146 The story criticized 



lation by the Romans of later days. That the greatness of Rome was 

 above all things due to their grim old fathers who endured hardness 

 and sacrificed all tender affections to public duty, was the general moral 

 of these popular tales. Exaggeration grew with repetition, and details 

 became less and less authentic. In particular the circumstances of their 

 own time were foisted in by narrators whose imagination did not suffice 

 to grasp the difference of conditions in the past. In the above story 

 we have a reference to ergastula, the barracoons in which the slave- 

 gangs on great estates were confined when not actually at work. Now 

 the system of which these private prisons were a marked feature cer- 

 tainly belongs to a later period, when agriculture on a large scale was 

 widely practised, not to make a living for a man and his family, but to 

 make a great income for a single individual by the labour of many. 

 Here then we have a detail clearly not authentic, which throws doubt 

 on the whole setting of the story. Again, we have agricultural labour 

 put before us as degrading (opus servile). It is a punishment, banishing 

 a young Roman from his proper surrounding in the life of Rome, and 

 dooming him to grow up a mere clodhopper. There may have been 

 some points in the original story of which this is an exaggerated version: 

 for it is evident that from quite early days of the Republic men of the 

 ruling class found it necessary to spend much time in or quite close to 

 the city. But the representation of agriculture as a servile occupation 

 is grossly inconsistent with the other legends glorifying the farmer- 

 heroes of yore. It is of course quite impossible to prove that no isolated 

 cases of a young Roman's banishment to farm life ever occurred. But 

 that such a proceeding was so far ordinary as fairly to be reckoned 

 typical, is in the highest degree improbable. That later writers should 

 invent or accept such colouring for their picture, is no wonder. In the 

 Attic New Comedy, with which Roman society was familiarized 1 in the 

 second century BC, this situation was found. The later conditions of 

 Roman life, in city and country, tended to make the view of agriculture 

 as a servile trade, capable of being rendered penal, more and more in- 

 telligible to Romans. Accordingly we find this view cynically accepted 2 

 by Sallust, and warmly protested against 3 by Cicero. In order to 

 weaken the case of his client Sextus Roscius, it was urged that the 

 young man's father distrusted him and sent him to live the life of a 

 boor on his farm in Umbria. Cicero, evidently anxious as to the possible 

 effect of this construction of facts on the coming verdict, was at great 

 pains to counter it by maintaining that the father's decision was in truth 

 a compliment : in looking for an honest and capable manager of his 

 rustic estate he had found the right man in this son. The orator surely 



1 Cic pro Sex Roscio 46 recognizes this familiarity. 



2 Sallust Catil 4 r. 3 Cic pro Sex Roscio 39-51. 



