1, ep. 42.) Horace also mentions the vernæ procaces; and Petronius (cap. 24), vernula urbanitas. Seneca (de provid., cap. 1), vernularum licentia.
48 It is computed in the West Indies that a stock of slaves grow worse five per cent. every year unless new slaves be bought to recruit them. They are not able to keep up their number even in those warm countries where clothes and provisions are so easily got. How much more must this happen in European countries, and in or near great cities?
49 Corn. Nepos in Vita Attici. We may remark that Atticus’s estate lay chiefly in Epirus, which being a remote, desolate place, would render it profitable for him to rear slaves there.
50 κλινοποι οι, makers of those beds which the ancients lay upon at meals.
51 “Non temere ancillæ ejus rei causa comparantur ut pariant” (Digest. lib. 5, tit. 3, de hæred. petit. lex 27). The following texts are to the same purpose:—“Spadonem morbosum non esse, neque vitiosum, verius mihi videtur; sed sanum esse, sicuti illum qui unum testiculum habet, qui etiam generare potest” (Digest. lib. 2, tit. 1, de ædilitio edicto, lex 6, § 2). “Sin autem quis ita spado sit, ut tam necessaria pars corporis penitus absit, morbosus est” (Id. lex 7). His impotence, it seems, was only regarded so far as his health or life might be affected by it; in other respects he was full as valuable. The same reasoning is employed with regard to female slaves. “Quæritur de ea muliere quæ semper mortuos parit, an morbosa sit? et ait Sabinus, si vulvæ vitio hoc contingit, morbosam esse” (Id. lex 14). It has even been doubted whether a woman pregnant was morbid or vitiated, and it is determined that she is sound, not on account of the value of her offspring, but because it is the natural part or office of women to bear children. “Si mulier prægnans venerit, inter omnes convenit sanam eam esse. Maximum enim ac præcipuum munus fœminarum accipere ac tueri conceptum. Puerperam quoque sanam esse; si modo nihil extrinsecus accedit, quod corpus ejus in aliquam valetudinem immitteret. De sterili Cœlius distinguere Trebatium dicit, ut si natura sterilis sit, sana sit; si vitio corporis, contra” (Id.).
52 The slaves in the great houses had little rooms assigned them, called cellæ; whence the name of cell was transferred to the monk’s room in a convent. See further on this head, Just. Lipsius, Saturn. 1, cap. 14. These form strong presumptions against the marriage and propagation of the family slaves.
53 Tacitus blames it—De morib. Germ.
54 De fraterno amore. Seneca also approves of the exposing of sickly, infirm children (De ira, lib. i. cap. 15).
55 The practice of leaving great sums of money to friends, though one had near relations, was common in Greece as well as Rome, as we may gather from Lucian. This practice prevails much less in modern times; and Ben Jonson’s Volpone is therefore almost entirely extracted from ancient authors, and suits better the manners of those times.
It may justly be thought that the liberty of divorces in Rome was another discouragement to marriage. Such a practice prevents not quarrels from humour, but rather increases them; and occasions also those from interest, which are much more dangerous and destructive. Perhaps too the unnatural lusts of the ancients ought to be taken into consideration as of some moment.
56 Cæsar gave the centurions ten times the gratuity of the common soldiers (De bell. Gallico, lib. viii.). In the Rhodian cartel, mentioned afterwards, no distinction in the ransom was made on account of ranks in the army.
57 Plin. lib. 18, cap. 3. The same author, in cap. 6, says, “Verumque fatentibus latifundia perdidere Italiam; jam vero et provincias. Sex domo semissem Africæ possidebant, cum interfecit eos Nero princeps.” In this view the barbarous butchery committed by the first Roman emperors was not perhaps so destructive to the public as we may imagine. These never ceased till they had extinguished all the illustrious families which had enjoyed the plunder of the world during the latter ages of the republic. The new nobles who rose in their place were less splendid, as we learn from Tacit. Ann. lib. 3, cap. 55.
