VI. BOOK tinguished men, to give additional splendour to the public games at their own expense, to decorate their houses, the streets, and markets with statues of their ancestors, and to build palatial town-houses and country-mansions, filled with works of art carried off from conquered towns. The time was gone when a silver saltcellar was the only valuable article on a dining-table; when borrowed silver passed from one banquet to another in various houses; when it occurred to the censors to reprimand a senator for having in his possession more than ten pounds of silver. Increase of luxury. After the campaigns in the East, Greek and Oriental luxury gained ground rapidly in Rome,' especially, as Livy tells us, through the army of that Manlius who had carried on a plundering warfare against the Galatians.3 Now the houses were decorated with works of art and with splendid furniture of rich material and skilful workmanship. Meals were turned into festivals of luxury and sensuality, where the guests were entertained with harpplayers and dancing girls, mimic actors, jugglers, and other ministers of social and sensual enjoyments. Now men of rank and fashion began to be distinguished as connoisseurs in the culinary art, and cooks, formerly the least respected servants of the household, rose in value. But, after all, as Livy remarks, these were but the slight germs of the luxury that was to come. 4 The women, who in the Hannibalic war had been compelled to simplicity in dress by the law of the tribune M. Oppius, could hardly await the return of prosperity before they boldly required and obtained the removal of this irksome restriction, 195 B.C.5 In vain the severe Cato endeavoured with eloquent zeal to preserve in time of peace the simplicity that had been practised in the good old time under the pressure of poverty. Neither his personal authority, nor the dignity of the consular office which he then held, could stem the current. It seemed like an intended insult to the champion of ancient customs 1 Polyb. xxxii. 11. 2 Liv. xxxix. 6. 5 Liv. xxxiv. 1, 3 Vol. iii. p. 133. that it was precisely his year of office that was chosen to give rein again to the extravagant propensities of the women. The picture drawn by Livy on this occasion of the female agitation for the repeal of the obnoxious law is by no means flattering, and represents the Roman matrons, whom we would fain believe to have been patterns of dignity, simplicity, and modesty, as beings not less frivolous and vain than other daughters of Eve.1 We learn from the discussions on the repeal of the Oppian law that ornaments of precious metals and valuable materials, as well as private carriages, were not rare things in Rome, and we can draw the conclusion that great wealth had been accumulated in many families of the capital.2 CHAP. XII. laws. The Oppian law was passed with the definite object of Sumptuary applying the entire wealth of the people to the defence of the country in a time of imminent danger. But it was an extraordinary interference with personal freedom, and could therefore be upheld no longer than extreme necessity required. Similar restrictions which interfered with the habits of private life and social intercourse were common in Rome at all times. The Romans firmly believed in the omnipotence of the state, and fancied that customs and habits, traffic and prices, could be regulated at pleasure by law. They clung to this subject in spite of the failures which had attended all their attempts. They were indefatigable in devising new rules for the purpose 1 Liv. xxxiv. 1, 5: Matronæ nulla nec auctoritate nec verecundia nec imperio virorum contineri limine poterant; omnes vias urbis aditusque in forum obsidebant, viros descendentes ad forum orantes ut matronis pristinum ornatum reddi paterentur. Augebatur hæc frequentia mulierum in dies, nam etiam ex oppidis conciliabulisque convenerant, iam et consules prætoresque et alios magistratus adire et rogare audebant. 2 Emilia, the wife of P. Scipio, the conqueror of Hannibal, who was the sister of the conqueror of Perseus, was as distinguished among the Roman ladies by the display of her jewels and finery as her husband and brother were among the leaders of the nobility for their warlike exploits. When she took part in religious processions, she attracted the admiration and envy of all the ladies who were not rich enough to vie with her by her personal ornaments, her gorgeous carriage, her gold and silver vessels used in sacrifice, and by her suite of servants. Polyb. xxxii. 12. BOOK Inefficiency of the luxury laws. of preventing luxury and keeping society in proper paths. Thus, in the year 181 B.C. a law (the Lex Orchia) was designed to restrain extravagance in private banquets, and to limit the number of guests. This law proved ineffectual, and as early as 161 B.C. a far stricter law was introduced by the consul, C. Fannius (the Lex Fannia), which prescribed how much might be spent on festive banquets and common family meals. It allowed one hundred asses on the occasion of the Roman and Plebeian games, the Saturnalia, and on one or two other occasions; thirty asses at other festivals; and only ten on all non-festive days.2 The law, moreover, prohibited certain kinds of food and drink. By a law in the year 143 B.C. (the Lex Didia) this regulation was extended over the whole of Italy, and not only the hosts but also the guests who violated it were threatened with punishment. 