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Families in the Roman and Late
Antique World
The Family in Antiquity
Titles in this series:

I: Families in the Greco-Roman World – edited by Ray Laurence and Agneta
Strömberg
II: Families in the Roman and Late Antique World – edited by Mary Harlow
and Lena Larsson Lovén
Families in the Roman and Late
Antique World
Edited by Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén

Continuum International Publishing Group
The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane
11 York Road Suite 704
London SE1 7NX New York, NY 10038
www.continuumbooks.com
© Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén, with the Contributors, 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission
from the publishers.
First published 2012
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-4411-7079-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN

Contents
List of illustrations and tables vii

Abbreviations x
Preface xiii
1 Introduction: Looking Forward 1
Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén
2 Pliny the Nephew: Youth and Family Ties across Generations and
Genders 7
Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet
3 ‘Vixit Plus Minus’. Commemorating the Age of the Dead: Towards a
Familial Roman Life Course? 23
Ray Laurence and Francesco Trifilò
4 ‘No part in earthly things’. The Death, Burial and Commemoration
of Newborn Children and Infants in Roman Italy 41
Maureen Carroll
5 The Representation of Physical Contact on Roman Tombstones 64
Jason Mander
6 Nieces and Nephews: An Epigraphic Approach 85
Sabine Armani
7 A Bioarchaeological Perspective on the Pre-Adult Stages of the Life
Course: Implications for the Care and Health of Children in the
Roman Empire 111
Rebecca C. Redfern and Rebecca L. Gowland
8 Roman Family Reliefs and the Commemoration of Work: Text,
Images and Ideals 141
Lena Larsson Lovén
9 Death and the Family: Widows and Divorcées in Roman Egypt 157
April Pudsey
vi C ontents
10 Imperial Blood: Family Relationships in the Dynasty of Constantine

the Great 181
Shaun Tougher
11 Written in Stone: Gendered Ideals and the Byzantine Family 199
Eve Davies
12 Left-Over Romans: The Life Course in the Late Antique West 221
Chris Callow and Mary Harlow
13 Fatherhood in Late Antique Gaul 238
Emma Southon
14 Afterword: Possibilites 254
Natalie Kampen
Notes on contributors 265
Index 268
List of illustrations and tables
Illustrations
3.1 Comparison by quantity of the total and plus minus samples 26
3.2 Comparison by percentage of total and plus minus datasets
(percentage values in all calculations and charts are rounded to the
nearest whole number) 27
3.3 Representation of chronological age without a mention of plus
minus (n.: 23,227). Key indicator defined as ages with a value
of 2 per cent or greater 30
3.4 Percentage representation of key ages in the ‘plus minus’ dataset
(n.: 1790). On comparison with all represented ages a value of
1 per cent is to be considered average. Significant peaks start
from a value of 2 per cent 31
3.5 Measure of the distribution of commemorative age – a 0 value
represents the full usage of all ages; whereas a value of 12 represents
a minimal usage of ages apart from those ending in 0 and 5 34
3.6 Total sample (i.e. no mention of plus minus) subdivided by
age groups. Quantities are expressed as percentages of the
inscriptions by gender 36
3.7 Plus minus sample by age groups. Quantities are expressed as
percentages of each gender within the group of inscriptions 37
4.1 Burial of an infant six to nine months of age in an amphora in
the Porta Nocera cemetery at Pompeii. Photo École Française de
Rome, Antoine Gailliot 51
4.2 Terracotta feeding bottle found in the grave (Tomb 70) of a
neonate at Portorecanati. Drawing J. Willmott 52
4.3 Funerary relief depicting the breast-feeding of an infant, Rome
(Vatican Museums). Drawing J. Willmott 52
4.4 Marble epitaph of Satyrus, aged eight months, eight days
and three hours, set up by his father Jason in the Isola Sacra
cemetery at Portus. Photograph by the author 53
4.5 Funerary altar of a mother with two boys; 11 months old,
and 3 months and 10 days old, Rome (Vatican Museums).
Photograph by the author 53
viii L ist o f illu stratio ns and tables
4.6 Limestone statue of Mater Matuta suckling a swaddled infant, from

Satricum (Villa Giulia, Rome). Photograph by the author 53
4.7 (a to e): Life-size terracotta votives in the form of swaddled infants,
from Tarquinia (Ara della Regina), Falerii, Gravisca, Satricum and
Campetti Veio (Drawings by J. Willmott, not to scale) 54
5.1 Stele of Aelius Quartinus and family (detail). Enns, Museum
Lauriacum, inv. R X 176. Photograph: O. Harl; in 2.5
(www.ubi-erat-lupa.org)66
5.2 Relief for a family from Noricum. St Veit an der Glan, Pfarrkirche.
Photograph: O. Harl; in 2.5 (www.ubi-erat-lupa.org) 69
5.3 Relief of the Vettii. Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano, inv. 125830.
Photo by Singer, Neg. D-DAI-Rom 1973.0752 71
5.4 Stele for a family from Noricum. Enns, Museum Lauriacum, inv.
R X 177. Photograph: O. Harl; in 2.5 (www.ubi-erat-lupa.org) 74
5.5 Stele of Iulia Priscilla and family. Szombathely, Savaria Múzeum,
inv. 67.10.120. Photograph: O. Harl; in 2.5 (www.ubi-erat-lupa.org) 75
5.6 Medallion for a family from Dacia. Bucharest, Muzeul
National de Istorie a României, inv. 66446. Photo from
www.arachne.uni-koeln.de, FA630-07 76
5.7 Stele for Valerius Saturninus and son (detail). Tata, Angolpark
(English Gardens). Kuny Domokos Megyei Múzeum, Tata.
Photo: O. Harl (www.ubi-erat-lupa.org) 77
5.8 Relief for two couples from Noricum. Seggauberg, Schloss Seggau.
Photograph: O. Harl; in 2.5 (www.ubi-erat-lupa.org) 78
7.1 Distal epiphysis of the femur (thigh bone) at various stages of
development prior to fusion, from youngest to oldest (left to right) 116
7.2 Distal end of the femur with the epiphysis recently fused and the
fusion line clearly visible 116
7.3. Evidence for the embryotomy procedure observed in a fullterm
individual from Poundbury Camp (England) © The Natural History
Museum, London 122
7.4. Evidence for healing fractures in two ribs in an infant
from Poundbury Camp, England © The Natural History
Museum, London 125
7.5. Radiograph of the femora and tibiae of a 1- to 2-year old infant
from Poundbury Camp (England) showing evidence for rickets © The
Natural History Museum, London 126
8.1 Present state of the tomb of Eurysaces, the baker, at Porta
Maggiore, Rome. Photograph by the author 142
8.2 The funerary relief of the Gavii, S. Giovanni in Laterano, Rome.
Photograph by the author 144
8.3 The funerary relief of the Antestii, Vatican Museums, Rome.
Photograph courtesy of Deutsches Archäologisches Instituts, Rom,
D-DAI-ROM-43.455148
L ist o f illu stratio ns and tables ix
8.4 The funerary relief of the Ampudii, British Museum London.

Photograph courtesy © Trustees of the British Museum 149
11.1 Quantity of male and female inscriptions 206
11.2 Age at death on second-century tombstones 207
11.3 Percentage of collective inscriptions, first to eighth century 213
Tables
3.1 Key ages found in literary texts 28
5.1 Physical contact in select Danube provinces 73
6.1 Some examples of the use of nepos and its derivates in Hispania in
a familial context 87
6.2 Names of the sobrinus, -a and of his (her) relatives 93
9.1 Single adult women who are potentially widows/divorcées, by
age group 160
9.2 Apparently single women, divorced, widowed or not married, who
reside with adult kin: sons, daughters, siblings (who are either
married or unmarried) 161
reside within exclusively female households (with exception of male
slaves, in some cases) 166
reside with non-kin males (who may be the only adult male in the
household)167
remarried168
9.6 Apparently single women, divorced, widowed or not married who
have minor (or very young) children and did not remarry 169
9.7 Widowers and divorcés 170
10.1 The descendents of Constantius I and Helena 192
10.2 The descendents of Constantius I and Theodora 192
10.3 The family of Julius Constantius 192
11.1 Quantity of epitaphs 201
11.2 Percentage of male and female inscriptions including age at death 204
Abbreviations
Books and Journals

AE L’Année épigraphique
AJA American Journal of Archaeology
ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt
AntAfr. Antiquités Africaines
BF Byzantinische Forschungen
BGU Berliner Griechische Urkunden
BZ Byzantine Zeitschrift
CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
CILA Corpus de inscripciones latinas de Andalucía
CP Classical Philology
CSIR Corpus Signorum Imperii Romani
CW Classical World
DECAR Abascal Palazón, J. M. and Ramallo Asensio,
S. F. (1997), La ciudad de Carthago Noua la
documentación epigráfica, Murcia
EJA European Journal of Archaeology
EME Early Medieval Europe
ERAE García Iglesias, L. (1972), Epigrafía Romana de
Augusta Emerita
FIRA Riccobono, S. (1941), Fontes Iuris Romani
AnteIustiani
GorThR Greek Orthodox Theological Review
HEp Hispania Epigraphica
IAph2007 Reynolds, J., Roueché, C. and Bodard, G. (eds)
(2007), Inscriptions of Aphrodisias
IAq Inscriptiones Aquileiae
IIt Inscriptiones Italiae
ILAfr Inscriptions latines d’Afrique (Tripolitaine, Tunisie et
Maroc)
ILAlg Inscriptions latines de l’Algérie
ILER Vives, J. (1971–1972), Inscripciones latinas de la
España romana. Antología de 6800 textos, Barcelona
ILN Inscriptions latines de Narbonnaise
A bbreviatio ns xi
ILS Inscriptiones latinae selectae