58 The ancient soldiers, being free citizens above the lowest rank, were all married. Our modern soldiers are either forced to live unmarried, or their marriages turn to small account towards the increase of mankind—a circumstance which ought, perhaps, to be taken into consideration, as of some consequence in favour of the ancients.
59 What is the advantage of the column after it has broken the enemy’s line? Only that it then takes them in flank, and dissipates whatever stands near it by a fire from all sides; but till it has broken them, does it not present a flank to the enemy, and that exposed to their musketry, and, what is much worse, to their cannon?
60 Inst. lib. 2, cap. 6. It is true the same law seems to have been continued till the time of Justinian, but abuses introduced by barbarism are not always corrected by civility.
61 Lysias, who was himself of the popular faction and very narrowly escaped from the Thirty Tyrants, says that the democracy was as violent a government as the oligarchy. Orat. 24, de statu. popul.
62 Orat. 24. And in Orat. 29 he mentions the factious spirit of the popular assemblies as the only cause why these illegal punishments should displease.
63 Lib. 3. The country in Europe in which I have observed the factions to be most violent, and party hatred the strongest, is Ireland. This goes so far as to cut off even the most common intercourse of civilities between the Protestants and Catholics. Their cruel insurrections, and the severe revenges which they have taken of each other, are the causes of this mutual ill-will, which is the chief source of the disorder, poverty, and depopulation of that country. The Greek factions I imagine to have been inflamed still to a higher degree of rage, the revolutions being commonly more frequent, and the maxims of assassination much more avowed and acknowledged.
64 Diod. Sic., lib. 14. Isocrates says there were only 5000 banished. He makes the number of those killed amount to 1500. Areop. Æschines contra Ctesiph. assigns precisely the same number. Seneca (De tranq. anim. cap. 5) says 1300.
65 We shall mention from Diodorus Siculus alone a few which passed in the course of sixty years during the most shining age of Greece. There were banished from Sybaris 500 of the nobles and their partisans (lib. 12 p. 77, ex edit. Rhodomanni); of Chians, 600 citizens banished (lib. 13 p. 189); at Ephesus, 340 killed, 1000 banished (lib. 13 p. 223); of Cyrenians, 500 nobles killed, all the rest banished (lib. 14 p. 263); the Corinthians killed 120, banished 500 (lib. 14 p. 304); Phæbidas the Spartan banished 300 Bæotians (lib. 15 p. 342). Upon the fall of the Lacedemonians, democracies were restored in many cities, and severe vengeance taken of the nobles, after the Greek manner. But matters did not end there, for the banished nobles, returning in many places, butchered their adversaries at Phialæ in Corinth, in Megara, in Phliasia. In this last place they killed 300 of the people; but these again revolting, killed above 600 of the nobles and banished the rest (lib. 15 p. 357). In Arcadia 1400 banished, besides many killed. The banished retired to Sparta and Pallantium. The latter delivered up to their countrymen, and all killed (lib. 15 p. 373). Of the banished from Argos and Thebes there were 500 in the Spartan army (id. p. 374). Here is a detail of the most remarkable of Agathocles’ cruelties from the same author. The people before his usurpation had banished 600 nobles (lib. 19 p. 655). Afterwards that tyrant, in concurrence with the people, killed 4000 nobles and banished 6000 (id. p. 647). He killed 4000 people at Gela (id. p. 741). By Agathocles’ brother 8000 banished from Syracuse (lib. 20 p. 757). The inhabitants of Ægesta, to the number of 40,000, were killed—man, woman, and child; and with tortures, for the sake of their money (id. p. 802). All the relations—viz., father, brother, children, grandfather, of his Libyan army, killed (id. p. 103). He killed 7000 exiles after capitulation (id. p. 816). It is to be remarked that Agathocles was a man of great sense and courage; his violent tyranny, therefore, is a stronger proof of the manners of the age.
