Invisible Romans (6 page)

The picture of ordinary men’s outlook on sex is not, therefore, consistent. Evidently in the culture there were men who took a detached view of sexual acts, not connecting them to a greater social picture but only to individual situations, much as the elite did. The graffiti from Pompeii, scribbled by a self-selected group of aggressive males, fit this picture. But then there were also those who felt that restrained sex for procreation within marriage was the appropriate model, recognizing various degrees of deviation (perhaps excusing sex with slaves, for example) but not rejecting the core value. This aspect comes out much more strongly in the material I have just given. It is a complex picture, and should be accepted as such, but in general it seems that ordinary men were more committed to marriage, and more inclined to be critical of homosexual acts, than their elite leaders.

We would expect a concern for marriage and sex among ordinary men. On the other hand, journeys receive a rather unexpected emphasis in the astrological and dream literature. This emphasis tells us two things. First, we see that journeys were not out of the ordinary. We can think immediately of travel for pleasure, such as going to a festival near or far; for business; and as an enforced undertaking. In Apuleius we see all three types of movement, and especially the latter two are strongly witnessed in the prediction literature. Likewise in the New Testament material we see people moving about the empire whether on business or as part of religious activity. But travel was dangerous for any number of reasons, including bad weather, bandits and pirates, accidents, and dishonest officials. So it is only natural that men would worry about travel either in the future, or while actually engaged in it. Long-term emigration is also on their minds; we know from the many inscriptions noting a person as an
alienus
(a nonresident) that such movement was in practice fairly common. They also worry about loved ones who are abroad, for example a son, and whether they will return safely. And enforced travel added another dimension, for a person might be exiled
– although this can hardly have been a worry for an ordinary man – or otherwise forced to leave his home to escape debt, or because he was a criminal transported as punishment, or because some natural disaster made a move imperative. The best outcome of travel was economic gain, but the risks in shipping, the primary source of long-distance profit, were immense, as was the investment (and so often debt) required to engage in it. Travel was therefore a major source of worry for men.

As if there wasn’t already enough to be concerned about, men had to pay attention to the authorities, to avoid a run-in if at all possible. The
Carmen
has a long passage on being cast into chains, and Artemi-dorus has many references to dreams that pertain to the fate of criminals and prisoners: becoming condemned, being put in bonds or in prison, anticipating torture and beatings, or execution (crucifixion, beheading). Those in authority generally liked to throw their weight around, and it was best not to get in the way. Likewise, as they controlled the legal system, it was best to prevent entanglement.

The law, crime, and violence of everyday life

According to the elite literature, Roman law was fundamental to the reality that was Roman culture. Scholars through the ages have repeated this, even as they have noted the differential treatment within the law of various segments of the population. But the ordinary person had other, hostile thoughts when the legal system came to mind. This simple statement by Paul indicates much:

Suppose one of you wants to bring a charge against another believer. Should you take it to the ungodly to be judged? Why not take it to God’s people? Don’t you know that God’s people will judge the world? And if you are going to judge the world, aren’t you able to judge small cases? Don’t you know that we will judge angels? Then we should be able to judge the things of this life even more! (1 Corinthians 6:1–2)

Paul urges disputes be settled within the community; people should not take cases to public law courts. This advice indicates a fundamental mistrust of the civil courts to treat Paul’s people fairly. Although Paul’s
situation might be seen to be unique because of the religious element, in fact there is much other evidence that ordinary men did not use and even avoided the legal system fairly systematically. This is hardly surprising: The Roman legal system was created by and managed in order to favor the elite. While it is clear that some cases of ordinary men were heard and acted upon – there are rescripts in the
Digest
that are addressed to humble folk – a builder (4.65.2), a flat-tenant (4.65.3) – the structural hindrances were significant.

