CHAPTER XXXII.

ROMAN INDUSTRY.

SECTION 493. Roman Inventions. In its general features the industry of the ancient Romans was similar to that of contemporaneous Greece. They had the same cultivated plants and the same domestic animals; the same methods of managing their herds, and of tilling their soil; the same methods of transportation; the same materials and patterns for the hulls and rigging of ships; the same custom of laying up their ships from November to March inclusive; the same objects of commerce; and the same reliance on slaves for a large part of their labor.

As in most other aristocratic states of antiquity, so in republican Rome, at least during its historical period, traffic and manual labor, as regular occupations and means of support, were considered disgraceful. Livy and others, who drew their ideas from the same sources, represent the early patricians, of whom Cincinnatus is an example, as cultivating the soil with their own hands; but Cato, the elder, who wrote about 170 B. C., had a multitude of slaves, and, so far as we know, neither he nor any other Roman noble, of his generation or of a later time, ever did a day's work with plow or spade. Cicero praises agriculture as a proper occupation for a noble

man, and thereby means that he should own a large estate, to be tilled and managed by slaves. No statesman of Italy commended productive toil and commercial enterprise as proper occupations for all freemen. Both were forbidden to Roman senators, who, however, might own ships to carry the produce of their own land to market; might manufacture goods to be used by their own families, tenants, and slaves; and might maintain shops to distribute merchandise to their own dependents. More than this they might not do without violating the law and offending public opinion. If they undertook to compete with the plebeian, the freedman, or the alien, in manual labor, transportation, or traffic, they would be dishonored. The general opinion was expressed forcibly by Cicero, who declared that the occupations of hirelings are sordid and base, and that the sale of merchandise, whether in large or small quantities, tends to make man false and vile.

The dominion of ancient Rome included a territory so vast and endured through so long a period that under it many valuable improvements in the useful arts either had their origin or obtained their first mention in books known to us. Among these improvements are the mold-board, the water wheel, the horse mill for grinding grain, the large arch and the dome in architecture, lime and sand mortar, hydraulic cement, window glass, lead pipe for water, the inverted syphon in water conduits, the method of heating houses by currents of hot air, the panel in carpenter work, lifting pumps with valves, the process of sawing marble with sand and water under steel bands, greenhouses, hothouses, wooden casks, soap, plaster casts, sulphur matches, the use of marl as a fertilizer, lanterns made with sides of glass or horn, double-entry book

keeping, bills of exchange, shorthand writing, the tinning of copper, the use of sheet lead in sheathing ships, and of chain cables in anchoring and mooring them, the washing of auriferous gravel in a sluice, the use of gold amalgam in gilding and of amalgamation in gold and silver mining, and the art of making roads with beds of broken stone.1

Of all these improvements the most important is the mold-board, which greatly increased the effectiveness of the plow. The shovel-nose instrument previously in use, and indeed not yet abandoned in portions of Asia and Africa, merely made a narrow scratch in the ground, and pushed the loosened material away on each side of the furrow, covering and hiding a portion of the earth not yet disturbed. With the aid of the mold-board a slice of even thickness was cut off from the surface of the field and then turned completely over on one side of the furrow. In this manner, the earth was plowed to an equal depth all over the field, and the roots of the grass and weeds were turned up to be dried by the sun.

Among the power producers-a term which is here used to designate all those machines (such as water wheels, windmills, and steam engines) which harness the forces of inanimate nature to the gearing of the workshop-the earliest in point of time was the water wheel, which made its appearance about the beginning of the Christian era, and was employed in the early empire, though only on a small scale, for grinding grain. A vertical treadmill, driven by a dog or slave walking on the inside, was also known. Some bakers had horse mills to grind their grain. Window glass was made and was used in a few houses. Soap was first made among the Gauls; and in their country wooden casks first became known. They also had a reaping machine driven by horses, but it seems to have

been a failure, for it was soon abandoned. Marquardt thinks that the shuttle was first driven across the web by striking, among the Romans, and that the carding of cloth to hide the threads under the nap had its origin among them."

In the reign of Tiberius the discovery was made or was first brought to the attention of the mariners engaged in the trade between Egypt and Hindostan, that monsoons, or steady winds across the Indian Ocean, blow from the southwest from April to September, and in the contrary direction during the remainder of the year; and that by starting from Aden in August and sailing directly towards Bombay and starting to return in September and sailing directly for Aden, several months of time and much discomfort, danger, and expense might be avoided. This discovery gave a decided stimulus to the trade with Hindostan.3

In the Ist century B. C. the dromedary was introduced from Asia into Africa, where it spread over a wider area and became of more industrial importance than in its native continent. At some unknown time, either under the Pagan empire or in a later period, the tame elephant of Africa disappeared finally. It belonged to a species which was found wild in Morocco and Numidia, and was probably different from the elephant now known in Central and Southern Africa. About the beginning of the Christian era, the peach and the cherry were brought from Asia to Europe, and by this introduction into a region of a higher culture obtained a greatly increased importance in human life.

Before the time of Julius Cæsar most of France, much of Spain, and all of Belgium, Switzerland, and the valley of the Danube were still in a barbarous condition. Little

of their area was under cultivation or fit for tillage; the towns were few, small, and not well fortified; the population was sparse, commerce scanty, and all the arts were in a rude condition. Before the reign of Constantine all these provinces had been civilized, many of their forests had been cleared away and their swamps drained; they were filled with well-built and well-fortified cities connected by good roads; industry, traffic, and education had made great progress; Latin had become the speech of a majority of the people; and intimate social and commercial communication between the provinces gave the people of the whole empire a feeling of common nationality and humanity. This extension of a higher culture over portions of Europe which were destined to take leading parts in the history of later centuries was one of the great achievements of Rome.

SEC. 494. Fields, etc.—The agriculture of Italy suffered greatly from frequent and long-continued wars, from the substitution of slave for free labor, from the importation of large quantities of provincial grain to be sold at less than the cost of production, and from the substitution of large estates occupied by slave herdsmen, for small farms tilled by their free owners. When Cato went to Carthage about 150 B. C. and saw the productive fields and orchards in what is now the territory of Tunis, he was filled with envy and anger. The best treatise in the Latin language on agriculture in the time of the republic was translated from the Carthaginian tongue. An unmistakable indication of the low condition of tillage in central Italy about 170 B. C. is found in the saying of the elder Cato in his book on husbandry that the best manager was a good breeder of cattle; the next best was a passable breeder of cattle; the next best, a bad breeder of cattle, and the