66 In order to recommend his client to the favour of the people, he enumerates all the sums he had expended. When χορηγος, 30 minas; upon a chorus of men, 20 minas; ειπυρριχιστας, 8 minas; ανδρασι χορηγων, 50 minas; κυκλικῳ χορῳ, 3 minas; seven times trierarch, where he spent 6 talents: taxes, once 30 minas, another time 40; γυμνασιαρχων, 12 minas; χορηγος παιδικῳ χορῳ, 15 minas; κομοδοις χορηγων, 18 minas; πυρριχισταις αγενειοις, 7 minas; τριηρει ἁμιλλομενος, 15 minas; αρχιθεωρος, 30 minas. In the whole, ten talents 38 minas—an immense sum for an Athenian fortune, and what alone would be esteemed great riches (Orat. 20). It is true, he says, the law did not oblige him absolutely to be at so much expense, not above a fourth; but without the favour of the people nobody was so much as safe, and this was the only way to gain it. See further, Orat. 24, de pop. statu. In another place, he introduces a speaker who says that he had spent his whole fortune—and an immense one, eighty talents—for the people (Orat. 25, de prob. Evandri). The μετοικοι, or strangers, find, says he, if they do not contribute largely enough to the people’s fancy, that they have reason to repent (Orat. 30, contra Phil.). You may see with what care Demosthenes displays his expenses of this nature, when he pleads for himself de corona; and how he exaggerates Midias’s stinginess in this particular, in his accusation of that criminal. All this, by the by, is the mark of a very iniquitous judicature: and yet the Athenians valued themselves on having the most legal and regular administration of any people in Greece.
67 The authorities cited above are all historians, orators, and philosophers whose testimony is unquestioned. It is dangerous to rely upon writers who deal in ridicule and satire. What will posterity, for instance, infer from this passage of Dr. Swift? “I told him that in the kingdom of Tribnia (Britain), by the natives called Langdon (London), where I had sojourned some time in my travels, the bulk of the people consist in a manner wholly of discoverers, witnesses, informers, accusers, prosecutors, evidences, swearers, together with their several subservient and subaltern instruments, all under the colours, the conduct, and pay of ministers of state and their deputies. The plots in that kingdom are usually the workmanship of those persons,” etc. (Gulliver’s Travels.) Such a representation might suit the government of Athens, but not that of England, which is a prodigy even in modern times for humanity, justice, and liberty. Yet the Doctor’s satire, though carried to extremes, as is usual with him, even beyond other satirical writers, did not altogether want an object. The Bishop of Rochester, who was his friend, and of the same party, had been banished a little before by a bill of attainder with great justice, but without such a proof as was legal, or according to the strict forms of common law.
68 Lib. 2. There were 8000 killed during the siege, and the whole captives amounted to 30,000. Diodorus Siculus (lib. 17) says only 13,000; but he accounts for this small number by saying that the Tyrians had sent away beforehand part of their wives and children to Carthage.
69 Lib. 5. He makes the number of the citizens amount to 30,000.
70 In general there is more candour and sincerity in ancient historians, but less exactness and care, than in the moderns. Our speculative factions, especially those of religion, throw such an illusion over our minds that men seem to regard impartiality to their adversaries and to heretics as a vice or weakness; but the commonness of books, by means of printing, has obliged modern historians to be more careful in avoiding contradictions and incongruities. Diodorus Siculus is a good writer, but it is with pain I see his narration contradict in so many particulars the two most authentic pieces of all Greek history—viz., Xenophon’s Expedition and Demosthenes’ Orations. Plutarch and Appian seem scarce ever to have read Cicero’s Epistles.
71 Diogenes Laertius (in vita Empedoclis) says that Agrigentum contained only 800,000 inhabitants.
72 The country that supplied this number was not above a third of Italy—viz., the Pope’s dominions, Tuscany, and a part of the kingdom of Naples; but perhaps in those early times there were very few slaves except in Rome, or the great cities.
73 Plutarch (in vita Cæs.) makes the number that Cæsar fought with amount only to three millions; Julian (in Cæsaribus) to two.
74 Argos seems also to have been a great city, for Lysias contents himself with saying that it did not exceed Athens. (Orat. 34.)