ILTun Inscriptions latines de Tunisie
IRC Fabre, G., Mayer, M. and Rodà, I. (1997),
Inscriptions romaines de Catalogne, Paris
IRCP Encarnacão (d’), J. (1984), Inscricões romanas do
Conventus Pacensis subsídios para o estudo da
romanização, 2 Vols, Coïmbra
IRIlici Corell, J. (1999), Inscripcions romanas d’Ilici,
Lucentum, Allon, Dianium i els seus territoris,
Valentia
IRPLE Diego Santos, F. (1986), Inscripciones romanas de la
provincia de León, Leon
JDAI Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts
JECS Journal of Early Christian Studies
JIES Journal of Indo-European Studies
JMH Journal of Medieval History
JRS Journal of Roman Studies
LICS Knapp, R. C. (1992), Latin Inscriptions from Central
Spain, Los Angeles
MCV Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez
MEFRA Mélanges d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de l’Ecole
Française de Rome
NSc Notizi degli Scavi
PSI Papiri Greci e Latini, Pubblicazioni della Società
italiana per la ricerca dei papyri greci e latini in
Egitto
RIU Die römischen Inschriften Ungarns
SB Preisigke, S. (1915–), Sammelbuch griechischen
Urkunden aus Ägypten
SEG Chaniotis, A., Corsten, T., Stroud, R. S. and Tybout,
R. A, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, Leiden
Brill
Ancient Sources
Anast. Sin. The Tales of Anastasios the Sinaïte
Carm. epigr. Carmina epigraphica
Cass. Dio Cassius Dio
Cic., Off. Cicero, De officiis
Cic., Q. Fr. Cicero, Epistulae ad Quintum fratrem
Cyr. Scyth. V. Ioh. Hes. Vita of John the Hesychast
Dig. Digesta
Ep. Epistulae (Sidonius Appolinaris)
xii A bbreviatio ns
Etym. Etymologiae (Isidore)

Euch. Paulinus, Eucharisticos
Greg. Glor. Mart. Gregory of Tours, Gloria Martyrorum
Greg. HF Gregory of Tour, Historia Francorum
Just. Inst. Justinian I, The Institutes
Just. Nov. Justinian I, Novels
Laz. Gal. Vita of Lazaros of Mount Galesion
Leo Diac Leo the Deacon, The History
Lys. Lysias Eclo. Leo III, The Ecolga
Mart. Martial
Pan. Lat. Panegyrici Latini
Paul of Monem., ST The spiritually beneficial tales of Paul, Bishop of
Monemvasia
Petron., Sat. Petronius, Satyrica
Plaut., Poen. Plautus, Poenulus
Suet., Aug. Suetonius, Divus Augustus
Suet., Cal. Suetonius, Caligula
Ruricius, Ep. Ruricius of Limoges, Epistulae
Tac., Ann. Tacitus, Annales
Ter., An. Terence, Andria
Ulp. Ulpianus
V. Davidis Sym. et Georg Vitae of David, Symeon and George of Lesbos
V. Elias Helio Vita of Elias of Helioupolis
V. Luk. Steir. Vita of Luke the Younger
V. Nikeph. Vita of Nikephoros
V. Philaretos Vita of Philaretos the Merciful
V. Theod. Thess Vita of Theodora of Thessalonike
Preface
The volumes of The Family in Antiquity series bring together scholars inves-
tigating the ancient family across the spectrum of classical ancient history
– from ancient Greece, to the Hellenistic Mediterranean, to the Roman Empire
through to early Christian Europe. All the writers have an interest in what could
be described as the nature of the oikos in Greece and the familia of the Roman
Empire and early Medieval Europe. The terms oikos and familia as used in
antiquity are difficult to define and any translation into a European language is
quickly found to be wanting and inadequate. Moreover, the cultural production
and reproduction of these linguistic terms occurred in very different societies
across the wide chronological span of antiquity – over 1,600 years (from c.800
BC through to c.AD 800 ). This diversity of usage and cultural context was one
of the attractions of these terms for an investigation that was first considered
in 2008 at a meeting to discuss collaboration of research between the present
editors of the volumes. Our intention was to extend the discussion of the family
in antiquity both in terms of chronological range, but also in terms of the inter-
action of academics working on different periods of antiquity. After all, we can
all observe in our university libraries the range of publications on the Roman
Family and then find an absence of a similar scale of writing on the family in
Archaic, Classical or Hellenistic Greece; or, for that matter, books on the family
in Late Antiquity. To address this issue, we decided to hold a conference entitled
From Oikos to the Familia: Framing the Discipline for the 21st Century with the
proviso that we would include all who wished to deliver a paper on this subject.
We met in Gothenburg over three days in November 2009 with over 70 speakers
from across the globe, arranged, for the most part, in three parallel sessions.
Subsequently, as organizers, we were faced with the difficult choice of which
papers to select for inclusion in the volumes. There were many good papers
that simply could not be fitted in and here we wish to acknowledge the impor-
tance of these unpublished papers that were delivered at the conference. All the
papers given in Gothenburg have shaped how authors in these volumes have
thought about their shared subject – the ancient family. All the abstracts from
the conference can be found at: http://www.iaa.bham.ac.uk/news/conferences/
oikosfamilia/index.shtml
In addition, we wish to express our profound gratitude to both Mark Golden
and Natalie Kampen in providing a lead in opening the conference and setting
an agenda that was explicitly self-critical and questioning of received wisdom.
xiv P reface
Both have kindly agreed to comment on the papers published in these volumes
in final chapters of each book and to share with us their views of the future of
the subject.
The volumes of The Family in Antiquity do not seek to definitively define
oikos or familia: instead they contain different perspectives to those found
published previously, either in terms of subject matter (for example osteological
analysis from the Veneto and Roman Britain), or methodologies and perspec-
tives drawn from outside the classical disciplines (for example in the study of
demography and kinship). One of our principle aims in these two volumes
is to include a sense of the excitement and vibrancy of the ideas expressed at
the conference in Gothenburg as participants met, often for the first time, and
discussed new understandings and new thoughts about a common interest in
the family in antiquity.
These volumes are not the end of this project, but one of its outputs. To
enable younger researchers undertaking doctoral research to interact, students
from the Universities of Birmingham and Gothenburg set up a website to
enable the discussion of the life course in antiquity. It is important for this next
generation of academics to be able to interact and develop contacts in ways that
were unimaginable when we ourselves were students; and, given the current
uncertainty of the future in the present economic climate, there is a need for
us to ensure that we do not lose a generation of researchers (as occurred, for
example, in the UK in the 1980s). With this in mind, an initiative has been set
up to promote the study of the family in antiquity in Swedish Higher Education
that will involve the participation of other European scholars.
The production of these volumes has consistently reminded us of the joy,
professionalism, and enthusiasm that the participants brought with them to
Gothenburg in 2009. These qualities carried this project forward to publication.
We hope readers will see these qualities in the written versions produced
by the authors in a timely fashion for each volume. Here, we need to thank
Céline Murphy for her invaluable help in editing both volumes – she has been
meticulous in her work, we the editors take responsibility for any errors. Finally,
we must acknowledge that none of this would have been possible without the
support of the following sponsors of the conference:
Professor Göran Malmstedt and the Department of Historical Studies, University

of Gothenburg for hosting the conference
The Swedish Research Council
The Swedish foundation for the Cooperation in Research and Higher Education
The Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity and the College of Arts and Law,
University of Birmingham
The Classical Association (UK)
The Institute of Classical Studies, University of London
Stiftelsen Harald och Tonny Hagendahls Minnesfond
The Wenner Gren Foundation
P reface xv
Berg Publishers (UK)

The Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past
The University of Kent, Faculty of Humanities (for funding the invaluable
Céline Murphy)
Michael Greenwood at Continuum
Mary Harlow (University of Birmingham)

Lena Larsson Lovén (University of Gothenburg)
Ray Laurence (University of Kent)
Agneta Strömberg (University of Gothenburg)
1
Introduction: Looking Forward

Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén
This collection of papers is the second volume resulting from the Oikos – Familia
conference held at the University of Gothenburg in November 2009. In our
preliminary discussions about the nature of the conference we recognized that
ideas of continuity and change rarely get an airing as we do not often have the
time or luxury to shift our focus from our own chosen specialized periods and
methodologies. To that end we decided to set a very wide ranging call for papers
– and were not disappointed. However, the programme in the end reflected much
of agendas of existing scholarship, with a good deal more interest in the Roman
side than the Greek or Hellenistic. This bias is also reflected in the two volumes,
which have also had to respond to the publisher’s need for potential markets.
They are best read, studied and used as a pair, but we appreciate that individual
interests, research agendas and teaching requirements – not to mention student
budgets – need focused volumes. The papers in this volume reflect current
work on the Roman and later Roman period, stretching geographically across
the Empire and methodologically from more traditional uses of literature and
demography, to more innovative approaches of iconography, archaeology and
osteoarchaeology. As with Volume 1 it is not our intention in the introduction
to comment on individual papers; instead Professor Natalie Kampen has kindly
offered an Afterword on the range of themes included here. Along with Mark
Golden, who wrote the Afterword for Volume 1, Natalie Kampen was a great
influence on and supporter of the conference in 2009; her paper is included in
Volume 1. We owe them both thanks for their continued support.
In the recognition that many readers of this volume will not have read Volume
1, we reprise a little of the substance of the introduction to the first volume here
– not least because we too wish to honour Beryl Rawson and her contribution
to the discipline which she started with the series of Roman Family conferences,
commencing in Australia in the 1980s. Her death has left us all the poorer but
her last edited volume, the Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Families in the Greek
and Roman Worlds (2010) is a fitting tribute to both her influence of where the
study of the family in antiquity has come from and where it is going. The use of
the plural in the title is indicative of the results of recent research. Scholars in
the last half of the twentieth century sought to create frameworks and param-
eters within which we could look at the ancient family. This included an interest
in the legal perspective to uncover apparent norms by which we could judge
much of the anecdotal evidence that came from literature. Research into the
2 Families in the R oman and L ate A ntiq u e R oman Wo rld
demographics of the Roman world, pioneered by Richard Saller and Brent Shaw,
undermined the structure-driven approach of legal experts and produced a new
framework within which to look at family shape and interaction.1 Studies of
marriage and inheritance networks had to reflect the social realities of a world
where a vast majority of the population might not live beyond the age of 30. By
the early 1990s we had begun to accept that the nuclear family – albeit a carefully
contextualized version – was the norm among at least most of the Roman world,
with Egypt always standing out as an exception (see Pudsey, this volume). A
recent collection of papers edited by Sabine Huebner and David Ratzen (2009)
has examined the reality presented by demography in Growing Up Fatherless in
Antiquity, and a renewed interest in the role of the extended family has arisen.2
As the series of Roman Family conferences progressed so the interests in wider
aspects of family interaction and relationships grew. Influenced by gender
studies and the social sciences, historians of antiquity found inspiration in
examining the use of social space and the material culture of family life; in age
and ageing (including childhood, youth and old age); in medical history; in the
history of emotion – to name but a few of the recent directions in the growing
bibliography of the family. Scholars recognized early on that despite our best
efforts in creating social norms in which to situate the Roman family, there was
‘no one size fits all’ model. Models remain models; they are useful tools to work
with but even among the elite we have to recognize that families are made up of
individuals who have not read our rule books. So, the Families of Beryl Rawson’s
last edited volume is part of the way forward. We need to acknowledge the
plurality and complexity of families – or households – in the past while retaining
a pragmatic approach that sees these families existing in the social structures of
the communities in which they lived.
In 2005 the Roman Family Conference series branched out into the provinces
of the Roman Empire and which made many of the contributors face the scarcity
of evidence (e.g. in particular see Greg Woolf on Roman Gaul).3 It is precisely
the fragmentary and often slippery nature of the evidence for private life that
has made historians of the family work hard to develop critical approaches to
their subject. It is not too much to say that by absorbing the methodologies
of other disciplines, particularly the social sciences, and by taking a multi-
disciplinary approach themselves, historians of the family, alongside those who
work on gender have forced a change in the way the discipline is taught. In the
plethora of ‘companion’ volumes for the ancient world that have appeared in the
past few years, there is hardly a one without a chapter on the family, and some
which make social history a key element. The Fifth Roman Family conference
took place in Fribourg (Switzerland) in 2007 with the title ‘Secret Families,
Family Secrets’. This was the first Roman Family Conference to be held in Europe
and the publication, Children, Memory and Family Identity in Roman Culture
(2010) (edited by Véronique Dasen and Thomas Späth), reflects recent trends
in scholarship with a concentration on the history of childhood, social memory
and social identity.
I ntr o d u ctio n 3
It is clear that the study of the history of the family in antiquity has come
a long way since Beryl Rawson’s early work in the 1960s, but it remains
predominantly focused on the Roman world. We need to work to undermine
this preoccupation. New work is beginning to emerge from historians of the
Greek and Hellenistic worlds, some of it in Volume 1 of this series. In the
Wiley-Blackwell’s companion some scholars offered comparative work (e.g.
Véronique Dasen, Hugh Lindsay) but this is rare. It is rare not just because it
is hard to do in real depth in short chapters but also because time periods and
the differing range of evidence mean that some comparative studies are in effect
a comparison of case studies.4 Even here we find the comparison often means
Classical Athens and Late Republic/Early Imperial Rome. This is not invalid in
itself but it does mean some of the thornier issues are skated over. One of the
aims of the Gothenburg conference was to bring this problem to the surface and
to discuss ways in which we might approach it.
Some areas of family history have also come under particular scrutiny. There
have been serious inroads into the study of childhood and old age. Adulthood,
however, remains a relatively undifferentiated stage of life (see Harlow and
Laurence, forthcoming). Women, both as part of the domestic realm and as of
themselves, have been the focus of literally hundreds of books and articles since
the publication of Sarah Pomeroy’s then ground-breaking Wives, Goddesses and
Whores in 1975. Gender studies has much to offer the history of the family and
the two often work in tandem in more current volumes, placing women in the
household and examining ideas of masculinity. In the introduction to Volume
1 Ray Laurence discussed the apparently gendered nature of the study of the
family in antiquity highlighting the different foci of female and male scholars.
However, while anecdotally we might look at where research interests lie and
how they diverge or come together on gendered lines, family history is not quite
the preserve of women that gender studies in Classics courses has become in
the UK.5
Studying the family makes us face our own prejudices and subjective experi-
ences of both our own families and those we might personally interact with.
Historical distance allows us to make some over-arching, but informed, gener-
alizations but we are ever at the mercy of the evidence, which is inevitably
fragmentary. There are areas where work can be done. In Volume 1 Laurence
suggests the symbolic language of the family could be investigated further, as
this has so far raised relatively little interest among historians of antiquity, (with
the exception of those who have looked at cultural memory).6 The iconography
of the family is also an area that could be further developed. Janet Huskinson,
Beryl Rawson and others have evolved critical methodologies in looking at
images of Roman children and it is an area that merits further development
(see Maureen Carroll and Jason Mander, in this volume, and Natalie Kampen
vol. 1).7 The role of domestic space has been the subject of a series of papers and
books, but peopling that space is still problematic.8 In a stimulating paper for the
Gothenburg conference Natalie Kampen considered the image of family found
in Pompeian wall painting but the responses of inhabitants to the decoration of

their homes is also a matter for further investigation (see also Kampen, 2009).9
In studying the history of the family we face the same problem that those
involved with gender studies have been challenged by: how do we move from
the sources to social reality? This is our challenge: to create a social reality (or
rather realities) with all the caveats required, that is more than representation.
In the ancient world people lived in close contact with others: they got
married (or something similar), they had children whom they raised in some
fashion, they played, they worked and they became sick, they mourned their
dead and occasionally produced elaborate memorials to them. Mark Golden
prefers ‘to think of the Greeks and Romans as devoted parents, deeply troubled
by the dangers which beset their children’.10 He goes on to remind us of the
subjective nature of our topic: we should test not only our opinions about
the past but also about ourselves. In this sense the ‘conversation between the
present and the past’ that is ancient history11 means we cannot allow modern
sensibilities to cloud our judgement. Golden is talking about children and
childcare in the past. Historians of childhood recognize that even in Europe and
the United States opinions about childcare are very culturally specific, and very
different practices take place even within a shared culture – but still we need
to examine antiquity by its own varied values, prejudices and ideals. We should
not shy away from the challenge of uncovering social realities.
As part of this ‘conversation’, the present can also help frame our thinking
about the past. Professor Pat Thane recently compiled a report for the British
Academy Policy Centre, entitled Happy Families? History and Family Policy
(October 2010). This report, the first of its kind, is a response to the need for
the humanities to have a voice in matters of public policy. As a document it
makes the point very succinctly that we need to learn from the past, and that
policy makers today could learn from the debates which surrounded issues
that were and are still current. However, if history is going to be invoked on
either side of a debate it should be as accurate as possible. Thane’s themes are
with family patterns and stability; child welfare; domestic violence and poverty;
and finally with examining the links between changes in the family and wider
social change from the late 1700s onwards.12 The sources are in a very different
vein to those that exist for antiquity, and while England and Wales of the last
two centuries cannot be compared to Greece and Rome at any period in their
history, the results of Thane’s survey do have resonance: large numbers of
children were likely to grow up without male role models and live in households
run by widows;13 unless women were wealthy and had resources of their own
they were unlikely to divorce as they were financially dependent and, until 1924,
had no right of guardianship to their children, and even then only up to the age
of 7;14 many parents would not be legally married but still be raising children
in a ‘family’; there was an almost continual moral panic about the state of the
family;15 remarriage was more common for men, often creating complex sets
of step-children;16 the physical and sexual abuse of women and children was of
I ntr o d u ctio n 5
concern, but responses to it fluctuated; family size changed during the period
with numbers of birth per female falling from about six in the late eighteenth
century to an average of two by the 1930s while life expectancy increased.17
Increase in longevity led to more complex families of up to four generations
and a higher proportion of elderly in the population. Most recently we see the
shift again in family pattern with the use of technology which keeps mobile
family members or units in contact with others; and, with grandparents taking
childcare roles as the middle generations maintain the economic position of the
family. Most significantly, Thane finds little evidence to show that there is any
relationship between family patterns and wider social change.18
Apart from the more traditional topics of marriage, divorce and the effects
and implications of demographic realities, some of the themes taken up by
Thane have also been the object of study for ancient historians: Pomeroy on
domestic violence; Huebner et al. on growing up fatherless and the lack of
male role models; Laes and Mustakallio and contributors to The Dark Side of
Childhood on the issue of child abandonment (2011). This returns us to Mark
Golden’s idea of ancient history as a conversation between the present and the
past. He follows this up with a plea not to let the ‘values or preconceptions of
the present drown out the past’.19 We need to make our subject relevant, but in
its own terms. We need to recognize relevant associations and take on their
implications in an attempt to uncover the everyday of family lives in the past.
This is our job as ancient historians after all.
Notes
1 The bibliography on the Roman family is too vast to condense into a footnote but we should
mention here the seminal work of Richard Saller and Brent Shaw, 1984; Saller, 1994 and Parkin,
1992.
2 Sabine Huebner and Geoffrey Nathan are currently in the process of publishing a collection of
papers on Extended and Joint Family Systems in the Ancient World.
3 (ed.) Michele George, 2005. Woolf in same volume.
4 On the use of case studies see Harlow and Parkin in Erskine (ed.); Harlow and Laurence
(ed.), 2010, where the wide chronological range of the volume required defined focus, best
exemplified in case studies.
5 Blundell, 2009.
6 Papers in Dasen and Späth, 2010.
7 For iconography see Huskinson, 1996; 2007a, 2007b. Papers in Cohen and Rutter, 2007.
Kampen, 2009.
8 See most recent survey on both Greece and Rome by Nevett, 2010, and her bibliography.
9 Kampen, 2009.
10 Golden, 2010, p. 274.
11 Ibid.
12 Thane, 2010, pp. 5, 17.
13 Ibid., 45 ff.
14 Ibid., 2010, pp. 38, 43.
15 Ibid., pp. 62–64.
16 Ibid., p. 47.
17 Ibid., pp. 51–52.

