History of Ancient Civilization

by Charles Seignobos

Lucullus.—Lucullus, the type of the new Roman, was born in 145 of a noble and rich family; thus he entered without difficulty into the course of political honors. From his first campaigns he was notable for his magnanimity to the vanquished. Become consul, he was placed at the head of the army against Mithradates. He found the inhabitants of Asia exasperated by the brigandage and the cruelties of the publicans, and gave himself to checking these excesses; he forbade, too, his soldiers pillaging conquered towns. In this way he drew to him the useless affection of the Asiatics and the dangerous hate of the publicans and the soldiers. They intrigued to have him recalled; he had then defeated Mithradates and was pursuing him with his ally, the king of Armenia; he came with a small army of 20,000 men to put to rout an immense multitude of barbarians. His command was taken from him and given to Pompey, the favorite of the publicans.

Lucullus then retired to enjoy the riches that he had accumulated in Asia. He had in the neighborhood of Rome celebrated gardens, at Naples a villa constructed in part in the sea, and at Tusculum a summer palace with a whole museum of objects of art. He spent the beautiful season at Tusculum surrounded by his friends, by scholars and men of letters, reading Greek authors, and discussing literature and philosophy.

Many anecdotes are told of the luxury of Lucullus. One day, being alone at dinner, he found his table simpler than ordinary and reproached the cook, who excused himself by saying there was no guest present. "Do you not know," replied his master, "that Lucullus dines today with Lucullus?" Another day he invited Cæsar and Cicero to dine, who accepted on condition that he would make no change from his ordinary arrangements. Lucullus simply said to a slave to have dinner prepared in the hall of Apollo. A magnificent feast was spread, the guests were astonished. Lucullus replied he had given no order, that the expense of his dinners was regulated by the hall where he gave them; those of the hall of Apollo were to cost not less than $10,000. A prætor who had to present a grand spectacle asked Lucullus if he would lend him one hundred purple robes; he replied by tendering two hundred.

Lucullus remained the representative of the new manners, as Cato of the old customs. For the ancients Cato was the virtuous Roman, Lucullus the degenerate Roman. Lucullus, in effect, discarded the manners of his ancestors, and so acquired a broader, more elevated, and more refined spirit, more humanity toward his slaves and his subjects.

The New Education.—At the time when Polybius lived in Rome (before 150) the old Romans taught their children nothing else than to read.[139] The new Romans provided Greek instructors for their children. Some Greeks opened in Rome schools of poesy, rhetoric, and music. The great families took sides between the old and new systems. But there always remained a prejudice against music and the dance; they were regarded as arts belonging to the stage, improper for a man of good birth. Scipio Æmilianus, the protector of the Greeks, speaks with indignation of a dancing-school to which children and young girls of free birth resorted: "When it was told me, I could not conceive that nobles would teach such things to their children. But when some one took me to the dancing-school, I saw there more than 500 boys and girls and, among the number a twelve-year-old child, a candidate's son, who danced to the sound of castanets." Sallust, speaking of a Roman woman of little reputation, says, "She played on the lyre and danced better than is proper for an honest woman."

The New Status of Women.—The Roman women gave themselves with energy to the religions and the luxury of the East. They flocked in crowds to the Bacchanals and the mysteries of Isis. Sumptuary laws were made against their fine garments, their litters, and their jewels, but these laws had to be abrogated and the women allowed to follow the example of the men. Noble women ceased to walk or to remain in their homes; they set out with great equipages, frequented the theatre, the circus, the baths, and the places of assembly. Idle and exceedingly ignorant, they quickly became corrupt. In the nobility, women of fine character became the exception. The old discipline of the family fell to the ground. The Roman law made the husband the master of his wife; but a new form of marriage was invented which left the woman under the authority of her father and gave no power to her husband. To make their daughter still more independent, her parents gave her a dower.

Divorce.—Sometimes the husband alone had the right to repudiate his wife, but the custom was that this right should be exercised only in the gravest circumstances. The woman gained the right of leaving her husband, and so it became very easy to break a marriage. There was no need of a judgment, or even of a motive. It was enough for the discontented husband or wife to say to the other, "Take what belongs to you, and return what is mine." After the divorce either could marry again.

In the aristocracy, marriage came to be regarded as a passing union; Sulla had five wives, Cæsar four, Pompey five, and Antony four. The daughter of Cicero had three husbands. Hortensius divorced his wife to give her to a friend. "There are noble women," says Seneca, "who count their age not by the years of the consuls, but by the husbands they have had; they divorce to marry again, they marry to divorce again."

But this corruption affected hardly more than the nobles of Rome and the upstarts. In the families of Italy and the provinces the more serious manners of the old time still prevailed; but the discipline of the family gradually slackened and the woman slowly freed herself from the despotism of her husband.