knights at Rome might still advance sums to such communities, but they were not in this case tax-farmers.  It is unfortunate that the word “publicans”—­bracketed with “sinners”—­is used in the New Testament translation for the local collectors like St. Matthew.  Not only does the word convey either no notion or a wholly incongruous one to the ordinary reader, but it is apt to mislead those who know its origin.  Because the financial companies at Rome, in purchasing the taxes, were taking up a public contract, they were called publicani.  But it is not these men who were themselves acting as petty collectors—­in any case they had nothing to do with the native collectors appointed by the communities—­and it is not these who enjoyed an immediate association with “sinners.”  The fact is that the Latin word applied to the great tax-farming companies, who were acting for Rome, was afterwards transferred to even the smallest collecting agent with opportunities for extortion and harshness.

The stratum of Roman society below the knights was extremely composite.  The slaves, of course, are not included.  They have no right to the Roman “toga,” nor may they even wear the conical Roman cap, except at the Saturnalia, when everything is deliberately topsy-turvy.  Omitting these, we may roughly divide the rest, as the Romans themselves divided them, into “people” and “rabble.”  The rabble are either persons without regular occupation, or lazzaroni, sheer idlers, loafers, and beggars.  Doubtless many of them would execute an errand or carry a parcel for a small copper, otherwise they would be found hanging about the public squares, lounging on the steps or in the precincts of public buildings, such as temples, basilicas, porticoes, and baths, and playing at what the Italians call morra—­a more clever and tricky species of “How many fingers do I hold up?”—­or at “Heads or Tails.”  The poor of ancient Rome, like those of modern Italy, could subsist on very plain and simple food.  Water, with a dash of wine when it could be got—­and apparently at this date wine cost less than a penny a quart—­and porridge or bread, however coarse, would suffice, so long as there were amusements, sunshine, and no need to work.  Every considerable city of the empire round the Mediterranean would doubtless contain its proportion of such “lewd fellows of the baser sort,” but it was naturally the imperial city that contained by far the most.  Rome was by no means the only city in which doles of free corn were made and free spectacular exhibitions given.  But in other places the distributions were occasional and depended on the bounty of local men of wealth or ambition, whereas at Rome the dole was regular, and the spectacles frequent and splendid.  Rome was the capital, and the abode of the emperor.  It claimed the privileges of the Mistress City, including the enjoyment of the surplus revenues.  Policy also demanded that the rabble should be kept quiet by “bread and games.”