ABSTRACT
In the last twenty-five years or more the study of political history has undergone a marked change. The common people, as the true subject-matter of the historian’s study, have come into their rights. We hear more of their political aspirations and social conditions, less of the policies and ambitious plans of their rulers and leaders. Can we apply this new method of studying the Roman people to the field of literature as well as to that of politics ? We have made our estimates of the great Roman writers and have fixed the place which their productions are to hold in the world’s literary history. Can we turn now to the average Roman and get any light on his literary interests and his appreciation of literature? We shall find no categorical statements to help us from contemporary sources, because the professional writer, like Arbus-cula, the actress, probably had a profound contempt for the judgment of the common people in such matters; but a bit of evidence here and a bit there will assist us in answering the question, and lead us to a truer estimate of this side of Roman civilization, I hope. How the Greeks would be rated, if such a study were made of them no one of us would doubt. The intellectual acuteness and the high aesthetic standards of the average citizen of Athens are rarely called in question. Even those whose sympathies lie with the aims and tendencies of modern society freely recognize these qualities in Greek civilization.
