Peasants
Most of the early Romans were peasants. The farmer, clad
simply in his tunic, a loose woolen garment which reached the
knee, and resembled the chiton, followed his bronze-shod plow
drawn by a yoke of cattle. His narrow mind held only sober,
practical ideas; for he saw nothing of the world beyond the
mountains bordering the plain of the Tiber mountains which
inspired him with no love of the beautiful and the grand, but
rather with a feeling of hatred for the enemies who were wont
to sweep down from them upon his little field.
He cherished no dreams of military glory or world conquest;
only when an enemy attacked did he seize his weapons and join
his neighbors to defend his home and fields. Cincinnatus,
called from the plow to the dictator-ship of the republic, is
a typical Roman character. It was in the early days of hardy,
rugged life that the ideals - social, economic, governmental -
which dominated Rome through her long history, were formed. In
her later centuries, every reform in morals or politics was a
harking back to these ancient standards. As the great families
became powerful and wealthy, they acquired vast estates,
cultivated by armies of slaves; but the ancestral virtues of
simplicity, industry, and homely integrity were studiously
maintained. |
