Theodor Mommsen - The history of Rome. Book V

99.It is difficult to see why the bestowal of the Roman franchise on a province collectively, and the continuance of a provincial administration for it, should be usually conceived as contrasts excluding each other. Besides, Cisalpine Gaul notoriously obtained the civitas by the Roscian decree of the people of the 11th March 705, while it remained a province as long as Caesar lived and was only united with Italy after his death (Dio, xlviii. 12); the governors also can be pointed out down to 711. The very fact that the Caesarian municipal ordinance never designates the country as Italy, but as Cisalpine Gaul, ought to have led to the right view.

100.IV. II. The First Sicilian Slave War.

101.The continued subsistence of the municipal census-authorities speaks for the view, that the local holding of the census had already been established for Italy in consequence of the Social war (Staatsrecht, ii. 8 368); but probably the carrying out of this system was Caesar's work.

102.II. VII. Intermediate Fuctionaries, III. III. Autonomy.

103.III. XI. Supervision of the Senate Over the Provinces and Their Governors.

104.I. XI. Character of the Roman Law.

105.IV. XIII. Philology.

106.I. XI. Clients and Foreigners.

107.V. XI. Usury Laws.

108.V. V. Transpadanes.

109.I. XIV. Italian Measures ff.

110.III. XII. Coins and Moneys.

111.Weights recently brought to light at Pompeii suggest the hypothesis that at the commencement of the imperial period alongside of the Roman pound the Attic mina (presumably in the ratio of 3: 4) passed current as a second imperial weight (Hermes, xvi. 311).

112.The gold pieces, which Sulla (iv. 179) and contemporarily Pompeius caused to be struck, both in small quantity, do not invalidate this proposition; for they probably came to be taken solely by weight just like the golden Phillippei which were in circulation even down to Caesar's time. They are certainly remarkable, because they anticipate the Caesarian imperial gold just as Sulla's regency anticipated the new monarchy.

113.IV. XI. Token-Money.

114.It appears, namely, that in earlier times the claims of the state-creditors payable in silver could not be paid against their will in gold according to its legal ratio to silver; whereas it admits of no doubt, that from Caesar's time the gold piece had to be taken as a valid tender for 100 silver sesterces. This was just at that time the more important, as in consequence of the great quantities of gold put into circulation by Caesar it stood for a time in the currency of trade 25 per cent below the legal ratio.

115.There is probably no inscription of the Imperial period, which specifies sums of money otherwise than in Roman coin.

116.Thus the Attic drachma , although sensibly heavier than the denarius , was yet reckoned equal to it; the tetradrachmon of Antioch, weighing on an average 15 grammes of silver, was made equal to 3 Roman denarii , which only weigh about 12 grammes; the cistophorus of Asia Minor was according to the value of silver above 3, according to the legal tariff =2 1/2 denarii ; the Rhodian half drachma according to the value of silver=3/4, according to the legal tariff = 5/8 of a denarius , and so on.

117.III. III. Illyrian Piracy.

118.The identity of this edict drawn up perhaps by Marcus Flavius (Macrob. Sat. i. 14, 2) and the alleged treatise of Caesar, De Stellis, is shown by the joke of Cicero (Plutarch, Caes. 59) that now the Lyre rises according to edict.

We may add that it was known even before Caesar that the solar year of 365 days 6 hours, which was the basis of the Egyptian calendar, and which he made the basis of his, was somewhat too long. the most exact calculation of the tropical year which the ancient world was acquainted with, that of Hipparchus, put it at 365 d. 5 h. 52' 1; "the true length is 365 d. 5 h. 48' 4".

119.Caesar stayed in Rome in April and Dec. 705, on each occasion for a few days; from Sept. to Dec. 707; some four months in the autumn of the year of fifteen months 708, and from Oct. 709 to March 710.

1.V. VIII. Clodius

2.III. XIV. Cato's Encyclopedia.

3.These form, as is well known, the so-called seven liberal arts, which, with this distinction between the three branches of discipline earlier naturalized in Italy and the four subsequently received, maintained their position throughout the middle ages.

4.IV. XII. Latin Instruction.

5.Thus Varro (De R. R. i. 2) says: ab aeditimo, ut dicere didicimus a patribus nostris; ut corrigimur ab recenlibus urbanis, ab aedituo .

6.The dedication of the poetical description of the earth which passes under the name of Scymnus is remarkable in reference to those relations. After the poet has declared his purpose of preparing in the favourite Menandrian measure a sketch of geography intelligible for scholars and easy to be learned by heart, he dedicates - as Apollodorus dedicated his similar historical compendium to Attalus Philadelphus king of Pergamus

his manual to Nicomedes III king (663?-679) of Bithynia:

7.IV. XIII. Historical Composition.

8.V. XII. Greek Instruction.

9.Cicero testifies that the mime in his time had taken the place of the Atellana (Ad Fam. ix. 16); with this accords the fact, that the mimi and mimae first appear about the Sullan epoch (Ad Her. i. 14, 24; ii. 13, 19; Atta Fr. 1 Ribbeck; Plin. H. N. vii. 43, 158; Plutarch, Sull. 2, 36). The designation mimus , however, is sometimes inaccurately applied to the comedian generally. Thus the mimus who appeared at the festival of Apollo in 542-543 (Festus under salva res est ; comp. Cicero, De Orat. ii. 59, 242) was evidently nothing but an actor of the palliata , for there was at this period no room in the development of the Roman theatre for real mimes in the later sense.

With the mimus of the classical Greek period - prose dialogues, in which genre pictures, particularly of a rural kind, were presented - the Roman mimus had no especial relation.

10.With the possession of this sum, which constituted the qualification for the first voting-class and subjected the inheritance to the Voconian law, the boundary line was crossed which separated the men of slender means ( tenuiores ) from respectable people. Therefore the poor client of Catullus (xxiii. 26) beseeches the gods to help him to this fortune.

11.In the "Descensus ad Infero", of Laberius all sorts of people come forward, who have seen wonders and signs; to one there appeared a husband with two wives, whereupon a neighbour is of opinion that this is still worse than the vision, recently seen by a soothsayer in a dream, of six aediles. Caesar forsooth desired - according to the talk of the time - to introduce polygamy in Rome (Suetonius, Caes. 82) and he nominated in reality six aediles instead of four. One sees from this that aberius understood how to exercise the fool's privilege and Caesar how to permit the fool's freedom.