18 Ibid., p. 68.
19 Golden, 2010, p. 274.
Bibliography
Blundell, S. (2009), ‘Gender and the Classics curriculum: a survey’, Arts and
Humanities in Higher Education, 8, (2), 136–159.
Cohen, A. and Rutter, J. (eds) (2007), Constructions of Childhood in the Ancient
Mediterranean, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Dasen, V. and Späth, T. (eds) (2010), Children, Memory & Family Identity in
Roman Culture, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
George, M. (ed.) (2005), The Roman Family in the Empire. Rome, Italy, and
Beyond, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harlow, M. and Laurence, R. (eds) (2010), A Cultural History of Childhood and
the Family, Oxford: Berg.
Harlow, M. and Parkin, T. (2009), ‘The Greek and Roman family’, in Erskine,
A. (ed.) Blackwell’s Companion to Ancient History, Oxford: Blackwell,
pp. 329–341.
Huebner, S. and Ratzan, D. (ed.) (2009), Growing Up Fatherless in Antiquity,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Huskinson, J. (2007a), ‘Growing up in Ravenna: evidence from the decoration
of children’s sarcophagi’, in Harlow, M. and Laurence, R. (eds), Age and
Ageing in the Roman Empire, Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology,
pp. 55–79.
—(2007b), ‘Constructing childhood on Roman funerary monuments’ in
Cohen, A. and Rutter, J. (eds), Constructions of Childhood in the ancient
Mediterranean, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 323–328.
Kampen, N. (2009), Family Fictions in Roman Art. Essays on the Representation
of Powerful People, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mustakallio, K. and Laes, C. (eds) (2001), The Dark Side of Childhood in Late
Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Nevett, L. (2010), Domestic Space in Classical Antiquity, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Parkin, T. (1992), Demography and Roman Society, Baltimore and London:
Johns Hopkins University Press.
Pomeroy, S. (2007), The Murder of Regilla: A Case of Domestic Violence in
Antiquity, Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Saller, R. (1994), Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Saller, R. P. and Shaw, B. D. (1984), ‘Tombstones and Roman family relations in
the principate: Civilians, soldiers, and slaves’, JRS, 74, 124–156.
Thane, P. (2010), Happy Families? History and Family Policy, London: British
Academy.
2
Pliny the Nephew: Youth and Family Ties across

Generations and Genders
Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet
This paper investigates how Pliny the Younger describes youth and how young
and old people of opposite sexes stand in relation to each other in his letters.
Glimpses given by Pliny into relationships between family members across
generations will be explored to show that a traditional voice that speaks of
ideological qualities and gender roles is counterbalanced by an individual voice
that speaks of everyday activities and interactions that go beyond a categori-
zation of genders into two distinct, opposed spheres.1
The influence of Simone de Beauvoir has pervaded the field of Classics and
studies pivoting on the notion of woman as ‘other’ have flourished, alongside,
paradoxically, studies exploring shifting boundaries and the flexibility of
gender categories in antiquity.2 However, the study of the similarities between
Roman men and women that emerge from literary sources still has unexpected
information to yield about gender relationships.3 This paper proposes to shift
scholarly attention from men and women as separate, opposed categories and
put the emphasis on the way individuals of different sexes can act and play a
role outside the limits culturally imposed by gender, as well as on the dynamic
of male–female relationships across generations. The correspondence of Pliny
is but one example of a literary source within which two opposing voices
describing male and female categories as both distinct and overlapping run in
parallel.4 The interest in examining Pliny’s views on youth lies in the fact that
Pliny is a true representative of the moderate elite, a public figure who wishes
to blend into the political tapestry of his time, and an author who would
prefer not to make literary waves in his quest for eternal fame and canonical
posterity.5
The scope offered by the Letters is attractive since it presents a self-contained
corpus of texts by an author about whom we know a great deal, mainly thanks
to the information he provides himself through his correspondence. This should
of course make us cautious in our handling of the information, since Pliny’s
desire to show himself in a congenial light influences his writing.6 Moreover, his
letters are to men and women of his own circle, and thus mirror the concerns of
a minority of people. He delves into family relationships, writing about births,
marriages, inheritances, illnesses and deaths, concerning all members of the
family tree and their relationships, mentioning their emotional as well as their
intellectual exchanges. He mentions many women and comments in a casual
way on some of their activities, whether they be legal, financial, political or

intellectual, providing opportunities to observe how he describes individuals of
opposing genders interacting on a domestic and realistic level.7
Pliny says that he chose to publish the letters si quas paulo curatius
scripsisse[t] (1.1.1), out of chronological order. Scholarship today tends to
agree with Sherwin-White that Pliny’s letters were written for, and sent to, their
addressees – that Pliny did not invent a persona from scratch, as it were – and
that their polished style and content, as well as the selection of letters, is to be
accounted for by Pliny’s background as an orator and a barrister, as well as by
his craving for literary fame.8 Indeed Pliny is eager to put himself in the best
light, and writes nothing that could alienate his readership. He aims to please
the greatest number, and with this in mind he presents himself as the perfect
senator, lawyer, friend, husband and even lover, in words expected of one of his
standing. In short, what he says does not mean to provoke or shock his contem-
poraries, and the events he relates can be considered as mirroring the mentality
of his peers and of his time.
Traditional Youth
Pliny the Younger is now known to us both by his name and by his family affili-
ation: he is the well-known nephew of the equally well-known Pliny the Elder.
The two men are differentiated by their respective generational position within
a family.9 Pliny himself makes an appearance in his Letters as a very young man
when he gives us a glimpse of the expected qualities of his 17-year-old self when
Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79. He explains that in the face of danger he
retained his calm, hovering between the qualities of a grown up and that of a
child:
My mother hurried into my room and found me already getting up to wake her if she
were still asleep. We sat down in the forecourt of the house, between the buildings and
the sea close by. I do not know whether I should call this courage or folly on my part (I
was only seventeen at the time) but I called for a volume of Livy and went on reading
as if I had nothing else to do. I even went on with the extracts I had been making.10
Pliny himself draws attention to his young age, and suggests to the reader the
idea that his inexperience could be also read as courage. Similarly, when his
mother urges him to flee, as she finds the thought of wasting his young life
unbearable, he refuses to escape without her:
Then my mother implored, entreated, and commanded me to escape as best I could

– a young man might escape, whereas she was old and slow and could die in peace as
long as she had not been the cause of my death, too. I told her I refused to save myself
without her, and, grasping her hand, forced her to quicken her pace.11
P liny the N ephew 9
Again Pliny emphasizes his youth, which enhances his courage for not trying
to escape without his mother, however perilous the flight might prove with her
slowing him down. And when his uncle the Elder offers to take him to go and
examine the volcano at close range, the Younger refuses to accompany him:
He ordered a fast boat to be made ready, telling me I could come with him if I wished.
I replied that I preferred to go on with my studies, and as it happened he had himself
given me some writing to do.12
Pliny shows an astonishing keenness to study under the exceptional circum-

stances, and a similarly astonishing subservience to his uncle’s advice concerning
his studies. This epitomizes qualities expected of traditional youth and of the
relationship between the younger and older generations: studiousness, and
obedience to one’s elders.13 It also gives us a glimpse of the traditional divide
between genders, since Pliny shows obedience to his uncle, but displays courage
in the presence of his mother.14
In the above passages a recurring Roman theme emerges, that of the social
importance of the young individual, who represents renewal of the population
in a military empire, and transmission of patrimony, family name and history.15
As Pliny writes to Calpurnius Fabatus, grandfather of his wife Calpurnia:
And indeed you do not desire great-grandchildren more ardently than I desire children,
children before whom lie, it seems, thanks to their affiliation to me and to you, a path
favourable to honours, and to whom I shall leave names having a good and widespread
reputation, and a long-established lineage.16
Pliny states clearly in a letter about his friend Asinius Rufus that reproduction
is a civic duty:
In fact he also fulfilled his duty as the best of citizens in that he wanted to make the
most of the fertility of his wife, at a time when for most people the advantages of
remaining childless make even single children feel like burdens.17
Here Pliny also recognizes the principal traditional quality of the female gender:
the reproductory function. Furthermore, reproduction is associated with youth,
as Pliny makes clear in his eulogy of Minicia Marcella, daughter of his friend
Fundanus, who passed away before her fourteenth birthday:
The time of her death is even more abominable than death itself! She was already
destined to marry a remarkable young man, the day of the wedding had already been
chosen, we had already been asked to attend it.18
This mors immatura is a double tragedy: the loss of a child and the shattering of
the hope for descendants. Like the young Pliny, Minicia combines the qualities
of the child with that of the grown up; the writer and family friend shows
Minicia basking in the glow of the puer senex motive:
She was not yet fourteen years old, and already she had the sagacity of an old woman,
the gravity of a matron, and yet a youthful sweetness with virginal modesty [ … ]
With what temperance, with what patience and even firmness did she bear her new
condition! She obeyed her doctors, encouraged her father and sister, and supported
herself although deprived of physical strength by the force of her soul. This she retained
until the end, and neither the course of her illness nor fear of death broke it.19
Pliny himself is thwarted in his reproductory plans since his teenage wife
Calpurnia suffered a miscarriage.20 He reports the news in two letters: to
Calpurnius Fabatus, grandfather of his wife, and to Calpurnia Hispulla, her
aunt:
The more you desire to have great-grandchildren by us, the sadder you will be to hear
that your granddaughter had a miscarriage, as she did not know, the innocent young
woman, that she was pregnant, and that way she omitted to take care of what pregnant
women should take care of, and did what should have been omitted; greatly imperilled,
she paid dearly for her error by an unforgettable lesson. Hence just as it is unavoidable
that you should grieve at the news that your old age should be deprived of descendants
as it were almost provided, you should thank the gods, for while they have refused you
great-grandchildren for the present, in order to save your granddaughter, they will give
them to you in the future, those for whom her fertility now observed, although in a
most unhappy fashion, gives us firmer hope.21
‘The danger was indeed grave – I hope I may safely say so now – through no fault of
her own, but perhaps of her youth’.22
In both passages Pliny insists on the youth and inexperience of his wife,
suggesting that her naivety caused the improper behaviour which resulted in
the miscarriage. The event is a sad one but there is still hope since Calpurnia’s
ability to conceive has been witnessed, says Pliny. He also empathizes with her
grandfather who has been thus deprived of descendants.
It was the done thing, in Pliny’s time, to wish publicly to have descendants,
even if privately it could be considered a burden.23 Pliny himself says to Trajan,
when thanking him for granting him the ius trium liberorum: ‘I have no words
to tell you, Sir, how much pleasure you have given me by thinking me fit for the
privileges granted to parents of three children’24 and: ‘Still more now do I long
for children of my own, though I wanted them even during those evil days now
past, as you may know from my having married twice’.25
It is not any descendants that are wanted, but children that resemble their
parents or grandparents and follow in their footsteps. Pliny writes to Julius
Servianus about the latter’s future son-in-law: ‘He still has to give you promptly
grandchildren resembling their father.’26 To Corellia Hispulla, who has asked
P liny the N ephew 11
Pliny to find a mentor for her son, grandchild of Pliny’s beloved Corellius Rufus,
he says:
I must desire and also try my hardest to make your son take after his grandfather;
admittedly, I would prefer him to take after his maternal grandfather, although he has
a paternal grandfather also famed and remarkable, as well as a father and an uncle who
are illustrious and acclaimed. He will really grow up to resemble them all only if taught
proper talents, and it matters above all that he be taught them by the best of teachers.27
To Pliny, the resemblance between father, or grandfather, and son has to be