75 Orat. contra Verem, lib. 4, cap. 52. Strabo, lib. 6, says it was twenty-two miles in compass; but then we are to consider that it contained two harbours within it, one of which was a very large one, and might be regarded as a kind of bay.
76 Demosthenes assigns 20,000.
77 Lib. 2. Diodorus Siculus’s account perfectly agrees (lib. 12).
78 We are to observe that when Dionysius Halicarnassæus says that if we regard the ancient walls of Rome the extent of the city will not appear greater than that of Athens, he must mean the Acropolis and high town only. No ancient author ever speaks of the Pyræum, Phalerus, and Munychia as the same with Athens; much less can it be supposed that Dionysius would consider the matter in that light after the walls of Cimon and Pericles were destroyed and Athens was entirely separated from these other towns. This observation destroys all Vossius’s reasonings and introduces common sense into these calculations.
79 The same author affirms that Corinth had once 460,000 slaves, Ægina 470,000; but the foregoing arguments hold stronger against these facts, which are indeed entirely absurd and impossible. It is however remarkable that Athenæus cites so great an authority as Aristotle for this last fact; and the scholiast on Pindar mentions the same number of slaves in Ægina.
80 Demost. contra Lept. The Athenians brought yearly from Pontus 400,000 medimni or bushels of corn, as appeared from the custom-house books; and this was the greatest part of their importation. This, by the by, is a strong proof that there is some great mistake in the foregoing passage of Athenæus, for Attica itself was so barren in corn that it produced not enough even to maintain the peasants. Tit. Liv., lib. 43; cap. 6, Lucian, in his navigium sive vota, says that a ship, which by the dimensions he gives seems to have been about the size of our third rates, carried as much corn as would maintain all Attica for a twelvemonth. But perhaps Athens was decayed at that time, and besides it is not safe to trust such loose rhetorical calculations.
81 Diod. Sic., lib. 17. When Alexander attacked Thebes we may safely conclude that almost all the inhabitants were present. Whoever is acquainted with the spirit of the Greeks, especially of the Thebans, will never suspect that any of them would desert their country when it was reduced to such extreme peril and distress. As Alexander took the town by storm, all those who bore arms were put to the sword without mercy, and they amounted only to 6000 men. Among these were some strangers and manumitted slaves. The captives, consisting of old men, women, children, and slaves, were sold, and they amounted to 30,000. We may therefore conclude that the free citizens in Thebes, of both sexes and all ages, were near 24,000, the strangers and slaves about 12,000, These last, we may observe, were somewhat fewer in proportion than at Athens; as is reasonable to imagine from this circumstance, that Athens was a town of more trade to support slaves, and of more entertainment to allure strangers. It is also to be remarked that thirty-six thousand was the whole number of people, both in the city of Thebes and the neighbouring territory; a very moderate number, it must be confessed, and this computation being founded in facts which appear undisputable, must have great weight in the present controversy. The above-mentioned number of Rhodians, too, were all the inhabitants of the island who were free and able to bear arms.
82 De rep. Laced. This passage is not easily reconciled with that of Plutarch above, who says that Sparta had 9000 citizens.
83 Strabo, lib. 5, says that the Emperor Augustus prohibited the raising houses higher than seventy feet. In another passage, lib. 16, he speaks of the houses of Rome as remarkably high. See also to the same purpose Vitruvius, lib. 2, cap. 8. Aristides the Sophist, in his oration εις Ρωμην, says that Rome consisted of cities on the top of cities; and that if one were to spread it out and unfold it, it would cover the whole surface of Italy. Where an author indulges himself in such extravagant declamations, and gives so much in to the hyperbolical style, one knows not how far he must be reduced. But this reasoning seems natural: if Rome was built in so scattered a manner as Dionysius says, and ran so much into the country, there must have been very few streets where the houses were raised so high. It is only for want of ground that anybody builds in that inconvenient manner.
