As lawyers, the early Romans are entitled to high praise, and they evinced their prudence by making juris-prudence an essential part of their ordinary studies. The Roman youth were required to get the Twelve Tables by heart, or rather, by head, which was supposed to be sufficiently furnished when the whole of the Twelve Tables alluded to were crammed into it.
The science of Medicine was not in very high repute among the early Romans, and physic was, commercially speaking, in very little demand, so that it would have been a mere drug if brought into the market. The aristocratic families generally expected one of their slaves to know something of the healing process, as they usually did of other arts or trades; and a surgical operation, like a gardening operation, or any piece of merely manual labour, was frequently entrusted to the hands of a simple bondsman. Physic was scarcely known in Rome as a distinct pursuit, until the year of the City 534 (B.C. 219), when the Greek physician Archagathus opened a shop with an extensive stock, and an establishment of baths; the expense of which would have plunged him into hot water, had not the public come forward to make him a present of his premises. The shops of the doctors were lounging places for the idle, who are always the most profitable patients; for there is no ailing so troublesome as that of having nothing to do, and abundance of time to do it in. The Romans had made little advance in art, though they professed to show their love for it by robbing other nations of their treasures. On the same principle, the pickpocket, who pilfers a handkerchief, might ask credit for being attracted by the beauty of its design; and the knave who walks away with a set of silver spoons might pretend to be actuated by a desire to patronise their pattern or their workmanship. Rome, indeed, can scarcely be said to have introduced the arts from Greece, but merely to have introduced a few of the articles on which the arts had employed themselves.
Commerce was looked down upon for a long period as a degrading pursuit; but from the time of the Second Punic War, the equites, with a total disregard of equity, began lending out money at exorbitant interest. Though they would not condescend to trade for gain, they were prepared to pocket the profits of usury. They would also purchase corn at a low price abroad, and sell it at a dear rate at home; for they understood and practised all the tricks of the tradesman, though they sneered at and repudiated his position. The slave trade was also carried on to a vast extent by the higher classes, and even Cato is said to have done a little in that way himself, notwithstanding the stiffness of his notions, and the alleged purity of his morals. The patrician principle seemed to be, that the same thing which would be blamable on a small scale, was excusable when practised on a broad basis--that to sell a little was degrading, but to sell a great deal was no disgrace at all; and by a parity of reasoning, they must have held, that so far from its being the same thing whether to be hanged for a sheep or a lamb, it would only be the smaller depredator who would deserve any punishment whatever.