moulded. It is noteworthy that he does not mention the innate resemblance
that would spring naturally between grandfather, father and son. And since this
resemblance has to be acquired, can it be acquired by someone of the opposite
sex? Can the link that Pliny wishes to establish between male members of
the same family across generations be established between male and female
members, too?
Beyond Tradition
In the sources documenting the qualities and roles attributed to each culturally
imposed gender, polarity is ubiquitous. This traditional separation of male
and female is common to Roman authors and artists; it orientates our view of
Roman society. According to this traditional view, gender is categorized along a
binary definition, a categorization which we tend to see as also defining family
relationships: such sources recognize a vertical affiliation between males on one
side, and females on the other, with male and female lines running in parallel.
Saller convincingly argued that ‘a systematic study of language and behaviour
of the Romans […] does not suggest highly differentiated roles based on
opposition of sentiments towards paternal and maternal kin, except in certain
limited circumstances’.28 His observations questioned scholarship’s recognition
of the many intersecting lines of descent. A review of Pliny’s descriptions of
family relations shows that a convergence and even inversion of gender roles
across generations appear throughout his letters: passages going counter to the
traditional binary view show indeed that individuals from different genders
could not only be deemed to resemble each other, but could replace each other
under various circumstances.
Regarding the father of 14-year-old Minicia Marcella, Pliny says: ‘Indeed
he lost a daughter who evoked him in character no less than in features and
expression, and who was entirely her father’s image.’29 Pliny draws an aston-
ishing parallel between father and daughter: the traditional likeness of father
and son is here altered to fit this other reality which parallels tradition. The
daughter not only resembles her father physically, but in character and attitude
too. This is all the more striking since her father, Fundanus, is greatly admired
by Pliny for being eruditus et sapiens as we learn in another letter.30 The qualities
with which she is endowed are traditionally male qualities, related to intel-
lectual abilities and activities, and to philosophical and literary education. Pliny
equates father and daughter without value judgement, without commenting on
it, almost in passing.31 What is more, Fundanus, counter to the usual topos of the
nursing mother, endorses the role of carer when he takes care of his daughter
Minicia Marcella on her sick-bed.32
Even if Pliny’s aim was to flatter his friend Fundanus by praising his
daughter’s many qualities inevitably reflecting on her father, the paradox is
a striking one: the girl, despite being presented in a way fitting her age and
gender, in her traditional guise, ready to be married, is at the same time
shown resembling her father and following in his footsteps in her character
and morals. It appears therefore that the child, the adult-to-be, the individual
who still has to be shaped can actually be modelled along the mould of the
other gender.33
Pliny praises his wife Calpurnia in a letter to her aunt in the same way: ‘I do
not doubt that you will rejoice immensely when you know that she has grown
to be worthy of her father, of yourself, of her grandfather.’34 Thus not only
does Calpurnia take after her aunt, but also after her father and grandfather.
Conversely, Pliny praises the education that Calpurnia received from her aunt
(the sister of Calpurnia’s father) in the following manner: ‘You love his [your
brother’s] daughter as if she were your own, and you represent to her the source
of affection not only of an aunt, but of the father she lost.’35
The aunt gives her niece paternal, not maternal affection as one would have
expected.36 It is the father whom she replaces as a source of affection. Strikingly,
this crossing of gender boundaries is not registered by modern scholars, who
perpetuate traditional ideals by misreading this passage.37
Another example of a woman standing in for a male member of her family
is Calvina, who inherits her father’s debts at his death, and whom Pliny offers
to help financially. ‘You have here a great proof of my readiness to oblige, and
you must defend the reputation and the honour of your late father with the
confidence it gives you.’38 Pliny offers the example of a woman who represents
her father and is in a position, or is expected, to defend his reputation. He thus
proposes ties between father and daughter that go beyond family roles and
beyond gender since she can stand in for her father as a representative of the
family.39
In a similar way, Pliny has a young man taking after his grandmother: in the
praise of Minicius Acilianus as a potential bridegroom, Pliny brings to the fore
the virtues of the young man’s father and uncle, as well as that of his grand-
mother, Serrana Procula, who is a model of virtue.40 In the praise of Acilianus
and his family background, a woman stands in for ancestry and is used to show
the quality of the lineage, alongside Acilianus’s father and uncle.
Pliny gives us a last example of role interchange within the family, across
generations and across male and female genders, when he tells Calpurnia
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
good deal of work was done by the Civil Service Committee of the
House, and none at all by the corresponding committee of the
Senate. The three chairmen of the House committee were Mr.
Lehlbach, Mr. Andrew, and Mr. De Forest. All three were able and
conscientious men and stanch supporters of the law. The chairman
in the 52d Congress, Mr. John F. Andrew, was throughout his whole
term of service one of the ablest, most fearless, and most effective
champions of the cause of the reform in the House. Among the other
members of the committee, in different Congresses, who stood up
valiantly for the reform, were Mr. Hopkins, of Illinois, Mr. Butterworth,
of Ohio, Mr. Boatner, of Louisiana, and Mr. Dargan and Mr. Brawley,
of South Carolina. Occasionally there have been on the committee
members who were hostile to the reform, such as Mr. Alderson, of
West Virginia; but these have not been men carrying weight in the
House. The men of intelligence and ability who once familiarize
themselves with the workings of the system, as they are bound to do
if they are on the committee, are sure to become its supporters. In
both the 51st and the 52d Congresses charges were made against
the Commission, and investigations were held into its actions and
into the workings of the law by the House committee. In each case,
in its report the committee not only heartily applauded the conduct of
the Commission, but no less heartily approved the workings of the
law, and submitted bills to increase the power of the Commission
and to render the law still more wide-reaching and drastic. These
bills, unfortunately, were never acted on in the House.
The main fight in each session comes on the Appropriation bill.
There is not the slightest danger that the law will be repealed, and
there is not much danger that any President will suffer it to be so
laxly administered as to deprive it of all value; though there is always
need to keep a vigilant lookout for fear of such lax administration.
The danger-point is in the appropriations. The first Civil Service
Commission, established in the days of President Grant, was starved
out by Congress refusing to appropriate for it. A hostile Congress
could repeat the same course now; and, as a matter of fact, in every
Congress resolute efforts are made by the champions of foul
government and dishonest politics to cut off the Commission’s
supplies. The bolder men, who come from districts where little is
known of the law, and where there is no adequate expression of
intelligent and honest opinion on the subject, attack it openly. They
are always joined by a number who make the attack covertly under
some point of order, or because of a nominal desire for economy.
These are quite as dangerous as the others, and deserve exposure.
Every man interested in decent government should keep an eye on
his Congressman and see how he votes on the question of
appropriations for the Commission.
The opposition to the reform is generally well led by skilled
parliamentarians, and they fight with the vindictiveness natural to
men who see a chance of striking at the institution which has baffled
their ferocious greed. As a rule, the rank and file are composed of
politicians who could not rise in public life because of their attitude
on any public question, and who derive most of their power from the
skill with which they manipulate the patronage of their districts.
These men have a gift at office-mongering, just as other men have a
peculiar knack in picking pockets; and they are joined by all the
honest dull men, who vote wrong out of pure ignorance, and by a
very few sincere and intelligent, but wholly misguided people. Many
of the spoils leaders are both efficient and fearless, and able to strike
hard blows. In consequence, the leaders on the side of decency
must themselves be men of ability and force, or the cause will suffer.
For our good fortune, we have never yet lacked such leaders.
The Appropriation committees, both in the House and Senate,
almost invariably show a friendly disposition toward the law. They
are composed of men of prominence, who have a sense of the
responsibilities of their positions and an earnest desire to do well for
the country and to make an honorable record for their party in
matters of legislation. They are usually above resorting to the arts of
low cunning or of sheer demagogy to which the foes of the reform
system are inevitably driven, and in consequence they can be relied
upon to give, if not what is needed, at least enough to prevent any
retrogression. It is in the open House and in Committee of the Whole
that the fight is waged. The most dangerous fight occurs in
Committee of the Whole, for there the members do not vote by aye
and no, and in consequence a mean politician who wishes ill to the
law, but is afraid of his constituents, votes against it in committee,
but does not dare to do so when the ayes and noes are called in the
House. One result of this has been that more than once the whole
appropriation has been stricken out in Committee of the Whole, and
then voted back again by substantial majorities by the same men
sitting in open House.
In the debate on the appropriation the whole question of the
workings of the law is usually discussed, and those members who
are opposed to it attack not only the law itself, but the Commission
which administers it. The occasion is, therefore, invariably seized as
an opportunity for a pitched battle between the friends and foes of
the system, the former trying to secure such an increase of
appropriation as will permit the Commission to extend its work, and
the latter striving to abolish the law outright by refusing all
appropriations. In the 51st and 52d Congresses, Mr. Lodge, of
Massachusetts, led the fight for the reform in the Lower House. He
was supported by such party leaders as Messrs. Reed, of Maine,
and McKinley, of Ohio, among the Republicans, and Messrs. Wilson,
of West Virginia, and Sayers, of Texas, among the Democrats.
Among the other champions of the law on the floor of the House
were Messrs. Hopkins and Butterworth, Mr. Greenhalge, of
Massachusetts, Mr. Henderson, of Iowa, Messrs. Payne, Tracey, and
Coombs, of New York. I wish I had the space to chronicle the names
of all, and to give a complete list of those who voted for the law.
Among the chief opponents of it were Messrs. Spinola, of New York,
Enloe, of Tennessee, Stockdale, of Mississippi, Grosvenor, of Ohio,
and Bowers, of California. The task of the defenders of the law was,
in one way easy, for they had no arguments to meet, the speeches
of their adversaries being invariably divisible into mere declamation
and direct misstatement of facts. In the Senate, Senators Hoar, of
Massachusetts, Allison, of Iowa, Hawley, of Connecticut, Wolcott, of
Colorado, Perkins, of California, Cockrell, of Missouri, and Butler, of
South Carolina, always supported the Commission against unjust
attack. Senator Gorman was naturally the chief leader of the
assaults upon the Commission. Senators Harris, Plumb, Stewart,
and Ingalls were among his allies.
In each session the net result of the fight was an increase in the
appropriation for the Commission. The most important increase was
that obtained in the first session of the 53d Congress. On this
occasion Mr. Lodge was no longer in the House, having been
elected to the Senate. The work of the Commission had grown so
that it was impossible to perform it without a great increase of force;
and it would have been impossible to have put into effect the
extensions of the classified service had this increase not been
allowed. In the House the Committee on Appropriations, of which Mr.
Sayers was chairman, allowed the increase, but it was stricken out in
the House itself after an acrimonious debate, in which the cause of
the law was sustained by Messrs. Henderson and Hopkins, Mr.
McCall, of Massachusetts, Mr. Coombs, Mr. Crain, of Texas, Mr.
Storer, of Ohio, and many others, while the spoils-mongers were led
by Messrs. Stockdale and Williams, of Mississippi, Pendelton, of
West Virginia, Fithian, of Illinois, and others less important.
When the bill went over to the Senate, however, Mr. Lodge, well
supported by Messrs. Allison, Cockrell, Wolcott, and Teller, had the
provision for the increase of appropriation for the Commission
restored and increased, thereby adding by one half to the efficiency
of the Commission’s work. Had it not been for this the Commission
would have been quite unable to have undertaken the extensions
recently ordered by President Cleveland.
It is noteworthy that the men who have done most effective work
for the law in Washington in the departments, and more especially in
the House and Senate, are men of spotless character, who show by
their whole course in public life that they are not only able and
resolute, but also devoted to a high ideal. Much of what they have
done has received little comment in public, because much of the
work in committee, and some of the work in the House, such as
making or combating points of order, and pointing out the danger or
merit of certain bills, is not of a kind readily understood or
appreciated by an outsider; yet no men have deserved better of the
country, for there is in American public life no one other cause so
fruitful of harm to the body-politic as the spoils system, and the
legislators and administrative officers who have done the best work
toward its destruction merit a peculiar meed of praise from all well-
wishers of the Republic.
I have spoken above of the good that would come from a thorough
and intelligent knowledge as to who were the friends and who were
the foes of the law in Washington. Departmental officers, the heads
of bureaus, and, above all, the Commissioners themselves, should
be carefully watched by all friends of the reform. They should be
supported when they do well, and condemned when they do ill; and
attention should be called not only to what they do, but to what they
fail to do. To an even greater extent, of course, this applies to the
President. As regards the Senators and Congressmen also there is
urgent need of careful supervision by the friends of the law. We need
criticism by those who are unable to do their part in action; but the
criticism, to be useful, must be both honest and intelligent, and the
critics must remember that the system has its stanch friends and
bitter foes among both party men and men of no party—among
Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. Each Congressman
should be made to feel that it is his duty to support the law, and that
he will be held to account if he fails to support it. Especially is it
necessary to concentrate effort in working for each step of reform. In
legislative matters, for instance, there is need of increase of
appropriations for the Commission, and there is a chance of putting
through the bill to reform the Consular service. This has received
substantial backing in the Senate, and has the support of the
majority of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Instead of wasting efforts
by a diffuse support of eight or ten bills, it would be well to bend
every energy to securing the passage of the Consular bill; and to do
this it is necessary to arouse not only the Civil Service Reform
Associations, but the Boards of Trade throughout the country, and to
make the Congressmen and Senators feel individually the pressure
from those of their constituents who are resolved no longer to
tolerate the peculiarly gross manifestation of the spoils system which
now obtains in the consular service, with its attendant discredit to the
national honor abroad.
People sometimes grow a little down-hearted about the reform.
When they feel in this mood it would be well for them to reflect on
what has actually been gained in the past six years. By the inclusion
of the railway mail service, the smaller free-delivery offices, the
Indian School service, the Internal Revenue service, and other less
important branches, the extent of the public service which is under
the protection of the law has been more than doubled, and there are
now nearly fifty thousand employees of the Federal Government who
have been withdrawn from the degrading influences that rule under
the spoils system. This of itself is a great success and a great
advance, though, of course, it ought only to spur us on to renewed
effort. In the fall of 1894 the people of the State of New York, by a
popular vote, put into their constitution a provision providing for a
merit system in the affairs of the State and its municipalities; and the
following spring the great city of Chicago voted, by an overwhelming
majority, in favor of applying in its municipal affairs the advanced and
radical Civil Service Reform Law, which had already passed the
Illinois Legislature. Undoubtedly, after every success there comes a
moment of reaction. The friends of the reform grow temporarily
lukewarm, or, because it fails to secure everything they hoped, they
neglect to lay proper stress upon all that it does secure. Yet, in spite
of all rebuffs, in spite of all disappointments and opposition, the
growth of the principle of Civil Service reform has been continually
more rapid, and every year has taken us measurably nearer that
ideal of pure and decent government which is dear to the heart of
every honest American citizen.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Scribner’s Magazine, August, 1895.
VIII
ADMINISTERING THE NEW YORK POLICE
FORCE[14]
In New York, in the fall of 1894, Tammany Hall was overthrown by

