CORN-TRADE, ANCIENT. 



CORNS. 



220 



and it was all conveyed to Rome or to the armies which were serving 

 in parts remote from Rome ; this at least appears to have been the 

 general rule. 



Sometimes two-tenths of the produce were claimed by the Roman 

 state (Livy, xxxvi. 2 ; xxxvii. 2), but in this case the second tenth was 

 paid for out of the Roman Aerarium. Presents of grain from foreign 

 states and princes were sometimes made to the Romans. (Plutarch, 

 ' C. Gracchus," c. 2.) Thus it appears that the state undertook to pro- 

 vide the chief supply of grain for the city : the grain was sometimes 

 sold, and sometimes distributed gratis among the poor, a practice 

 which became common under the late republic. Besides these distri- 

 butions of corn at the public expense, the wealthy Romans who sought 

 popularity sometimes made like distributions of corn among the poorer 

 citizens, as M. Crassus the Rich did in his consulship. (Plutarch, 

 ' Crassus,' c. 2, 12.) 



It does not appear, then, that the chief supply of corn for the city 

 of Rome during the republic was furnished in the regular way of trade. 

 It was the business of the state to keep the proper supply of corn for 

 the city in the public warehouses ; but the supply was not always equal 

 to the demand, and it also often happened that many people could not 

 afford to pay the price. Scarcity was not uncommon both under the 

 republic and the empire. 



In Livy(iv. 12) we have a notice of the creation of a Preefectus 

 Annonae, or superintendent of provision, L. Minucius, B.C. 440, in a 

 season of scarcity. He exercised his office in an arbitrary manner, by 

 compelling persons to state what corn they had in their possession, and 

 to sell it ; and he endeavoured to raise a popular clamour against the 

 corn-dealers, if Frumentarii here means private dealers. Cn. Pompeius 

 Magnus was intrusted with the superintendence of provision for five 

 years. (Cicero, ' Ad. Attic.,' iv. 1.) Augustus, at the urgent impor- 

 tunity of the people, took on himself the office of Prsofectus Annonao, 

 such as Pompeius held it. (Dion. Cassius, liv. 1.) 



Under the early republic many parts of Italy were well cultivated, 

 and Rome, as already observed, derived supplies of corn from various 

 ports of the peninsula. But the civil wars which devastated Italy near 

 the close of the republic were injurious to agriculture. Murder and 

 proscription thinned the numbers of the people, and life and property 

 were insecure. Many of the lauds changed owners, and the property 

 of those who were cut off by violence fell into the hands of others, and 

 chiefly of the soldiers. These and other causes made Italy less pro- 

 ductive about the time of the Christian era than it had been some 

 centuries earlier. Even under the peaceable administration of Augustus, 

 60,000,000 modii of wheat were annually imported into Italy and Rome 

 from Egypt and the Roman province of Africa. The modius is esti- 

 mated at 1 gallon and 7'8576 pints, English measure. But this did 

 not prevent scarcity : there was a great famine at Rome in the latter 

 part of the administration of Augustus. (Dion Cassius, Iv. 26 ; Yell. 

 Paterc., ii. 104 ; Suetonius, ' Augustus," c. 42.) The general adminis- 

 tration of Tiberius, the successor of Augustus, is commended by Tacitus. 

 (' Annal.,' iv. 6.) He endeavoured to secure a proper supply of com by 

 intrusting to the Publican! the management of the tenths of grain 

 from the provinces ; but there was a great famine in his time, and the 

 high price of grain almost caused an insurrection. The emperor 

 showed that he had not neglected this important part of the adminis- 

 tration : he published a list of the provinces from which corn was 

 brought, and he proved that the importation was larger than in the 

 time of Augustus. (Tacit., ' Annal.,' vi. 13.) Again, under the admi- 

 nistration of the Emperor Claudius, a famine in Home occurred. 

 (Tacit., ' Annal.,' xii. 48.) Tacitus observes, that during the scarcity 

 Claudius was assailed with menaces while he was seated on the tribunal 

 in the forum, and he only escaped by the aid of his soldiers. He adds 

 thnt there were only fifteen days' provisions in the city; and "formerly 

 Italy used to export supplies for the legions to distant provinces ; nor 

 is Italy now barren, but men prefer cultivating Egypt and Africa, and 

 the existence of the Roman people is intrusted to ships and the dangers 

 of the sea." Claudius subsequently paid great attention to the supply- 

 ing of Rome with corn. Under Nero, the successor of Claudius, there 

 was a faming at Rome. (Suetonius, ' Nero," c. 45.) 



The comparison of ancient and modern prices of grain is a difficult 

 subject, and the results hitherto obtained are not satisfactory. It is 

 also necessary to be careful in considering the circumstances when any 

 prices are mentioned. P. Scipio on one occasion (B.C. 200) sent a great 

 quantity of corn from Africa, which was soldjto the people at four ases 

 the modius. (Livy, xni. 4.) In the same book of Livy (c. 50) another 

 ale is mentioned at the rate of two ases the modius. But on these, 

 as on many other occasions, these prices were not the market-prices at 

 which wheat would have sold, but they were the lower prices at which 

 the state sold the grain in order to relieve the citizens. Rome, both 

 under the republic and the early empire, suffered occasionally from 

 Karcity or from high prices of grain. It is possible that a supply 

 might have readily been procured from foreign parts if there had been 

 a body of consumers in Rome to pay for it. But the export of grain to 

 Rome was not a regular trade ; it was, as above explained, a system by 

 which the Romans drew from their provinces a contribution of corn 

 for the consumption of the capital, and it was not regulated by the 

 steady denmnd of an industrious class who could pay for it. The reign 

 of Tilxrius appears to have been a period of scarcity ; the complaints 

 were loud, and the emperor fixed the price of com in Rome, and he 



ARTS AND SCI. DIV. VOL. IU. 