84 Lib. 2, epist. 16; lib. 5, epist. 6. It is true Pliny there describes a country house; but since that was the idea which the ancients formed of a magnificent and convenient building, the great men would certainly build the same way in town. “In laxitatem ruris excurrunt,” says Seneca of the rich and voluptuous, epist. 114. Valerius Maximus, lib. 4, cap. 4, speaking of Cincinnatus’ field of four acres, says: “Augustus se habitare nunc putat, cujus domus tantum patet quantum Cincinnati rura patuerant.” To the same purpose see lib. 36, cap. 15; also lib. 18, cap. 2.
85 “Mœnia ejus (Romæ) collegere ambitu imperatoribus, censoribusque Vespasianis, A.U.C. 828, pass. xiii. MCC, complexa montes septem, ipsa dividitur in regiones quatuordecim, compita earum 265. Ejusdem spatii mensura, currente a milliario in capite Rom. Fori statuto, ad singulas portas, quæ sunt hodie numero 37, ita ut duodecim portæ semel numerentur, prætereanturque ex veteribus septem, quæ esse desierunt, efficit passuum per directum 30,775. Ad extrema vero tectorum cum castris prætoris ab eodem Milliario, per vicos omnium viarum, mensura collegit paulo amplius septuaginta millia passuum. Quo si quis altitudinem tectorum addat, dignam profecto, æstimationem concipiat, fateaturque nullius urbis magnitudinem in toto orbe potuisse ei comparari.” (Pliny, lib. 3, cap. 5.)
All the best manuscripts of Pliny read the passage as here cited, and fix the compass of the walls of Rome to be thirteen miles. The question is, what Pliny means by 30,775 paces, and how that number was formed? The manner in which I conceive it is this: Rome was a semicircular area of thirteen miles circumference. The Forum, and consequently the Milliarium, we know was situated on the banks of the Tiber, and near the centre of the circle, or upon the diameter of the semicircular area. Though there were thirty-seven gates to Rome, yet only twelve of them had straight streets, leading from them to the Milliarium. Pliny, therefore, having assigned the circumference of Rome, and knowing that that alone was not sufficient to give us a just notion of its surface, uses this further method. He supposes all the streets leading from the Milliarium to the twelve gates to be laid together into one straight line, and supposes we run along that line so as to count each gate once, in which case, he says that the whole line is 30,775 paces; or, in other words, that each street or radius of the semicircular area is upon an average two miles and a half, and the whole length of Rome is five miles, and its breadth about half as much, besides the scattered suburbs.
Père Hardouin understands this passage in the same manner, with regard to the laying together the several streets of Rome into one line in order to compose 30,775 paces; but then he supposes that streets led from the Milliarium to every gate, and that no street exceeded 800 paces in length. But (1) a semicircular area whose radius was only 800 paces could never have a circumference near thirteen miles, the compass of Rome as assigned by Pliny. A radius of two miles and a half forms very nearly that circumference. (2) There is an absurdity in supposing a city so built as to have streets running to its centre from every gate in its circumference. These streets must interfere as they approach. (3) This diminishes too much from the greatness of ancient Rome, and reduces that city below even Bristol or Rotterdam.
The sense which Vossius, in his Observationes Variæ, puts on this passage of Pliny errs widely in the other extreme. One manuscript of no authority, instead of thirteen miles, has assigned thirty miles for the compass of the walls of Rome; and Vossius understands this only of the curvilinear part of the circumference, supposing that, as the Tiber formed the diameter, there were no walls built on that side. But (1) this reading is allowed contrary to almost all the manuscripts. (2) Why should Pliny, a concise writer, repeat the compass of the walls of Rome in two successive sentences? (3) Why repeat it with so sensible a variation? (4) What is the meaning of Pliny’s mentioning twice the Milliarium if a line was measured that had no dependence on the Milliarium? (5) Aurelian’s wall is said by Vopiscus to have been drawn laxiore ambitu, and to have comprehended all the buildings and suburbs on the north side of the Tiber, yet its compass was only fifty miles; and even here critics suspect some mistake or corruption in the text. It is not probable that Rome would diminish from Augustus to Aurelian. It remained still the capital of the same empire; and none of the civil wars in that long period, except the tumults on the death of Maximus and Balbinus, ever affected the city. Caracalla is said by Aurelius Victor to have increased Rome. (6) There are no remains of ancient buildings which mark any such greatness of Rome. Vossius’s reply to this objection seems absurd—that the rubbish would sink sixty or seventy feet below ground. It appears from Spartian (in vita Severi) that the five-mile stone in via Lavicana was out of the city. (7) Olympiodorus and Publius Victor fix the number of houses in Rome to be between forty and fifty thousand. (8) The very extravagance of the consequences drawn by this critic, as well as Lipsius, if they be necessary, destroys the foundation on which they are grounded—that Rome contained fourteen millions of inhabitants, while the whole kingdom of France contains only five, according to his computation, etc.
