Probably no people abandoned themselves to pleasures more universally than the Romans, after war had ceased to be their master passion.  All classes alike pursued them with restless eagerness.  Amusements were the fashion and the business of life.  At the theatre, at the great gladiatorial shows, at the chariot races, emperors and senators and generals were always present in conspicuous and reserved seats of honor; behind them were the patricians, and then the ordinary citizens, and in the rear of these the people fed at the public expense.  The Circus Maximus, the Theatre of Pompey, the Amphitheatre of Titus, would collectively accommodate over four hundred thousand spectators.  We may presume that over five hundred thousand persons were in the habit of constant attendance on these demoralizing sports; and the fashion spread throughout all the great cities of the empire, so that there was scarcely a city of twenty thousand inhabitants which had not its theatres, amphitheatres, or circus.  And when we remember the heavy bets on favorite horses, and the universal passion for gambling in every shape, we can form some idea of the effect of these amusements on the common mind,—­destroying the taste for home pleasures, and for all that was intellectual and simple.

What are we to think of a state of society where all classes had continual leisure for these sports!  Habits of industry were destroyed, and all respect for employments that required labor.  The rich were supported by contributions from the provinces, since they were the great proprietors of conquered lands; the poor had no solicitude for a living, since they were supported at the public expense.  All therefore gave themselves up to pleasure.  Even the baths, designed for sanatory purposes, became places of resort and idleness, and ultimately of intrigue and vice.  In the time of Julius Caesar we find no less a personage than the mother of Augustus making use of the public establishments; and in process of time the Emperors themselves bathed in public with the meanest of their subjects.  The baths in the time of Alexander Severus were not only kept open from sunrise to sunset, but even during the whole night.  The luxurious classes almost lived in the baths.  Commodus took his meals in the bath.  Gordian bathed seven times in the day, and Gallienus as often.  They bathed before they took their meals, and after meals to provoke a new appetite; they did not content themselves with a single bath, but went through a course of baths in succession, in which the agency of air as well as of water was applied; and the bathers were attended by an army of slaves given over to every sort of roguery and theft.  Nor were water and air baths alone used; the people made use of scented oils to anoint their persons, and perfumed the water itself with the most precious essences.  Bodily health and cleanliness were only secondary considerations; voluptuous pleasure was the main object.  The ruins of the baths of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian