The Rise of the Roman Republic67Cato (234–149 B.C.), the author, general, and statesman
from whom much information is derived about rural so-
ciety under the republic (see document 4.2), reported
that his wife sometimes nursed the children of slaves.
But slaves were still property and could be sold, beaten,
or killed without recourse to law.
In this, slaves were little different from the other
members of the familia.Theoretically and legally, the fa-
ther, or paterfamilias,had absolute power of life and
death over his children and slaves. His wife, too, was
subject to his will, but he could neither kill nor sell her.
In practice, affection and the need for domestic tran-
quility diluted the brutality of the law. By the second
century B.C. women had, through court decisions and
senatorial decrees, gained a much larger measure of
control over their persons and dowries than they had
enjoyed in the early years of the republic.
In much the same way, the sale or execution of a
child rarely took place without the approval of the en-
tire family, and public opinion had to be considered
as well. Rome, like ancient Greece, was a “shame”
society that exercised social control primarily through
community pressure. Reputation was vitally important,
and the mistreatment of women and children was re-
garded as shameful.
Women guarded their reputations and were gener-
ally respected. Like their Greek counterparts, they
managed the day-to-day life of the household. Women,
no less than men, were expected to conform to the
ideals of dignitas, fides,and pietas(dignity, faithfulness,
and piety) and to exhibit physical and moral courage of
the highest order. They were also expected to remind
their menfolk when they failed to honor those ancient
virtues. In many ways, the Roman model of feminine
behavior was more Spartan than Athenian.
Roman families were part of larger social groupings
that influenced their conduct. The importance of clans,
tribes, and other survivals from an earlier time has been
much debated, but clientage, the system of mutual de-
pendency in which a powerful individual protects the in-
terests of others in return for their political or economic
support, was legally enforceable and even more highly
developed than in Mesopotamia.
All of these arrangements were sanctioned by reli-
gion. The Roman pantheon of gods was superficially
like that of the Greeks, with Jupiter corresponding to
Zeus, Juno to Hera, Venus to Aphrodite, and so on.
However, in the early days at least, the gods do not
seem to have had clearly defined human forms. No
myths sprung up about them, and no suggestion was
made that they engaged in the kind of sexual antics
common among the Olympians. When Greek culture
became fashionable in the second half of the third cen-
tury B.C., such distinctions tended to vanish. Greek
myths were adapted to the Roman pantheon, and the
Roman gods and goddesses were portrayed according
to the conventions of Greek art. The Romans also be-
lieved in a host of spirits that governed places and nat-
ural processes (see document 4.3). They consulted theDOCUMENT 4.2
Cato: Farm Management
Marcus Porcius Cato (234–149 B.C.) was the first Latin
writer of prose. Though he wrote in the second century B.C.,
his fervent traditionalism led him to value the social ideals of a
far earlier time, and much of his political career was devoted to
a vigorous attack on luxury and the importation of foreign
ideas. His De agri cultura,the first of many Roman tracts
on farming, was directed to men like himself who had farmed
modest acreage with the help of an overseer and a few slaves,
not toward the owners of opulent estates. It includes a wealth
of technical information on every aspect of farming as well as
advice on management. The following passages reflect a hard-
bitten attitude that must have been common among Romans in
the earliest days of the republic.Sell worn-out oxen, blemished cattle, blemished
sheep, wool, hides, an old slave, a sickly slave, and
whatever else is superfluous. The master should be
in the selling habit, not the buying habit....
[O]n feast days, old ditches might have been
cleaned, road work done, brambles cut, the garden
spaded, a meadow cleared, faggots bundled, thorns
rooted out, spelt ground, and general cleaning
done. When the slaves were sick, such large ra-
tions should not have been issued.
When the weather is bad and no other work
can be done, clear out manure for the compost
heap; clean thoroughly the ox stalls, sheep pens,
barnyard, and farmstead; and mend wine-jars with
lead, or hoop them with thoroughly dried oak
wood.... In rainy weather try to find something
to do indoors. Clean up rather than be idle. Re-
member that even though work stops, expenses
run on none the less.
Cato. De agricultura,trans. W. D. Hooper and H. D. Ash. Loeb
Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1934.