The only objection to the sense which we have affixed above to the passage of Pliny seems to lie in this, that Pliny, after mentioning the thirty-seven gates of Rome, assigns only a reason for suppressing the seven old ones, and says nothing of the eighteen gates, the streets leading from which terminated, according to my opinion, before they reached the Forum. But as Pliny was writing to the Romans, who perfectly knew the disposition of the streets, it is not strange he should take a circumstance for granted which was so familiar to everybody. Perhaps, too, many of these gates led to wharves upon the river.
86 Not to take the people too much from their business, Augustus ordained the distribution of corn to be made only thrice a year; but the people, finding the monthly distribution more convenient (as preserving, I suppose, a more regular economy in their family), desired to have them restored. (Sueton. August. cap. 40.) Had not some of the people come from some distance for their corn, Augustus’s precaution seems superfluous.
87 Quintus Curtius says its walls were only ten miles in circumference when founded by Alexander (lib. 4, cap. 8). Strabo, who had travelled to Alexandria, as well as Diodorus Siculus, says it was scarce four miles long, and in most places about a mile broad (lib. 17). Pliny says it resembled a Macedonian cassock, stretching out in the corners (lib. 5, cap. 10). Notwithstanding this bulk of Alexandria, which seems but moderate, Diodorus Siculus, speaking of its circuit as drawn by Alexander (which it never exceeded, as we learn from Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. 22, cap. 16), says it was μεγεθει διαφεροντα, extremely great (ibid.). The reason why he assigns for its surpassing all cities of the world (for he excepts not Rome) is that it contained 300,000 free inhabitants. He also mentions the revenues of the kings—viz., 6000 talents—as another circumstance to the same purpose, no such mighty sum in our eyes, even though we make allowances for the different value of money. What Strabo says of the neighbouring country means only that it was well peopled, οἰκουμενα καλως. Might not one affirm, without any great hyperbole, that the whole banks of the river from Gravesend to Windsor are one city? This is even more than Strabo says of the banks of the lake Mareotis, and of the canal to Canopus. It is a vulgar saying in Italy that the King of Sardinia has but one town in Piedmont—for it is all a town. Agrippa in Josephus (de bello Judaie, lib. 2, cap. 16), to make his audience comprehend the excessive greatness of Alexandria, which he endeavours to magnify, describes only the compass of the city as drawn by Alexander, a clear proof that the bulk of the inhabitants were lodged there, and that the neighbouring country was no more than what might be expected about all great towns, very well cultivated and well peopled.
88 He says ἐλευθεροι, not πολιται, which last expression must have been understood of citizens alone, and grown men.
89 He says (in Nerone, cap. 30) that a portico or piazza of it was 3000 feet long; “tanta laxitas ut porticus triplices milliarias haberet.” He cannot mean three miles, for the whole extent of the house from the Palatine to the Esquiline was not near so great. So when Vopiscus, in Aureliano, mentions a portico of Sallust’s gardens, which he calls porticus milliariensis, it must be understood of a thousand feet. So also Horace—
“Nulla decempedis
Metata privatis opacam
Porticus excipiebat Arcton.” (Lib. ii. ode 15.)
So also in lib. i. Satyr. 8—
“Mille pedes in fronte, trecentos cippus in agrum
Hic dabat.”
