Luxury

Luxury prevailed more and more in dress, ornaments, and furniture, in buildings and at table.  Especially after the expedition to Asia Minor in 564 Asiatico-Hellenic luxury, such as prevailed at Ephesus and Alexandria, transferred its empty refinement and its dealing in trifles, destructive alike of money, time, and pleasure, to Rome.  Here too women took the lead:  in spite of the zealous invective of Cato they managed to procure the abolition, after the peace with Cartilage (559), of the decree of the people passed soon after the battle of Cannae (539), which forbade them to use gold ornaments, variegated dresses, or chariots; no course was left to their zealous antagonist but to impose a high tax on those articles (570).  A multitude of new and for the most part frivolous articles—­silver plate elegantly figured, table-couches with bronze mounting, Attalic dresses as they were called, and carpets of rich gold brocade—­now found their way to Rome.  Above all, this new luxury appeared in the appliances of the table.  Hitherto without exception the Romans had only partaken of hot dishes once a day; now hot dishes were not unfrequently produced at the second meal (-prandium-), and for the principal meal the two courses formerly in use no longer sufficed.  Hitherto the women of the household had themselves attended to the baking of bread and cooking; and it was only on occasion of entertainments that a professional cook was specially hired, who in that case superintended alike the cooking and the baking.  Now, on the other hand, a scientific cookery began to prevail.  In the better houses a special cook was kept The division of labour became necessary, and the trade of baking bread and cakes branched off from that of cooking—­the first bakers’ shops in Rome appeared about 583.  Poems on the art of good eating, with long lists of the most palatable fishes and other marine products, found their readers:  and the theory was reduced to practice.  Foreign delicacies—­anchovies from Pontus, wine from Greece—­began to be esteemed in Rome, and Cato’s receipt for giving to the ordinary wine of the country the flavour of Coan by means of brine would hardly inflict any considerable injury on the Roman vintners.  The old decorous singing and reciting of the guests and their boys were supplanted by Asiatic -sambucistriae-.  Hitherto the Romans had perhaps drunk pretty deeply at supper, but drinking-banquets in the strict sense were unknown; now formal revels came into vogue, on which occasions the wine was little or not at all diluted and was drunk out of large cups, and the drink-pledging, in which each was bound to follow his neighbour in regular succession, formed the leading feature—­“drinking after the Greek style” (-Graeco more bibere-) or “playing the Greek” (-pergraecari-, -congraecare-) as the Romans called it.  In consequence of this debauchery dice-playing, which had doubtless long been in use among the Romans, reached such proportions that it was necessary for legislation to interfere.  The aversion to labour and the habit of idle lounging were visibly on the increase.(4) Cato proposed to have the market paved with pointed stones, in order to put a stop to the habit of idling; the Romans laughed at the jest and went on to enjoy the pleasure of loitering and gazing all around them.