Pubs, Drunkards, and Licensing Laws

We now move on from the marketplace to the pubs and drinking houses, which as we have already seen, were to be found in the periphery of the market area. Here again we shall see that at times a brief homily in a Midrash can give us a glimpse into social situations in Roman Palestine; when coupled with classical sources, these homilies can help create a picture of how society functioned in that period. I will begin with a passage from Leviticus Rabba, which although it has the hallmarks of a sermon and therefore may not be strictly accurate historically, nonetheless captures the feeling of the times and is thus most instructive to the historian. In order fully to understand this text, we must first preface our discussion with some introductory remarks. The problem of Roman sumptuary laws has been discussed by a number of scholars. Ramsay MacMullen in his Enemies of the Roman Order has written as follows: . . .From the 70’s A.D., the governing classes, heavy eaters themselves and sometimes, like Nero, addicts of dives and bars, tried to improve the character of the lower classes by intermittent legislation to shut up taverns and to prohibit the sale of cooked meats and pastries. That left vegetables, their definition at one time being narrowed to peas and beans. After Vespasian, public morals were given up as a bad job for three centuries. In the 370’s, when prefects renewed the war, they limited wine shops in what they could sell and in the hours they could stay open. . . . Of particular importance in this connection is the statement of Ammianus Marcellinus that Ampelius, governor of Rome (371-72 C.E.), gave orders that no wine shop should be opened before the fourth hour (about nine o’clock in the morning), in other words, that wine shops should be shut up at night. It is clear from these examples that an examination of pubs and licensing hours can offer valuable insights into social conditions of the time.