3 These useless luxury laws met with the hearty approval of Marcus Porcius Cato, who fondly believed that by such police regulations he could arrest the decay of morals and restore as by magic, in a period of overflowing wealth, the simple mode of life of olden times. It is not surprising that they placed no fetters on the spirit and habits of the age. They could but have a demoralising and irritating effect, by compelling rich people to think of means for evading punishment. All kinds of luxury, far from abating, gained the upper hand more and more. The arbitrary measures which Cato, in his censorship (184 B.C.), adopted for restoring patriarchal simplicity, were of still less avail than the penal laws, for these measures, bearing the stamp of personal caprice, could but excite opposition. Cato, acting by virtue of his censorial authority, went so far as to rate the estimated value of certain slaves, employed more for show than for real service, at a figure ten times higher than their actual value, 1 Macrob. Saturn. ii. 13. 2 Macrob. ib. Gell. ii. 24, 2-6. Plut. Hist. Nat. x. 50. Athen. vi, 108. Macrob. ib. This law is an example showing the dependence of the Italian allies on laws passed in Rome. Above, p. 189. XII. and thus to subject the owners to an excessive tax, which CHAP. was in point of fact a fine. These high-handed proceedings in which Cato, by an abuse of his magisterial powers, indulged in the spleen of excessive virtue, were in reality nothing but an impotent protest on the part of an honest but narrow-minded moralist. They were of as little effect as the verses of poets who rail against the noxious influence of money. If the influx of wealth could not be prevented, wise men ought to have exerted themselves to improve the taste and the habits of their fellow-citizens, and to raise them to a higher standard of enjoyment. But Cato and men of his stamp thought that Roman virtue was endangered if the honest citizen no longer enjoyed his porridge and beans as formerly, and if vessels of precious metal and artistic form took the place of the old wooden bowls and drinking-horns. They had in a very high degree the common human weakness of overrating the merit of what is old, and of regarding the failings of the age as new and as occasioned by the change of circumstances. They were mistaken in both respects. As far as we can judge of the old times, we find in them the same vices, only in a ruder form and less obtrusive and offensive, because they ranged as yet within narrower bounds. But avarice, cupidity, and cruelty were no less hideous, when, instead of gold or silver, heavy copper was the magnet that attracted the hearts of men. The ambition of the rude peasants of the time of Cincinnatus was surely not a whit more noble than that of the Scipios, and their vanity was not smaller because they could erect no gilt statues in their houses. We may believe, therefore, in spite of all high-sounding declamations to the contrary, that the foundation of morality on which the family and social life of the Romans was based in the third and second century before our era, was essentially the same that it was at an earlier period, and that the signs of a low moral standard 1 Liv. xxxix. 44, 2. Plut. Cato maior, 18. The effect of this arbitrary measure was that the owners of such slaves were subject to pay as property tax thirty times as much as that for which they were legally liable. BOOK Influence of Greece on the Romans. Forms of which we meet with are to be explained first by the circumstance that we are better informed concerning this time, and secondly by the fact that by the growth of power and wealth the sphere for practising virtues and vices had become far larger, and that what actually took place was consequently more striking. On this occasion we must also examine the truth of the assertion universally made, that Roman morality was severely injured by contact with strangers, especially with Greeks. Hearing these complaints, we might fancy that the Romans had up to this time lived in the state which sentimental poets ascribe to the golden age. It was once the custom to extol the innocent life of savages as that of simple-minded, uncorrupted, and purer races. That was the time when the real condition of tribes untouched by civilisation was less known than it is at present. But the more we become acquainted with the customs of the kingdom of Dahomey and other tribes who are innocent of what is called the varnish of European politeness, the less do we find in them to admire. And not only the savage but the half-savage, the rude uncivilised or half-civilised man, all the stages leading up from the most primitive condition to our own, are infected more or less by the same vices, which surely do not slumber in the human breast until called forth by the fostering influence of wealth and art, but are developed everywhere alike with or without civilisation. The Spartans and Ætolians were the poorest, simplest, and most ignorant, but not the most virtuous of all Greeks. At any rate, we should not find it difficult to make our choice between Sparta and Athens, even if moral considerations alone were to turn the scale. Thus we believe that the Romans in their first intercourse with the Greeks can and must have learnt much that was new to them of good and evil; but that the core and substance of Roman morality remained very much what it had been before. It is, above all, the earnestness, the firm order and marriage. virtue of family life upon which the morality of society |