andbuch der
Roemischen Altertuemer_ of Mommsen and Marquardt. My debt is great also
to Professors Tyrrell and Purser, whose labours have provided us with
a text of Cicero's letters which we can use with confidence; the
citations from these letters have all been verified in the new Oxford
text edited by Professor Purser. One other name I must mention with
gratitude. I firmly believe that the one great hope for classical
learning and education lies in the interest which the unlearned public
may be brought to feel in ancient life and thought. We have just lost
the veteran French scholar who did more perhaps to create and
maintain such an interest than any man of his time; and I gladly here
acknowledge that it was Boissier's _Ciceron et ses amis_ that in my
younger days made me first feel the reality of life and character
in an age of which I then hardly knew anything but the perplexing
political history.

I have to thank my old pupils, Mr. H.E. Mann and Mr. Gilbert Watson,
for kind help in revising the proofs.

W.W.F.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

TOPOGRAPHICAL

Virgil's hero arrives at Rome by the Tiber: we follow his example;
justification of this; view from Janiculum and its lessons; advantages
of the position of Rome, for defence and advance; disadvantages as to
commerce and salubrity; views of Roman writers; a walk through the
city in 50 B.C.; Forum Boarium and Circus maximus; Porta Capena; via
Sacra; summa sacra via and view of Forum; religious buildings at
eastern end of Forum; Forum and its buildings in Cicero's time; ascent
to the Capitol; temple of Jupiter and the view from it.

CHAPTER II

THE LOWER POPULATION

Spread of the city outside original centre; the plebs dwelt mainly
in the lower ground; little known about its life: indifference
of literary men; housing: the insulae; no sign of home life; bad
condition of these houses; how the plebs subsisted; vegetarian diet;
the corn supply and its problems; the corn law of Gaius Gracchus;
results, and later laws; the water-supply; history of aqueducts;
employment of the lower grade population; aristocratic contempt for
retail trading; the trade gilds; relation of free to slave labour;
bakers; supply of vegetables; of clothing; of leather; of iron, etc.;
gave employment to large numbers; porterage; precarious condition of
labour; fluctuation of markets; want of a good bankruptcy law.

CHAPTER III

THE MEN OF BUSINESS AND THEIR METHODS

Meaning