The habits of the early Romans were extremely simple; agriculture was their most honoured employment; and it was thought high praise to say of any man, that he was a good husband, and a good husbandman. Their food was chiefly corn; and many a happy family afforded an illustration of the fact that love, notwithstanding the assertion of the song writer to the contrary, can sometimes live on flour. Wine was so precious, that, in libations to the gods, it was poured out drop by drop, to prevent their getting a drop too much; and, indeed, so scarce was it in the early days of Rome, that Romulus is said to have used milk in his sacrifices; while Papirius, at a later period, vowed, in the event of his victory over the Samnites, a small glass--or _petit verre_--to Jupiter. Long beards were worn by the Romans until the arrival of a Greek barber from Sicily; and he is said to have plucked out, with a pair of tweezers, the beard which had grown for four centuries and a half into a rooted habit. On some he employed the razor, and he was able to reap an abundant harvest from the chins of a people who had never yet worn a smooth-faced aspect. The invasion of Pyrrhus caused the adoption at Rome of many Grecian luxuries, and among others was the luxury of substituting a silver coinage for copper, which had been found so inconvenient that a rich man had been obliged to use a wagon instead of a purse, if he wished to take his money about with him. Silver was, however, so scarce, that one Cornelius Rufinus was turned out of the Senate for having on his sideboard more than ten pounds of plate; for it was believed that he could not have come honestly by so much of it, and he was regarded as either a thief, or at least as a receiver of stolen property. So humble were the pretensions to display in those early days, that a silver cup and a salt-cellar formed, usually, the entire contents of a Roman noble's plate-basket. Music, among the early Romans, was at the lowest possible pitch, and the only professors were flute-players, of scarcely any note, from Etruria. Their strains were so dismal as to be employed only at a sacrifice or a funeral, when extreme melancholy was required. On one occasion the band is said to have struck, and retired to Tibur, when the musicians were only brought back by being made helplessly drunk,--a weakness to which some of those hirelings who assist at the performance of funerals are in our day liable. FOOTNOTES: [36] Polybius. [37] Polyb., ii. 20. [38] The ignorantly squeamish, who may object to the word "togged," will please to observe that it is purely classical--the Latin _toga_ being the root of the participle "togged," as well as the substantive "toggery." [39] Livy, viii.--8. [40] Lipsius and others. CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH. THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. [Illustration]