But the official hindrances were just the tip of the iceberg. In a world where personal connections and wealth provided access to everything worth having, a person was at an increasing disadvantage if he was positioned lower on the socioeconomic scale. It was a parlous situation: Legal action was expensive and all the things that could make legal action work – the help of the powerful
(clientela),
the aid of equals
(amicitia),
the expectation of reciprocal help
(officium)
– were as likely to work against a person as to work in his favor. The Epistle of James (2:6) takes note of this reality: ‘Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court?’ Surely the mental habit that created official hindrances operated well beyond those strictures and produced a situation in which, in effect, a person of lower status had great difficulty bringing a case against one of higher status, and virtually no chance of winning such a case once put unless, through the patronage of a powerful person, the case had become de facto one between social equals. Apuleius has a scathing indictment of the whole legal system as he mocks ‘justice’:

You dregs of humanity – or should I say courtroom beasts – or better still, togate vultures – why do you wonder if nowadays all judges hand down their decisions for a price … (The
Golden Ass
10.33)

Petronius also plays upon the obvious injustice of the legal system in an episode. His two leading characters, Encolpius and Ascyltos, lost a cloak with gold coins sewed into the seams. They spied this very cloak on the shoulders of a poor market seller and discussed how to get it back. Encolpius was in favor of taking the current owner to court to claim the garment; Ascyltos, however, objected, ‘fearing the law.’

‘Who knows us in this place? Who will believe what we say? Certainly it seems preferable to me to just buy the cloak, even though it is ours by right. It is better to get it back at a small cost rather than get involved in a lawsuit of very uncertain outcome. What good are laws, when money alone rules, and when a poor man can never prevail? A judgment at law is nothing more than a public sale, and the aristocrat who sits on the jury casts his vote according to who pays him.’
(Satyricon
13–14)

Artemidorus, in a similar vein, notes that seeing courts of law, judges, lawyers, and teachers of law in a dream ‘troubles, unhappiness, bothersome expenses, and that secret things will be revealed’(Dreams 2.29); and that a judge is someone who does whatever he wishes without being accountable to anyone (4.66). The
Carmen
is just as harsh. Negatives that could queer a decision include injustice by judge; bribes; force; and favoritism
(Carmen
5.33). In such a corrupted environment, the ordinary man would have lacked both money and influence in sufficient quantity to go up against anyone of significant standing. Thus the legal system was always risky. So in the
Carmen
there is extensive consideration of the resolution of quarrels and, most especially, of the outcomes of legal proceedings. In these situations other avenues of dispute resolution were on the mind. The most popular was the mediation of a dispute within a family, or a peer group such as an association. Paul recommended this to his comrades in Corinth. The basic situation is clear, however: Ordinary men sought to avoid actions at law. In the vast majority of cases, they looked to the legal system only when there was a really important matter transcending local affairs, or when there was enough standing, connection, and resources to hope for success.
Juris-consultus abesto
(lawyer, be gone!), indeed.

Theft was a constant problem in a society with so much un- and under-employment, not to say out-and-out poverty. There was no regular police force patrolling the streets; and although in towns there was often a nightwatchman out after dark, and he could make arrests, this was not much of a deterrent. The
Carmen
has a number of references to things being stolen, and dedicates a chapter to ‘If you want to know the matter of a theft that has been committed or something that has been lost, whether he will possess it again or not.’ Under this heading, various castings indicate that:

These goods will be recovered quickly without pain or trouble … these goods of his which were lost will be found after a long time and with trouble and that the thieves will have moved the goods from the first place in which they put it when they stole it to another place … that it will be found after a time and trouble … that it will be more proper that this be found … that those goods which were stolen or lost will be found … that it will not be found … that the thing which was stolen or lost will disappear so that he will not possess it … that he will soon possess the thing which was lost or stolen … that he will not possess the thing which was stolen or lost and it will not be necessary for its owner to search for it since he would toil without accomplishing anything … that he will not possess the thing which was stolen or lost except with slowness and trouble or a quarrel and insult and fighting.
(Carmen
5.35)

Artemidorus even has an interpretation directed at a criminal. If such a person dreams of stars falling from the heavens, ‘this would only be propitious to those plotting some great crime’
(Dreams
2.36). Other dreams indicate that someone will be defrauded, temples will be robbed, and thieves will attack a man on a journey; seeing a hawk or wolf in a dream means a bandit or robber.

