[414] The introduction of the use of olive
oil, which was first imported from Greece and the East and then
produced in Italy, brought with it the manufacture of lamps of various
kinds, great and small; and as the cultivation of the valuable tree,
so easily grown in Italy, increased in the last century B.C.,[415] the
oil-lamp became universal in houses, baths, etc. Even in the small old
baths of Pompeii there were found about a thousand lamps, obviously
used for illumination after dark.[416] But in spite of this and of the
invention of candelabra for extending the use of candles, it was never
possible for the Roman to turn night into day as we do in our modern
town-life. We must look on the lighting of the streets as quite an
exceptional event. This happened, for example, on the night of the
famous fifth of December 63 B.C., when Cicero returned to his house
after the execution of the conspirators; people placed lamps and
torches at their doors, and women showed lights from the roofs of the
houses.
An industrious man, especially in winter, when this want of artificial
light made time most valuable, would often begin his work before
daylight; he might have a speech to prepare for the senate, or a brief
for a trial, or letters to write, and, as we shall see, as soon as the
sun had well risen it was not likely that he would be altogether his
own master.
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