in literature what we may call the working classes; the Argiletum, for
example, was famous both for its booksellers and its shoemakers,[38]
and the Subura is the typical street of tradesmen. And no doubt the
big lodging-houses in which the lower classes dwelt were to be found
in all parts of Rome, except the strictly aristocratic districts like
the Palatine.

The whole free population may roughly be divided into three classes,
of which the first two, constituting together the social aristocracy,
were a mere handful in number compared with the third. At the top of
the social order was the governing class, or _ordo senatorius_: then
came the _ordo equester_, comprising all the men of business, bankers,
money-lenders, and merchants (_negotiatores_) or contractors for the
raising of taxes and many other purposes (_publicani_). Of these two
upper classes and their social life we shall see something in later
chapters; at present we are concerned with the "masses," at least
320,000 in number,[39] and the social problems which their existence
presented, or ought to have presented, to an intelligent Roman
statesman of Cicero's time.

Unfortunately, just as we know but little of the populous districts of
Rome, so too we know little of its industrial population. The upper
classes, including all writers of memoirs and history, were not
interested in them. There was no philanthropist, no devoted inquirer
like Mr. Charles Booth, to investigate their condition or try to
ameliorate it. The statesman, if he troubled himself about them at
all, looked on them as a dangerous element of society, only to be
considered as human beings at election time; at all other times merely
as animals that had to be fed, in order to keep them from becoming an
active peril. The philosopher, even the Stoic, whose creed was by far