Stolen goods were difficult to recover. There were no formal investigative police available, although officials did have the capacity to act if they wished. For example, when Lucius in
The Golden Ass
is accused of robbing his host and fleeing, the magistrates do follow this up, torturing Lucius’ slave and sending their attendants to Corinth to look for him. But most often a person had to seek the item and the thief himself. Enlisting the help of a god was one way. Another was to check the stars; the
Carmen
gives many castings that indicate where one should look for stolen or lost goods, such as:

… in the dung of sheep or the shelters of animals … in the forges of blacksmiths … in or near a sea or in a spring or a stream or a valley or a river or a canal or a place in which there is water …
(Carmen
5.35)

Items of all kinds were stolen: fine, expensive cloth; clothing; jewels and perfume; implements of construction and farming; metalwork;
ceramics; religious idols; books and business ledgers; as well as common, everyday ‘coarse and rough’ possessions. Stolen goods were easily fenced, with no questions asked. According to the details of the
Carmen,
both male and female slaves were frequently used, but wealthy, well-connected men also handled stolen goods.

Like the items themselves, thieves were many and various. They could be acquaintances from outside the house, total strangers, or someone familiar to the family, a thief who ‘has entered for conversation and there is friendship between him and the people of the house and their trust is in this man, but then he steals’
(Carmen
5.35). They could be young, middle aged, or old. Once again, slaves were a common possibility. Their approaches and methods were varied. They might be ‘thieves of opportunity’ – in a house for another reason, for example, then seeing something tempting, steal it; they might use trickery and guile; they might dig through a wall, or break a lock, or get copies of keys, or sneak in through a skylight.

If you search for the culprit, it helps to know what he looks like. Fortunately, if you did not get a look at him, the stars could provide a description, depending on the dominant planet in the charts:

Jupiter: white, fat, great in his eyes, the whites of his eyes will be smaller than what is necessary for it to be because of the measure of that eye; and their beards will be rounded and curly, their personality will be gentle and good; Saturn: repulsive in his face, black in his color, his gaze toward the ground, broken and small eyes, slim, twisted in his gaze, of pallid color, a lot of body hair and bushy eyebrows, a liar and sickly; Mars: red in color, reddish hair, sharp vision, fat cheeked, a gay fellow, a master of jokes; Venus: handsome, a full head of hair, fat, black eyes, pale skin, gentle and courteous; Mercury: slim, emaciated, pale, confused in thinking.
(Carmen
5.35)

All of this information clearly indicates that theft was a serious concern. When you add theft by slave property running away, perhaps the most consistently valuable and certainly most moveable possession, there is almost as much treatment in the
Carmen
of this topic as there is for marriage and the family. And in literature, thieves and theft are everywhere. Allusions to them are sprinkled throughout the New
Testament: Death comes ‘like a thief in the night’ (Thessalonians 5:2); ‘lay up treasures in heaven where moth and dust do not corrupt, nor thieves break in and steal’ (Matthew 6:20); ‘But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into’ (Luke 12:39); ‘the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy’ (John 10:10); ‘the day of the Lord will come like a thief’ (2 Peter 3:10). Then there are the frequent violent assaults on persons and property in Apuleius’
Golden Ass.
And worries over theft became even greater because the authorities took ineffectual action at best. They were concerned with ‘keeping the peace’ and could form a posse to attack bandits, as happens in
The Golden Ass,
but unless a heinous crime was committed against the elite, or citizens took the initiative, inaction was the order of the day. In fact, both as individuals and as groups, men were left to their own devices in dealing with theft, as the
Carmen
clearly indicates by dwelling on what suspects might look like, where stolen goods might be found, who might be the thieves, and so on. This situation in turn meant that men took measures to guard their possessions and were constantly nervous about the possibility of theft.