really benefit either by the consular imperium or the action of the
Sullan courts. A slave was the object of his master's care, and
theft from a slave was theft from his owner,--if injured or murdered
satisfaction could be had for him. But in that age of slack and sordid
government it is at least extremely doubtful whether either the person
or the property of the lower class of citizen could be said to have
been properly protected in the city. And the same anarchy prevailed
all over Italy,--from the suburbs of Rome, infested by robbers, to
the sheep-farm of the great capitalist, where the traveller might be
kidnapped by runaway slaves, to vanish from the sight of men without
leaving a trace of his fate.

It is the great merit of Augustus that he made Rome not only a city of
marble, but one in which the person and property of all citizens
were fairly secure. By a new and rational bankruptcy law, and by a
well-organised system of police, he made life endurable even for the
poorest. If he initiated a policy which eventually spoilt and degraded
the Roman population, if he failed to encourage free industry as
persistently as it seems to us that he might have done, he may perhaps
be in some degree excused, as knowing the conditions and difficulties
of the problem before him better than we can know them.




CHAPTER III


THE MEN OF BUSINESS AND THEIR METHODS