MTrip
Well-known member
The pliunder from the provinces provided the funds for that orgy of corrupt and selfish wealth which was to consume the Republic in revolution. The indemnities paid by Carthage, Macedon, and Syria, the slaves that poured into Rome from every field of glory, the precious metals captured in the conquest of Cisalpine Gaul and Spain, the 400,000,000 sesterces taken from Antiochus and Perseus, the 4503 pounds of gold and 220,000 pounds of silver seized by Manlius Vulso in his Asiatic campaigns--these and other windfalls turned the propertied classes in Rome in half a century (202-146 B.C.) from men of means into persons of such opulence as only monarchs had known. ...As currency multiplied in Italy faster than building, the owners of realty in the capital tripled their fortunes without stirring a muscle or a nerve. Industry lagged while commerce flourished; Rome did not have to produce goods; it took the world's money and paid with that for the world's goods. ...any Roman who had a little money bought shares in [publicans'] corporations. Bankers proliferated and prospered; they paid interest on deposits, cashed checks...and fattened on such relentless usury that cutthroat ("sector") and moneylender became one word. Rome was becoming not the industrial or commercial, but the financial and political, center of the white man's world.
Equipped with such means, the Roman patriciate and upper middle class passed...from stoic simplicity to reckless luxury... Houses became larger as families became smaller; furniture grew lavish in a race for conspicuous expense; great sums were paid for Babylonian rugs... As physical exertion diminished and wealth expanded, the old simple diet gave way to long and heavy meals of meat, game, delicacies, and condiments. ...one magnate paid a thousand sesterces for the oysters served at a meal; another imported anchovies at 1600 sesterces a cask... Sumptuary laws were passed by the Senate limiting expenditure on banquets and clothing, but as the senators ignored these regulations, no one bothered to observe them. ...The individual became rebelliously conscious of himself as against the state, the son as against the father, the woman as against the man.
...that readiness for war which had characterized the Roman landowner disappeared now that ownership was being concentrated in a few families and a proletariat without stake in the country filled the slums of Rome. Men became brave by proxy; they crowded the amphitheater to see bloody games, and hired gladiators to fight before them at their banquets....
The above is from The Story of Civilization: Vol. III - Caesar and Christ by Will Durant, "Book I", Chapter V, Section II, "The Transformation of Rome". Does any of it sound familiar?
And consider that the above changes occurred during Rome's Republican era. Caesar & the brief age of imperium hadn't come down the pike yet.
Equipped with such means, the Roman patriciate and upper middle class passed...from stoic simplicity to reckless luxury... Houses became larger as families became smaller; furniture grew lavish in a race for conspicuous expense; great sums were paid for Babylonian rugs... As physical exertion diminished and wealth expanded, the old simple diet gave way to long and heavy meals of meat, game, delicacies, and condiments. ...one magnate paid a thousand sesterces for the oysters served at a meal; another imported anchovies at 1600 sesterces a cask... Sumptuary laws were passed by the Senate limiting expenditure on banquets and clothing, but as the senators ignored these regulations, no one bothered to observe them. ...The individual became rebelliously conscious of himself as against the state, the son as against the father, the woman as against the man.
...that readiness for war which had characterized the Roman landowner disappeared now that ownership was being concentrated in a few families and a proletariat without stake in the country filled the slums of Rome. Men became brave by proxy; they crowded the amphitheater to see bloody games, and hired gladiators to fight before them at their banquets....
The above is from The Story of Civilization: Vol. III - Caesar and Christ by Will Durant, "Book I", Chapter V, Section II, "The Transformation of Rome". Does any of it sound familiar?
And consider that the above changes occurred during Rome's Republican era. Caesar & the brief age of imperium hadn't come down the pike yet.
