Conclusions 149 



passages is not very great. They testify to a tradition: but in most 

 cases the tradition is being used for the purposes of moralizing rhetoric. 

 Now the glorification of 'good old times' has in all ages tempted authors 

 to aim rather at striking contrast between past and present than at 

 verification of their pictures of the past. To impute this defect to satirists 

 is a mere commonplace. But those who are not professed satirists are 

 often exposed to the same influence in a less degree. The most striking 

 phenomenon in this kind is the chorus of poets in the Augustan age. 

 The Emperor, aware that the character of Reformer is never a very 

 popular one, preferred to pose as Restorer. The hint was given, and 

 the literary world acted on it. Henceforth the praises of the noble and 

 efficient simplicity of the ancients formed a staple material of Roman 

 literature. 



XXI. ABSTRACT OF CONCLUSIONS. 



In reference to the earl/ period down to 201 BC I think we are 

 justified in coming to the following conclusions. 



1. The evidence, consisting of fragmentary tradition somewhat 

 distorted and in some points exaggerated by the influence of moral 

 purpose on later writers, is on the whole consistent and credible. 



2. From it we get a picture of agriculture as an honourable trade, 

 the chief occupation of free citizens, who are in general accustomed 

 to work with their own hands. 



3. The Roman citizen as a rule has an allotment of land as his 

 own, and an early classification of citizens (the ' Servian Constitution ') 

 was originally based on landholding, carrying with it the obligation 

 to military service. 



4. The Roman family had a place for the slave, and the slave, a 

 domestic helper, normally an Italian, was not as yet the despised 

 alien chattel of whom we read in a later age. 



5. As a domestic he bore a part in all the labours of the family, and 

 therefore as a matter of course in the commonest of all, agriculture. 



6. In this there was nothing degrading. Suggestions to that effect 

 are the echoes of later conditions. 



7. Under such relations of master and slave it was quite natural 

 that manumission should (as it did) operate to make the slave not 

 only free but a citizen. That this rule led to very troublesome results 

 in a later period was owing to change of circumstances. 



8. Slavery then was, from the earliest times of which we have 

 any tradition, an integral part of the social and economic system, as 

 much in Italy as in Greece. It was there, and only needed the stimulus 