a coalition composed partly of the regular republicans, partly of anti-
Tammany democrats, and partly of independents. Under the latter
head must be included a great many men who in national politics
habitually act with one or the other of the two great parties, but who
feel that in municipal politics good citizens should act independently.
The tidal wave, which was running high against the democratic party,
was undoubtedly very influential in bringing about the anti-Tammany
victory; but the chief factor in producing the result was the wide-
spread anger and disgust felt by decent citizens at the corruption
which, under the sway of Tammany, had honey-combed every
department of the city government, but especially the police force. A
few well-meaning people have at times tried to show that this
corruption was not really so very great. In reality it would be difficult
to overestimate the utter rottenness of many branches of the city
administration. There were a few honorable and high-minded
Tammany officials, and there were a few bureaus which were
administered with more or less efficiency, although dishonestly. But
the corruption had become so wide-spread as seriously to impair the
work of administration, and to bring us back within measurable
distance of the days of Tweed.
The chief centre of corruption was the Police Department. No man
not intimately acquainted with both the lower and humbler sides of
New York life—for there is a wide distinction between the two—can
realize how far this corruption extended. Except in rare instances,
where prominent politicians made demands which could not be
refused, both promotions and appointments towards the close of
Tammany rule were made almost solely for money, and the prices
were discussed with cynical frankness. There was a well-recognized
tariff of charges, ranging from two or three hundred dollars for
appointment as a patrolman, to twelve or fifteen thousand dollars for
promotion to the position of captain. The money was reimbursed to
those who paid it by an elaborate system of blackmail. This was
chiefly carried on at the expense of gamblers, liquor sellers, and
keepers of disorderly houses; but every form of vice and crime
contributed more or less, and a great many respectable people who
were ignorant or timid were blackmailed under pretence of forbidding
or allowing them to violate obscure ordinances and the like. From top
to bottom the New York police force was utterly demoralized by the
gangrene of such a system, where venality and blackmail went hand
in hand with the basest forms of low ward politics, and where the
policeman, the ward politician, the liquor seller, and the criminal
alternately preyed on one another and helped one another to prey on
the general public.
In May, 1895, I was made president of the newly appointed police
board, whose duty it was to cut out the chief source of civic
corruption in New York by cleansing the police department. The
police board consisted of four members. All four of the new men
were appointed by Mayor Strong, the reform Mayor, who had taken
office in January.
With me, was associated, as treasurer of the Board, Mr. Avery D.
Andrews. He was a democrat and I a republican, and there were
questions of national politics on which we disagreed widely; but such
questions could not enter into the administration of the New York
police, if that administration was to be both honest and efficient; and
as a matter of fact, during my two years’ service, Mr. Andrews and I
worked in absolute harmony on every important question of policy
which arose. The prevention of blackmail and corruption, the
repression of crime and violence, safeguarding of life and property,
securing honest elections, and rewarding efficient and punishing
inefficient police service, are not, and cannot properly be made,
questions of party difference. In other words, such a body as the
police force of New York can be wisely and properly administered
only upon a non-partisan basis, and both Mr. Andrews and myself
were quite incapable of managing it on any other. There were many
men who helped us in our work; and among them all, the man who
helped us most, by advice and counsel, by stalwart, loyal friendship,
and by ardent championship of all that was good against all that was
evil, was Jacob A. Riis, the author of How the Other Half Lives.
Certain of the difficulties we had to face were merely those which
confronted the entire reform administration in its management of the
municipality. Many worthy people expected that this reform
administration would work an absolute revolution, not merely in the
government, but in the minds of the citizens as a whole; and felt
vaguely that they had been cheated because there was not an
immediate cleansing of every bad influence in civic or social life.
Moreover, the different bodies forming the victorious coalition felt the
pressure of conflicting interests and hopes. The mass of effective
strength was given by the republican organization, and not only all
the enrolled party workers, but a great number of well-meaning
republicans who had no personal interest at stake, expected the
administration to be used to further the fortunes of their own party.
Another great body of the administration’s supporters took a
diametrically opposite view, and believed that the administration
should be administered without the least reference whatever to party.
In theory they were quite right, and I cordially sympathized with
them; but as a matter of fact the victory could not have been won by
the votes of this class of people alone, and it was out of the question
to put these theories into complete effect. Like all other men who
actually try to do things instead of confining themselves to saying
how they should be done, the members of the new city government
were obliged to face the facts and to do the best they could in the
effort to get some kind of good result out of the conflicting forces.
They had to disregard party so far as was possible; and yet they
could not afford to disregard all party connections so utterly as to
bring the whole administration to grief.
In addition to these two large groups of supporters of the
administration, there were other groups, also possessing influence
who expected to receive recognition distinctly as democrats, but as
anti-Tammany democrats; and such members of any victorious
coalition are always sure to overestimate their own services, and to
feel ill-treated.
It is of course an easy thing to show on paper that the municipal
administration should have been administered without the slightest
reference to national party lines, and if the bulk of the people saw
things with entire clearness the truth would seem so obvious as to
need no demonstration. But as a matter of fact the bulk of the people
who voted the new administration into power neither saw this nor
realized it, and in politics, as in life generally, conditions must be
faced as they are, and not as they ought to be. The regular
democratic organization, not only in the city but in the State, was
completely under the dominion of Tammany Hall and its allies, and
they fought us at every step with wholly unscrupulous hatred. In the
State and the city alike the democratic campaign was waged against
the reform administration in New York. The Tammany officials who
were still left in power in the city, headed by the comptroller, Mr.
Fitch, did everything in their power to prevent the efficient
administration of the government. The democratic members of the
Legislature acted as their faithful allies in all such efforts. Whatever
was accomplished by the reform administration—and a very great
deal was accomplished—was due to the action of the republican
majority in the constitutional convention, and especially to the
republican Governor, Mr. Morton, and the republican majority in the
Legislature, who enacted laws giving to the newly chosen Mayor, Mr.
Strong, the great powers necessary for properly administering his
office. Without these laws the Mayor would have been very nearly
powerless. He certainly could not have done a tenth part of what
actually was done.
Now, of course, the republican politicians who gave Mayor Strong
all these powers, in the teeth of violent democratic opposition to
every law for the betterment of civic conditions in New York, ought
not, under ideal conditions, to have expected the slightest reward.
They should have been contented with showing the public that their
only purpose was to serve the public, and that the republican party
wished no better reward than the consciousness of having done its
duty by the State and the city. But as a whole they had not reached
such a standard. There were some who had reached it; there were
others who, though perfectly honest, and wishing to see good
government prosper, yet felt that somehow it ought to be combined
with party advantage of a tangible sort; and finally, there were yet
others who were not honest at all and cared nothing for the victory
unless it resulted in some way to their own personal advantage. In
short, the problem presented was of the kind which usually is
presented when dealing with men as a mass. The Mayor and his
administration had to keep in touch with the republican party or they
could have accomplished nothing; and on the other hand there was
much that the republican machine asked which they could not do,
because a surrender on certain vital points meant the abandonment
of the effort to obtain good administration.
The undesirability of breaking with the republican organization was
shown by what happened in the administration of the police
department. This being the great centre of power was the especial
object of the republican machine leaders. Toward the close of
Tammany rule, of the four Police Commissioners, two had been
machine republicans, whose actions were in no wise to be
distinguished from those of their Tammany colleagues; and
immediately after the new board was appointed to office the machine
got through the Legislature the so-called bi-partisan or Lexow law,
under which the department is at present administered; and a more
foolish or vicious law was never enacted by any legislative body. It
modelled the government of the police force somewhat on the lines
of the Polish parliament, and it was avowedly designed to make it
difficult to get effective action. It provided for a four-headed board, so
that it was difficult to get a majority anyhow; but, lest we should get
such a majority, it gave each member power to veto the actions of
his colleagues in certain very important matters; and, lest we should
do too much when we were unanimous, it provided that the chief, our
nominal subordinate, should have entirely independent action in the
most important matters, and should be practically irremovable,
except for proved corruption; so that he was responsible to nobody.
The Mayor was similarly hindered from removing any Police
Commissioner, so that when one of our colleagues began
obstructing the work of the board, and thwarting its effort to reform
the force, the Mayor in vain strove to turn him out. In short, there was
a complete divorce of power and responsibility, and it was
exceedingly difficult either to do anything, or to place anywhere, the
responsibility for not doing it.
If, by any reasonable concessions, if, indeed, by the performance
of any act not incompatible with our oaths of office, we could have
stood on good terms with the machine, we would certainly have
made the effort, even at the cost of sacrificing many of our ideals;
and in almost any other department we could probably have avoided
a break, but in the police force such a compromise was not possible.
What was demanded of us usually took some such form as the
refusal to enforce certain laws, or the protection of certain law-
breakers, or the promotion of the least fit men to positions of high
power and grave responsibility; and on such points it was not
possible to yield. We were obliged to treat all questions that arose
purely on their merits, without reference to the desires of the
politicians. We went into this course with our eyes open, for we knew
the trouble it would cause us personally, and, what was far more
important, the way in which our efforts for reform would consequently
be hampered. However, there was no alternative, and we had to
abide by the result. We had counted the cost before we adopted our
course, and we followed it resolutely to the end. We could not
accomplish all that we should have liked to accomplish for we were
shackled by preposterous legislation, and by the opposition and
intrigues of the basest machine politicians, which cost us the
support, sometimes of one, and sometimes of both, of our
colleagues. Nevertheless, the net result of our two years of work was
that we did more to increase the efficiency and honesty of the police
department than had ever previously been done in its history.
But a decent people will have to show by emphatic action that they
are in the majority if they wish this result to be permanent; for under
such a law as the “bi-partisan” law it is almost impossible to keep the
department honest and efficient for any length of time; and the
machine politicians, by their opposition outside the board, and by the
aid of any tool or ally whom they can get on the board, can always
hamper and cripple the honest members of the board, no matter how
resolute and able the latter may be, if they do not have an aroused
and determined public opinion behind them.
Besides suffering, in aggravated form, from the difficulties which
beset the course of the entire administration, the police board had to
encounter—and honest and efficient police boards must always
encounter—certain special and peculiar difficulties. It is not a
pleasant thing to deal with criminals and purveyors of vice. It is very
rough work, and it cannot always be done in a nice manner. The
man with the night stick, the man in the blue coat with the helmet,
can keep order and repress open violence on the streets; but most
kinds of crime and vice are ordinarily carried on furtively and by
stealth, perhaps at night, perhaps behind closed doors. It is possible
to reach them only by the employment of the man in plain clothes,
the detective. Now the function of the detective is primarily that of the
spy, and it is always easy to arouse feeling against a spy. It is
absolutely necessary to employ him. Ninety per cent. of the most
dangerous criminals and purveyors of vice cannot be reached in any
other way. But the average citizen who does not think deeply fails to
realize the necessity for any such employment. In a vague way he
desires vice and crime put down; but, also in a vague way, he
objects to the only possible means by which they can be put down. It
is easy to mislead him into denouncing what is necessarily done in
order to carry out the very policy for which he is clamoring. The
Tammany officials of New York, headed by the Comptroller, made a
systematic effort to excite public hostility against the police for their
warfare on vice. The law-breaking liquor seller, the keeper of
disorderly houses, and the gambler, had been influential allies of
Tammany, and head contributors to its campaign chest. Naturally
Tammany fought for them; and the effective way in which to carry on
such a fight was to portray with gross exaggeration and
misstatement the methods necessarily employed by every police
force which honestly endeavors to do its work. The methods are
unpleasant, just as the methods employed in any surgical operation
are unpleasant; and the Tammany champions were able to arouse
more or less feeling against the police board for precisely the same
reason that a century ago it was easy to arouse what were called
“doctors’ mobs” against surgeons who cut up dead bodies. In neither