90 Lib. ix. cap. 10. His expression is ἀνθρωπος, not πολιτης; inhabitant, not citizen.
91 Such were Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, Ephesus, Lyons, etc., in the Roman Empire. Such are even Bordeaux, Toulouse, Dijon, Rennes, Rouen, Aix, etc., in France; Dublin, Edinburgh, York, in the British dominions.
92 The warm southern colonies also become more healthful; and it is remarkable that in the Spanish histories of the first discovery and conquest of these countries they appear to have been very healthful, being then well peopled and cultivated. No account of the sickness or decay of Cortes’s or Pizarro’s small armies.
93 He seems to have lived about the time of the younger Africanus. (Lib. i. cap. 1.)
94 Cæsar, De bello Gallico, lib. 16. Strabo (lib. 7) says the Gauls were not much more improved than the Germans.
95 Ancient Gaul was more extensive than modern France.
96 It appears from Cæsar’s account that the Gauls had no domestic slaves, who formed a different order from the Plebes. The whole common people were indeed a kind of slaves to the nobility, as the people of Poland are at this day; and a nobleman of Gaul had sometimes ten thousand dependants of this kind. Nor can we doubt that the armies were composed of the people as well as of the nobility. An army of 100,000 noblemen from a very small state is incredible. The fighting men amongst the Helvetii were the fourth part of the whole inhabitants—a clear proof that all the males of military age bore arms. See Cæsar, De bello Gall., lib. 1.
We may remark that the numbers in Cæsar’s commentaries can be more depended on than those of any other ancient author, because of the Greek translation which still remains, and which checks the Latin original.
97 “Nec numero Hispanos, nec robore Gallos, nec calliditate Pœnos, nec artibus Græcos, nec denique hoc ipso hujus gentis, ac terræ domestico nativoque sensu, Italos ipsos ac Latinos—superavimus.” (De harusp. resp., cap. 9.) The disorders of Spain seem to have been almost proverbial: “Nec impacatos a tergo horrebis Iberos.” (Virg. Georg., lib. 3.) The Iberi are here plainly taken by a poetical figure for robbers in general.
98 Though the observations of l’Abbé du Bos should be admitted that Italy is now warmer than in former times, the consequence may not be necessary that it is more populous or better cultivated. If the other countries of Europe were more savage and woody, the cold winds that blew from them might affect the climate of Italy.
99 The inhabitants of Marseilles lost not their superiority over the Gauls in commerce and the mechanic arts till the Roman dominion turned the latter from arms to agriculture and civil life. (See Strabo, lib. 4.) That author, in several places, repeats the observation concerning the improvement arising from the Roman arts and civility, and he lived at the time when the change was new and would be more sensible. So also Pliny: “Quis enim non, communicato orbe terrarum, majestate Romani imperii, profecisse vitam putet, commercio rerum ac societate festae pacis, omniaque etiam, quae occulta antea fuerant, in promiscuo usu facta.” (Lib. 14, proœm.) “Numine deum electa [speaking of Italy] quae coelum ipsum clarius faceret, sparsa congregaret imperia, ritusque molliret, et tot populorum discordes, ferasque linguas fermonis commercio contraheret ad colloquia, et humanitatem homini daret; breviterque, una cunctarum gentium in toto orbe patria fieret.” (Lib. 2, cap. 5.) Nothing can be stronger to this purpose than the following passage from Tertullian, who lived about the age of Severus:—“Certe quidem ipse orbis in promptu est, cultior de die et instructior pristino. Omnia jam pervia, omnia nota, omnia negotiosa. Solitudines famosas retro fundi amoenissimi obliteraverunt, silvas arva domuerunt, feras pecora fugaverunt; arenae seruntur, saxa panguntur, paludes eliquantur, tantae urbes, quantae non casae quondam. Jam nec insulae horrent, nec scopuli terrent; ubique domus, ubique populus, ubique respublica, ubique vita. Summum testimonium frequentiae humanae, onerosi sumus mundo, vix nobis elementa sufficiunt; et necessitates arctiores, et quaerelae apud omnes, dum jam nos natura non sustinet.” (De anima, cap. 30.) The air of rhetoric and declamation which appears in this passage diminishes somewhat from its authority, but does not entirely destroy it. The same remark may be extended to the following passage of Aristides the Sophist, who lived in the age of Adrian. “The whole world,” says he, addressing himself to the Romans, “seems to keep one holiday, and mankind, laying aside the sword which they formerly wore, now betake themselves to feasting and to joy. The cities, forgetting their ancient contentions, preserve only one emulation, which shall embellish itself most by every art and ornament? Theatres everywhere arise, amphitheatres, porticoes, aqueducts, temples, schools, academies; and one may safely pronounce that the sinking world has been again raised by your auspicious empire. Nor have cities alone received an increase of ornament and beauty; but the whole earth, like a garden or paradise, is cultivated and adorned; insomuch that such of mankind as are placed out of the limits of your empire (who are but few) seem to merit our sympathy and compassion.”
