326 Doings of emperors 



felt constrained to teach restless tribes a lesson, he imposed a reserve- 

 condition 1 on the sale of prisoners taken: they were not to be em- 

 ployed in districts near their old homes, and not to be manumitted 

 before thirty years. Most of these would probably also be brought to 

 Italy for the same kind of service. Yet, as we have seen, there was 

 kidnapping 2 of freemen in Italy; probably a sign that slaves were 

 already become dear. That their numbers had been reduced in the 

 civil wars, not only by death but by manumission, is fairly certain. In 

 the war with Sextus Pompeius it was found necessary 8 to manumit 

 20,000 slaves to serve as oarsmen in the fleet. Suetonius also records 

 that Augustus when emperor had trouble with the unwillingness of 

 Romans to be called up for military duty. He had to deal sharply 4 

 with an eques who cut off the thumbs of his two sons to incapacitate 

 them. The abuse of the public corn-doles was a grave evil. Men got 

 rid of the burden of maintaining old slaves by manumitting them and 

 so making them, as freedmen-citizens, entitled to a share of the doles. 

 This was shifting the burden of feeding useless mouths on to the 

 state. Augustus saw that the vast importation of corn for this bounty 

 tended to discourage 6 Italian agriculture, and thought of abolishing 

 the whole system oifrumentationes. But he had to give up the project, 

 being convinced that the system would be restored. He really desired 

 to revive agriculture, and it was surely with this aim that he advanced 

 capital sums 6 to landlords free of interest on good security for the 

 principal. The growth of humane sentiment toward slaves is marked 

 by the ordinance of Claudius 7 against some very cruel practices of 

 slaveowners. And we are reminded that penal servitude was now a 

 regular institution in the Roman empire by Nero's order 8 for bringing 

 prisoners from all parts to carry out some colossal works in Italy, and 

 for fixing condemnation to hard labour as the normal penalty of crime. 

 In the Lives of the three Flavian emperors there are one or two 

 passages of interest. At this distance of time it is not easy to appre- 

 ciate the effect on the sentiments of Roman society of the extinction 

 of the Julio-Claudian house, and the accession of a thoroughly plebeian 

 one, resting on the support of the army and readily accepted by the 

 Provinces. Suetonius, like Tacitus, was near enough to the revolu- 

 tionary year 69 AD to understand the momentous nature of the crises 

 that brought Vespasian to the head of affairs. He takes pains to 

 describe 9 the descent of the new emperor from a Sabine family of no 



1 A ug 7, i sub lege...ne in vicina regione servirent neve infra tricesimum annum libera- 

 l-enter. See Shuckburgh's note. 



3 Aug 32, Tiber 8. 3 Aug 16. 4 Aug 24. 



6 Aug 42 quod earum \frumentationuni\fiducia cultura agrorum cessaret. 



6 Aug 41 usum ftus (pecuniae) gratuitum Us qui cavere in duplum possent. 



7 Claud 25. 8 Nero 31. 9 Vesp i. 



