At the period of Horace’s birth the _Libertini_, or freedmen, were rapidly rising in wealth, and, therefore, in position. The Roman constitution excluded the senatorial order from commercial pursuits, and would not even permit them to own vessels of any considerable burden, lest they should be made use of in trade. The old Roman feeling was even more exclusive than the law. There were certain trades in which not only none who had any pretensions to the rank of a gentleman, but even no one who was free-born could engage without degradation. Cicero[588] considers that money-lending, manufactures, retail trade, especially in delicacies which minister to the appetite, are all sordid and illiberal. He does not even allow that the professions of medicine and architecture are honourable, except to such as are of suitable rank. Agriculture is the only method of money-making which he pronounces to be without any doubt worthy of free-born men. Devoted to the duties of public life either as soldiers or citizens, the Romans did not comprehend the dignity of labour. High-minded and unselfish as it may appear to think meanly of employments undertaken simply for the sake of profit and lucre, the political result of this pride was unmixed evil. Commerce was thus thrown into the hands of those whose fathers had been slaves, and who themselves inherited and possessed the usual vices of a slavish disposition. The middle classes were impoverished, and, as the unavoidable consequence of a system in which social position depended upon property, were rapidly sinking into the lowest ranks of the population. Here then was a gap to be filled up—the question was by what means? Had Roman feeling permitted the free-born citizen to devote his energies to labour and the creation of capital, he would have risen in the social scale, would have occupied the place left vacant, and would have brought with him those sentiments of chivalrous freedom which there can be no doubt distinguished Rome in earlier times, and advanced her in the scale of nations. Thus the circulation would have been complete and healthy, and the national system would have received fresh life and vigour in its most important part. Instead of this, however, slaves and the sons of slaves rose to wealth: not such slaves as those who, well educated and occupying a high or, at least, a respectable position in the conquered Greek states, were appreciated by their conquerors, became their friends and intimates, because of their worth and intellectual acquirements, imbued their masters with their own refinement and taste, and were intrusted with the education of their children, but slaves who had formed the masses of degraded nations. These were driven in hordes to Rome. They swarmed in all the states of Italy and Sicily. Many of them were not deficient in ability and energy, and therefore they rose; but they had little or no moral principle. Their children intermarried with