It is remarkable that though Diodorus Siculus makes the inhabitants of Egypt, when conquered by the Romans, amount only to three millions, yet Josephus (De bello Jud., lib. 2, cap. 16) says that its inhabitants, excluding those of Alexandria, were seven millions and a half in the reign of Nero, and he expressly says that he drew this account from the books of the Roman publicans who levied the poll-tax. Strabo (lib. 17) praises the superior police of the Romans with regard to the finances of Egypt above that of its former monarchs, and no part of administration is more essential to the happiness of a people; yet we read in Athenæus (lib. 1, cap. 25), who flourished during the reign of the Antonines, that the town Mareia, near Alexandria, which was formerly a large city, had dwindled into a village. This is not, properly speaking, a contradiction. Suidas (August) says that the Emperor Augustus, having numbered the whole Roman Empire, found it contained only 4,101,017 men (ἀνδρες). There is here surely some great mistake, either in the author or transcriber; but this authority, feeble as it is, may be sufficient to counterbalance the exaggerated accounts of Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus with regard to more early times.
100 Lib. 2, cap. 62. It may perhaps be imagined that Polybius, being dependent on Rome, would naturally extol the Roman dominion; but, in the first place, Polybius, though one sees sometimes instances of his caution, discovers no symptoms of flattery. Secondly, this opinion is only delivered in a single stroke, by the by, while he is intent upon another subject, and it is allowed, if there be any suspicion of an author’s insincerity, that these oblique propositions discover his real opinion better than his more formal and direct assertions.
101 I must confess that that discourse of Plutarch concerning the silence of the oracles is in general of so odd a texture, and so unlike his other productions, that one is at a loss what judgment to form of it. It is written in dialogue, which is a method of composition that Plutarch commonly little affects. The personages he introduces advance very wild, absurd, and contradictory opinions, more like visionary systems or ravings of Plato than the solid sense of Plutarch. There runs also through the whole an air of superstition and credulity which resembles very little the spirit that appears in other philosophical compositions of that author; for it is remarkable that though Plutarch be an historian as superstitious as Herodotus or Livy, yet there is scarcely in all antiquity a philosopher less superstitious, excepting Cicero and Lucian. I must therefore confess that a passage of Plutarch, cited from this discourse, has much less authority with me than if it had been found in most of his other compositions.
There is only one other discourse of Plutarch liable to like objections—viz., that concerning those whose punishment is delayed by the Deity. It is also written in dialogue, contains like superstitious, wild visions, and seems to have been chiefly composed in rivalship to Plato, particularly his last book, De Republica.
And here I cannot but observe that Monsieur Fontenelle, a writer eminent for candour, seems to have departed a little from his usual character when he endeavours to throw a ridicule upon Plutarch on account of passages to be met with in this dialogue concerning oracles. The absurdities here put into the mouths of the several personages are not to be ascribed to Plutarch. He makes them refute each other, and in general he seems to intend the ridiculing of those very opinions which Fontenelle would ridicule him for maintaining. (See Histoires des Oracles.)
102 He was contemporary with Cæsar and Augustus.
