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Virgil has naturally omitted the gladiators; but long before his time it had become common to use the opportunity of the funeral of a relation to give munera for the purpose of gaining popularity. A good example is that of young Curio, who in 53 B.C. ruined himself in this way. Cicero alludes to this in an interesting letter to Curio.
The ambulatory is also floored with mosaic, in which is this inscription: NOVA POST VETERA COEPIT SYNFERIUS ESYCHIUS CJUS NEPOS CUM CLERO ET POPULO FECIT HAEC MUNERA DOMUS XPE GRATA TENE. The two names here recorded are those of bishops of the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth centuries, judging from the palæography of other inscriptions. Esychius was bishop, 406-426.
History repeated itself, and with the fourth paper the heretic was gagged. A year after, his father died; and these Fraser articles were laid aside until the end of 1871, when they were taken up again, and published on New Year's Day 1872, as "Munera Pulveris." From the outset, however, he was not without supporters.
Processu pelagi jam se Capraria tollit; Squalet lucifugis insula plena viris. Ipsi se monachos, Graio cognomine, dicunt, Quòd, soli, nullo vivere teste, volunt. Munera fortunæ metuunt, dum damna verentur: Quisquam sponte miser, ne miser esse queat. Quænam perversi rabies tam crebra cerebri, Dum mala formides, nec bona posse pati?
They crowded greedily around stalls in the public squares where the skin, bones, and offal of such dogs, cats and unclean beasts as still remained for the consumption of the wealthier classes were sold to the populace. Over the doorways of these flesh markets might be read "Haec runt munera pro iis qui vitam pro Philippo profuderunt."
Diffidit urbium Portas vir Macedo, et subruit aemulos Regis muneribus: Munera navium Saevos illaqueant duces. HOR. Lib. iii. Ode xvi. 9.
It was for such helpful work as this, and what he accomplished in the kindred volume, "Munera Pulveris," which first appeared in "Fraser's Magazine," that Ruskin for the time dropped his revelations in art to let a new world of thought into the "dismal science" of political economy, confound its old-time instructors, and gird at the evils of the age, the greed, selfishness, and petty bargaining spirit of industrial and commercial life.
"The people of this country," said the States, "have an aversion to all ambition; and in these disastrous times, wherein nothing but trouble and odium is to be gathered by public employment, these commissions are accounted 'munera necessaria'. . . . This form of government has, by God's favour, protected Holland and Zeeland, during this war, against a powerful foe, without lose of territory, without any popular outbreak, without military mutiny, because all business has been transacted with open doors; and because the very smallest towns are all represented, and vote in the assembly."
Certainly the Stoics bestowed too much cost upon death, and by their great preparations, made it appear more fearful. Better saith he, qui finem vitae extremum inter munera ponat naturae. It is as natural to die, as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful, as the other.
Munera Pulveris was another work in which the principles of capital and labor and the evils of the competitive system were discussed in such a way that the author was denounced as a visionary or a madman. Other works of this practical period are Time and Tide, Fors Clavigera, Sesame and Lilies, and the Crown of Wild Olive.
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