asured by the depressed
condition of Roman handicraft in later times, when it was injuriously
affected by the multitude of artisan-slaves working for their
master or on his account, and by the increased import of articles
of luxury. The oldest lays of Rome celebrated not only the mighty
war-god Mamers, but also the skilled armourer Mamurius, who understood
the art of forging for his fellow-burgesses shields similar to the
divine model shield that had fallen from heaven; Volcanus the god
of fire and of the forge already appears in the primitive list of
Roman festivals.(15) Thus in the earliest Rome, as everywhere,
the arts of forging and of wielding the ploughshare and the sword
went hand in hand, and there was nothing of that arrogant contempt
for handicrafts which we afterwards meet with there. After the
Servian organization, however, imposed the duty of serving in the
army exclusively on the freeholders, the industrial classes were
excluded not by any law, but practically in consequence of their
general want of a freehold qualification, from the privilege of
bearing arms, except in the case of special subdivisions chosen
from the carpenters, coppersmiths, and certain classes of musicians
and attached with a military organization to the army; and this may
perhaps have been the origin of the subsequent habit of depreciating
the manual arts and of the position of political inferiority assigned
to them. The institution of guilds doubtless had the same object
as the colleges of priests that resembled them in name; the men of
skill associated themselves in order more permanently and securely
to preserve the tradition of their art. That there was some mode
of excluding unskilled persons is probable; but no traces are to be
met with either of monopolizing tendencies or of protective steps
against inferior manufactures. There is no aspect, however, of
the life of the Roman people respecting which our information is
so scanty as that of the Roman trades.

Inland Commerce of the Italians

Italian commerce must, it is obvious, have been limited in the
earliest epoch to the mutual dealings of the Italians themselves.
Fairs (-mercatus-), which must be distinguished from the usual weekly
markets (-nundinae-) were of great antiquity in Latium. Probably
they were at first associated with international gatherings and
festivals, and so perhaps were connected in Rome with the festival
at the federal temple on the Aventine;