And the survival was all the stronger, because even in the late Republic the abundant supply of slaves enabled the man of capital still to dispense largely with the services of the tradesman and artisan.
Cicero expresses this contempt for the artisan and trading classes in more than one striking passage.

One, in his treatise on Duties, is probably paraphrased from the Greek of Panaetius, the philosopher who first introduced Stoicism to the Romans, and modified it to suit their temperament, but it is quite clear that Cicero himself entirely endorses the Stoic view.

"All gains made by hired labourers," he says, "are dishonourable and base, for what we buy of them is their labour, not their artistic skill: with them the very gain itself does but increase the slavishness of the work.

All retail dealing too may be put in the same category, for the dealer will gain nothing except by profuse lying, and nothing is more disgraceful than untruthful huckstering.

Again, the work of all artisans (_opifices_) is sordid; there can be nothing honourable in a workshop."[71] If this view of the low character of the work of the artisan and retailer should be thought too obviously a Greek one, let the reader turn to the description by Livy[72]--a true gentleman--of the low origin of Terentius Varro, the consul who was in command at Cannae; he uses the same language as Cicero.