case is the operation attractive, and it is one which readily lends
itself to denunciation; but in both cases it is necessary if there is a
real intention to get at the disease. Tammany of course found its best
allies in the sensational newspapers. Of all the forces that tend for
evil in a great city like New York, probably none are so potent as the
sensational papers. Until one has had experience with them it is
difficult to realize the reckless indifference to truth or decency
displayed by papers such as the two that have the largest circulation
in New York City. Scandal forms the breath of the nostrils of such
papers, and they are quite as ready to create as to describe it. To
sustain law and order is humdrum, and does not readily lend itself to
flaunting woodcuts; but if the editor will stoop, and make his
subordinates stoop, to raking the gutters of human depravity, to
upholding the wrong-doer, and furiously assailing what is upright and
honest, he can make money, just as other types of pander make it.
The man who is to do honorable work in any form of civic politics
must make up his mind (and if he is a man of properly robust
character he will make it up without difficulty) to treat the assaults of
papers like these with absolute indifference, and to go his way
unheeded. Indeed he will have to make up his mind to be criticised,
sometimes justly, and more often unjustly, even by decent people;
and he must not be so thin-skinned as to mind such criticism
overmuch.
In administering the police force we found, as might be expected,
that there was no need of genius, nor indeed of any very unusual
qualities. What was needed was exercise of the plain, ordinary
virtues, of a rather commonplace type, which all good citizens should
be expected to possess. Common sense, common honesty,
courage, energy, resolution, readiness to learn, and a desire to be as
pleasant with everybody as was compatible with a strict performance
of duty—these were the qualities most called for. We soon found
that, in spite of the wide-spread corruption which had obtained in the
New York police department, the bulk of the men were heartily
desirous of being honest. There were some who were incurably
dishonest, just as there were some who had remained decent in
spite of terrific temptation and pressure; but the great mass came in
between. Although not possessing the stamina to war against
corruption when the odds seemed well-nigh hopeless, they were
nevertheless heartily glad to be decent and to welcome the change
to a system under which they were rewarded for doing well, and
punished for doing ill.
Our methods for restoring order and discipline were simple, and
indeed so were our methods for securing efficiency. We made
frequent personal inspections, especially at night, turning up
anywhere, at any time. We thus speedily got an idea of whom
among our upper subordinates we could trust and whom we could
not. We then proceeded to punish those guilty of shortcomings, and
to reward those who did well, refusing to pay any heed whatever in
either case to anything except the man’s own character and record.
A very few of these promotions and dismissals sufficed to show our
subordinates that at last they were dealing with superiors who meant
what they said, and that the days of political “pull” were over while
we had the power. The effect was immediate. The decent men took
heart, and those who were not decent feared longer to offend. The
morale of the entire force improved steadily.
A similar course was followed in reference to the relations
between the police and citizens generally. There had formerly been
much complaint of the brutal treatment by police of innocent citizens.
This was stopped peremptorily by the simple expedient of dismissing
from the force the first two or three men who were found guilty of
brutality. On the other hand we made the force understand that in the
event of any emergency requiring them to use their weapons against
either a mob or an individual criminal, the police board backed them
up without reservation. Our sympathy was for the friends, and not
the foes, of order. If a mob threatened violence we were glad to have
the mob hurt. If a criminal showed fight we expected the officer to
use any weapon that was necessary to overcome him on the instant;
and even, if it became necessary, to take life. All that the board
required was to be convinced that the necessity really existed. We
did not possess a particle of that maudlin sympathy for the criminal,
disorderly, and lawless classes which is such a particularly unhealthy
sign of social development; and we were bound that the
improvement in the fighting efficiency of the police should go hand in
hand with the improvement in their moral tone.
To break up the system of blackmail and corruption was less easy.
It was not at all difficult to protect decent people in their rights, and
this was accomplished at once. But the criminal who is blackmailed
has a direct interest in paying the blackmailer, and it is not easy to
get information about it. Nevertheless, we put a complete stop to
most of the blackmail by the simple process of rigorously enforcing
the laws, not only against crime, but against vice.
It was the enforcement of the liquor law which caused most
excitement. In New York we suffer from the altogether too common
tendency to make any law which a certain section of the community
wants, and then to allow that law to be more or less of a dead-letter if
any other section of the community objects to it. The multiplication of
laws by the Legislature, and their partial enforcement by the
executive authorities, go hand in hand, and offer one of the many
serious problems with which we are confronted in striving to better
civic conditions. New York State felt that liquor should not be sold on
Sunday. The larger part of New York City wished to drink liquor on
Sunday. Any man who studies the social condition of the poor knows
that liquor works more ruin than any other one cause. He knows
also, however, that it is simply impracticable to extirpate the habit
entirely, and that to attempt too much often merely results in
accomplishing too little; and he knows, moreover, that for a man
alone to drink whiskey in a bar-room is one thing, and for men with
their families to drink light wines or beer in respectable restaurants is
quite a different thing. The average citizen, who doesn’t think at all,
and the average politician of the baser sort, who only thinks about
his own personal advantage, find it easiest to disregard these facts,
and to pass a liquor law which will please the temperance people,
and then trust to the police department to enforce it with such laxity
as to please the intemperate.
The results of this pleasing system were evident in New York when
our board came into power. The Sunday liquor law was by no means
a dead letter in New York City. On the contrary no less than eight
thousand arrests for its violation had been made under the Tammany
regime the year before we came in. It was very much alive; but it
was only executed against those who either had no political pull, or
who refused to pay money. The liquor business does not stand on
the same footing with other occupations. It always tends to produce
criminality in the population at large, and law-breaking among the
saloonkeepers themselves. It is absolutely necessary to supervise it
rigidly, and impose restrictions upon the traffic. In large cities the
traffic cannot be stopped; but the evils can at least be minimized.
In New York the saloonkeepers have always stood high among
professional politicians. Nearly two thirds of the political leaders of
Tammany Hall have, at one time or another, been in the liquor
business. The saloon is the natural club and meeting place for the
ward heelers and leaders, and the bar-room politician is one of the
most common and best recognized factors, in local political
government. The saloonkeepers are always hand in glove with the
professional politicians, and occupy toward them a position such as
is not held by any other class of men. The influence they wield in
local politics has always been very great, and until our board took
office no man ever dared seriously to threaten them for their flagrant
violations of the law. The powerful and influential saloonkeeper was
glad to see his neighbors closed, for it gave him business. On the
other hand, a corrupt police captain, or the corrupt politician who
controlled him, could always extort money from a saloonkeeper by
threatening to close him and let his neighbor remain open. Gradually
the greed of corrupt police officials and of corrupt politicians, grew by
what it fed on, until they began to blackmail all but the very most
influential liquor sellers; and as liquor sellers were very numerous,
and the profits of the liquor business great, the amount collected was
enormous.
The reputable saloonkeepers themselves found this condition of
blackmail and political favoritism almost intolerable. The law which
we found on the statute books had been put on by a Tammany
Legislature three years before we took office. A couple of months
after we took office, Mr. J. P. Smith, the editor of the liquor-dealers’
organ, The Wine and Spirit Gazette, gave out the following interview,
which is of such an extraordinary character that I insert it almost in
full:
“Governor Flower, as well as the Legislature of 1892, was elected
upon distinct pledges that relief would be given by the Democratic
party to the liquor dealers, especially of the cities of the State. In
accordance with this promise a Sunday-opening clause was inserted
in the excise bill of 1892. Governor Flower then said that he could
not approve the Sunday-opening clause; whereupon the Liquor
Dealers’ Association, which had charge of the bill, struck the
Sunday-opening clause out. After Governor Hill had been elected for
the second term I had several interviews with him on that very
subject. He told me, ‘You know I am the friend of the liquor dealers
and will go to almost any length to help them and give them relief;
but do not ask me to recommend to the Legislature the passage of
the law opening the saloons on Sunday. I cannot do it, for it will ruin
the Democratic party in the State.’ He gave the same interview to
various members of the State Liquor Dealers’ Association, who
waited upon him for the purpose of getting relief from the blackmail
of the police, stating that the lack of having the Sunday question
properly regulated was at the bottom of the trouble. Blackmail had
been brought to such a state of perfection, and had become so
oppressive to the liquor dealers themselves, that they communicated
first with Governor Hill and then with Mr. Croker. The Wine and Spirit
Gazette had taken up the subject because of gross discrimination
made by the police in the enforcement of the Sunday-closing law.
The paper again and again called upon the police commissioners to
either uniformly enforce the law or uniformly disregard it. A
committee of the Central Association of Liquor Dealers of this city
then took up the matter and called upon Police Commissioner
Martin.[15] An agreement was then made between the leaders of
Tammany Hall and the liquor dealers, according to which the monthly
blackmail paid to the police should be discontinued in return for
political support.[16] In other words, the retail dealers should bind
themselves to solidly support the Tammany ticket in consideration of
the discontinuance of the monthly blackmail by the police. This
agreement was carried out. Now what was the consequence? If the
liquor dealer, after the monthly blackmail ceased, showed any signs
of independence, the Tammany Hall district leader would give the tip
to the police captain, and that man would be pulled and arrested on
the following Sunday.”
Continuing, Mr. Smith inveighed against the law, but said:
“The (present) police commissioners are honestly endeavoring to
have the law impartially carried out. They are no respectors of
persons. And our information from all classes of liquor-dealers is that
the rich and the poor, the influential and the uninfluential, are
required equally to obey the law.”
There is really some difficulty in commenting upon the statements
of this interview, statements which were never denied.
The law was not in the least a dead-letter; it was enforced, but it
was corruptly and partially enforced. It was a prominent factor in the
Tammany scheme of government. It afforded a most effective means
for blackmailing a large portion of the liquor sellers and for the
wholesale corruption of the police department. The high Tammany
officials and police captains and patrolmen blackmailed and bullied
the small liquor sellers without a pull, and turned them into abject
slaves of Tammany Hall. On the other hand, the wealthy and
politically influential liquor sellers controlled the police, and made or
marred captains, sergeants, and patrolmen at their pleasure. In
some of the precincts most of the saloons were closed; in others
almost all were open. The rich and powerful liquor seller violated the
law at will, unless he had fallen under the ban of the police or the
ward boss, when he was not allowed to violate it at all.
Under these circumstances the new police board had one of two
courses to follow. We could either instruct the police to allow all the
saloonkeepers to become law-breakers, or else we could instruct
them to allow none to be law-breakers. We followed the latter
course, because we had some regard for our oaths of office. For two
or three months we had a regular fight, and on Sundays had to
employ half the force to enforce the liquor law; for the Tammany
legislators had drawn the law so as to make it easy of enforcement
for purposes of blackmail, but not easy of enforcement generally,
certain provisions being deliberately inserted with the intention to
make it difficult of universal execution. However, when once the
liquor sellers and their allies understood that we had not the slightest
intention of being bullied, threatened or cajoled out of following the
course which we had laid down, resistance practically ceased.
During the year after we took office the number of arrests for
violation of the Sunday liquor law sank to about one half of what they
had been during the last year of the Tammany rule; and yet the
saloons were practically closed, whereas under Tammany most of
them had been open. We adopted no new methods, save in so far
as honesty could be called a new method. We did not enforce the
law with unusual severity; we merely enforced it against the man
with a pull, just as much as against the man without a pull. We
refused to discriminate in favor of influential law-breakers. The
professional politicians of low type, the liquor sellers, the editors of
some German newspapers, and the sensational press generally,
attacked us with a ferocity which really verged on insanity.
We went our way without regarding this opposition, and gave a
very wholesome lesson to the effect that a law should not be put on
the statute books if it was not meant to be enforced, and that even
an excise law could be honestly enforced in New York if the public
officials so desired. The rich brewers and liquor sellers, who had
made money hand over fist by violating the excise law with the
corrupt connivance of the police, raved with anger, and every corrupt
politician and newspaper in the city gave them clamorous
assistance; but the poor man, and notably the poor man’s wife and
children, benefited very greatly by what we did. The hospital
surgeons found that their Monday labors were lessened by nearly
one half, owing to the startling diminution in cases of injury due to
drunken brawls; the work of the magistrates who sat in the city
courts on Monday for the trial of the offenders of the preceding