promised to give the merchants a bounty of two sesterces on the 

 modius. This seems to mean that the emperor fixed the prices for all 

 grain, including whatever private merchants might have ; but to make 

 them amends for any loss, he paid them part of their prices out of the 

 treasury. After the fire at Rome, in the time of Nero, Tacitus speaks 

 of the price of corn being lowered to three sesterces the modius. The 

 Emperor Diocletian, by an edict, fixed the prices of all articles through 

 the Roman empire. The reason for this measure is stated, in the 

 preamble to the edict, to be the high market-price of provisions, which 

 is attributed to the avarice of the dealers, and was not limited even 

 when there was abundance. (Inscription of Stratoniceia ; see an 

 Edict of Diocletian, fixing a maximum of prices throughout the Roman 

 empire, A.D. 303, by Colonel Leake, London, 1826, 8vo.) 



It does not appear whether the grain which was brought to Rome 

 from the provinces was brought in public ships, or in private ships, by 

 persons who contracted to carry it. There seems, however, to be no 

 doubt that there was also importation of corn by private persons, and 

 that there were no restrictions on the trade, for the object was to get 

 a full supply. A constitution of Valentinian and Valens (' De Canone 

 Frumentario Urbis Romje,' Cod. xi., tit. 23) declares that merchants 

 (nautici) were to make a declaration of the grain which they imported 

 before the governors (of provinces) and the magistrates, and that they 

 had only good corn on board ; and it was the business of the authorities 

 to see that the grain was good. The provisioning of Constantinople, 

 Alexandria, and probably other great cities, under the later empire, was 

 subject to regulations similar to those of Rome, and there were public 

 granaries in those cities. 



It is almost impossible to collect from the scattered notices in the 

 Roman writers a just notion of the nature of the trade in grain. So 

 far as concerns Rome, we can hardly suppose that there was a regular 

 trade in our sense of the term. The chief supply of grain was provided 

 by the state. That which is best left to private enterprise was under- 

 taken by the government. It is true that the condition of Rome was 

 peculiar under the late republic and the empire. The city was full of 

 paupers, who required to be fed by occasional allowances of corn. The 

 effect, however, of the state purchasing for the people was not a certain 

 supply, but occasional scarcity. Whether a state undertakes to buy 

 for the people what they want for their consumption, or regulates the 

 trade by interfering with the supply, is immaterial as to the result. In 

 either case the people may expect to be starved whenever corn is 

 scarce. The Roman system was to import all that could be got into 

 Rome, but it was not left to private enterprise. There was no exclusion 

 of foreign grain in order to favour the Italian farmer ; nor can it be 

 said that the Italian farmer suffered because foreign grain was brought 

 into Rome and other parts of Italy ; he could employ much of his land 

 better than in growing corn for Rome and sending it there. Corn 

 came from countries which were better adapted to corn-growing than 

 many parts of Italy; and besides this, the transport of grain from many 

 foreign parts to Rome, such as Sardinia, Sicily, and the province of 

 Africa, would be as cheap as the transport of grain by sea from the 

 remote parts of Italy, and much cheaper than the transport by land. 



The essay of Dureau de la Malle, ' De 1'Economie Politique des 

 Remains,' and the treatise of Viucentius Contarenus, ' De Frumentaria 

 Romanorum Largitione,' in Grsevius, ' Antiq. Rom. Thesaurus,' vol. viii., 

 contain most of the facts relating to the supply of corn to Rome ; 

 and both have been used for this article. 



CORNET, a commissioned officer in a regiment of cavalry. He is 

 immediately inferior to a lieutenant, and his rank corresponds to that 

 of an ensign in a battalion of infantry. 



The word is derived from the Italian cornttta, signifying a small 

 flag ; and hence, both in the English and French services during the 

 16th and 17th centuries, it was applied not only to the officer who had 

 charge of the standard, but to the whole troop, which seems then to 

 have consisted of a hundred men and upwards, and to have been com- 

 manded by a captain. 



CORNET, a shrill wind instrument formed of wood, which seems to 

 have been known from the earliest times, and continued in use unttl 

 the latter part of the 1 7th century, when it was laid aside for the 

 oboe. In the ' Musurgia ' of Luscinius is a rude wood-cut of the cornet ; 

 but it is represented in a more satisfactory manner in Mersenne's 

 ' Harmonic Universelle,' from which it appears that the instrument 

 was blown by a mouth-piece, and that there were treble, tenor, and base 

 cornets. The compass of the first was from A, the second staff in the 

 treble, to E in alt. The last was bent in rather a serpentine form, and 

 reached nearly five feet in length, therefore was deep in tone. 



CORNET-STOP, in the organ, is an imitative treble-stop, consisting 

 of five ranks of pipes, in organs on a large scale, each key of the 

 instrument causing all the five pipes to sound at once. These are 

 tuned to a given note, its octave, twelfth, fifteenth, and seventeenth, 

 though the whole together produce the effect of a single note. This 

 is a harsh stop, and is now used only in union with others; but 

 formerly, compositions called Cornet Pieces, were written exclusively 

 for it ; these have been proscribed by an improved taste in organ- 

 playing. 



CORNICE. [COLUMN.] 



CORNIN. A bitter crystallisable matter, found in the bark of the 

 root of the Cornu* florida. 



CORNS are in the first instance merely thickenings of the cuticle, 



