WHEN ROME RULED

Evening Star, Issue 20311, 21 October 1929, Page 12

WHEN ROME RULED

COMFORTS AND AMENITIES LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIH Public libraries and book shops strike many of us as being comparatively modern institutions, going back, that is, no farther than to the invention of the printing press. Yet both were known in England during the 'Romau occupation (says an overseas writer). Mr Gordon Homo, who has written a fascinating study of life in York during this period is not sure that a public library did exist in the city, but thinks it quite likely. For Timegad, an Algerian town at no great distance from the Sahara, had one, and the demand in York, or Eboracum, as it was then known, must have been much greater. At any rate, book shops would certainly have been found by the visitor from Rome. These may not have displayed quantities of neatly bound novels, but they would have been stocked with editions of the classics, as well as any amount of ephemeral literature at comparatively popular prices. Publishing under the Caesars was of course a labo ious business, since there were no machines for printing and binding. Nevcrthlcss an edition of a thousand copies could be turned out in a few days, for paper, though of poor quality if judged by modern standpoints, was plentiful, and the publishing houses throughout the Empire employed hundreds of slaves who were skilled copyists. What of the people to whom these book are offered? They seem to have made up a community differing in the main only slightly from a modern city. The garrison, for instance, supplied a diversity of types, encouraged a diversity of trades, the officers and their families creating a demand for furniture, works of art, and luxuries of every kind, the men requiring not only articles of household use and personal belongings, but also scope for exercise and amusement. In this connection _it is interesting to note that the soldiers spent some of their leisure hours gambling with dice, or playing harpastum, a game having several points in common with Rugby football. With its arm chairs, its lighting by lamps and candles, its system of heating, its service of meals (forks alone were rare), its kitchen equipment (ranging from bronze cauldrons to. small saucepans), its bedroom furniture, including mattresses, blankets, pillows, and possibly sheets, the RomanoBritish house is said to have been as comfortable in almost every respect as the average English home in the first part of the nineteenth century. “ Times change and •we change with them.” But ' have we changed so very much after all? A few branches of art and science aside, wo seem to have done no more than' increase our material comfort and make our lives generally more artificial, "ethaps it is on account of. this that Mr Home has made his description so vivid) Anyway, ho tears the picture of a rndern city from the mind, replacing it with one of Roman York. And with it ha provided a history of the settlement and! occupation that is indispensable as a key.