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Families in the Roman and Late Antique

World 1st Edition Mary Harlow

Society and Culture in Late Antique Gaul: Revisiting

Diodorus Siculus and the world of the late Roman

Capital Investment and Innovation in the Roman World

Barbarians in the Greek and Roman World Erik Jensen

Urban Craftsmen and Traders in the Roman world 1st

The City in the Greek and Roman World 1st Edition E J

Trade, Commerce, and the State in the Roman World

Empire and Ideology in the Graeco Roman World Selected

Titles in this series:

Edited by Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

First published 2012

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN

List of illustrations and tables vii

10 Imperial Blood: Family Relationships in the Dynasty of Constantine

4.6 Limestone statue of Mater Matuta suckling a swaddled infant, from

8.4 The funerary relief of the Ampudii, British Museum London.

Books and Journals

ILS Inscriptiones latinae selectae

Etym. Etymologiae (Isidore)

Professor Göran Malmstedt and the Department of Historical Studies, University

Berg Publishers (UK)

Mary Harlow (University of Birmingham)

Introduction: Looking Forward

in Pompeian wall painting but the responses of inhabitants to the decoration of

17 Ibid., pp. 51–52.

Pliny the Nephew: Youth and Family Ties across

way on some of their activities, whether they be legal, financial, political or

Then my mother implored, entreated, and commanded me to escape as best I could

Pliny shows an astonishing keenness to study under the exceptional circum-

To Pliny, the resemblance between father, or grandfather, and son has to be

In New York, in the fall of 1894, Tammany Hall was overthrown by

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