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[1] After long lasting and serious dispersion from
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affairs in Rome, constrained by the great mass of foreign events, I shall return to a brief account of these, beginning with the prefecture of Olybrius,
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which was exceedingly peaceful and mild; for he never allowed himself to be turned from humane conduct, but was careful and anxious that no word or act of his should ever be found harsh. He severely punished calumny, cut down the profits of the privy-purse wherever it was possible, fully and impartially distinguished justice from injustice, and showed himself most lenient towards those wbom he governed.
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[2] But a cloud was thrown over all these merits by a fault which indeed was not harmful to the community, but yet was a stain on a high official; for almost his whole private life, since he was inclined to luxury, he spent in playhouses and love affairs, though the latter were neither unlawful nor incestuous.
[3] After him Ampelius
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governed the city, a man who himself also lusted after pleasures. Born at Antioch, he had been formerly marshal of the court, was twice raised to the rank of proconsul,
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and then, long afterwards, to the high honour of the prefecture. Although admirable in other respects and well suited to gaining the favour of the people, he was nevertheless sometimes hard, and I wish he had been steadfast of purpose; for he could have corrected in part, even though to a small extent, the incitements of appetite and gross gluttony, if he had not let himself be turned to laxity and thus lost enduring fame.
[5] These shameful acts, and others worse than these, had, by being constantly overlooked, blazed up to such unbridled heights that not even that celebrated Cretan Epimenides,
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if, after the manner of myth, he had been called up from the lower world and returned to our times, would have been able single-handed to purify Rome; such was the stain of incurable sins that had overwhelmed most people.
[6] And first, as often, according to the quantity of topics,
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I shall give an account of the delinquencies of the nobles and then of the common people, condensing the events in a rapid disgression.
[7] Some men, distinguished (as they think) by famous fore-names, pride themselves beyond measure in being called Reburri, Flavonii, Pagonii, Gereones, and Dalii, along with Tarracii and Pherrasii, and many other equally fine-sounding indications of eminent ancestry.
[9] When such men, each attended by fifty servants, have entered the vaulted rooms of a bath, they shout in threatening tones:
Where on earth are our attendants? If they have learned that an unknown courtesan has suddenly appeared, some woman who has been a common prostitute of the crowd of our city, some old strumpet, they all strive to be the first to reach her, and caressing the new-comer, extol her with such disgraceful flattery as the Parthians do Samiramis, the Egyptians their Cleopatras, the Carians Artemisia, or the people of Palmyra Zenobia. And those who stoop to do such things are men in the time of whose forefathers a senator was punished with the censor’s brand of infamy, if he had dared, while this was still considered unseemly, to kiss his wife in the presence of their own daughter.
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[10] Some of these men, when one begins to salute them breast to breast, like menacing bulls turn to one side their heads, where they should be kissed, and offer their flatterers their knees to kiss or their hands, thinking that quite enough to ensure them a happy life; and they believe that a stranger is given an abundance of all the duties of courtesy, even though the great men may perhaps be under obligation to him, if he is asked what hot baths or waters he uses, or at what house he has been put up.
[11] And although they are so important and, in their own opinion, such cultivators of the virtues, if they learn that someone has announced that horses or chariots are coming from anywhere whatever, they hover over this same man and ask him questions as anxiously as their ancestors looked up to the two sons of Tyndareus,
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when they filled everything with joy by announcing those famous victories of olden days.
[12] Their houses are frequented by idle chatterboxes, who with various pretences of approval applaud every word of the man of loftier fortune, emulating the witty flatteries of the parasites in the comedies. For just as the parasites puff up boastful soldiers by attributing to them the sieges and battles against thousands of enemies, comparing them with the heroes of old, so these also, admiring the rows of columns hanging in the air with lofty facade, and the walls gleaming with the remarkable colours of precious stones, raise these noble men to the gods.
[13] Sometimes at their banquets the scales are even called for, in order to weigh the fish, birds, and dormice
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that are served, whose great size they commend again and again, as hitherto unexampled, often repeating it to the weariness of those present, especially when thirty secretaries stand near by, with pen-cases and small tablets, recording these same items, so that the only thing lacking seems to be a schoolmaster.
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[15] Whereas, considering the greatness of their fame and of their parentage, they ought to pore over many and varied works; they ought to learn that Socrates,
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when condemned to death and thrown into prison, asked a musician, who was skilfully rendering a song of the lyric poet Stesichorus, that he might be taught to do this while there was still time. And when the musician asked of what use that could be to him, since he was to die on the following day, Socrates replied:
In order that I may know something more before I depart from life.
[16] But a few among them are so strict in punishing offences, that if a slave is slow in bringing the hot water, they condemn him to suffer three hundred lashes; if he has intentionally killed a man, although many people insist that he be condemned to death, his master will merely cry out:
What should a worthless fellow do, notorious for wicked deeds? But if he dares to do anything else like that hereafter, he shall be punished.
[17] But the height of refinement with these men at present is, that it is better for a stranger to kill any man’s brother than to decline his invitation to dinner. For a senator thinks that he is suffering the loss of a rich property, if the man whom he has, after considerable weighing of pros and cons, invited once, fails to appear at his table.
[18] Some of them, if they make a longish journey to visit their estates, or to hunt by the labours of others,
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think that they have equalled the marches of Alexander the Great or of Caesar; or if they have sailed in their gaily-painted boats from the Lake of Avernus to Puteoli, it is the adventure of the golden fleece, especially if they should dare it in the hot season. And if amid the gilded fans flies have lighted on the silken fringes, or through a rent in the hanging curtain a little ray of sun has broken in, they lament that they were not born in the land of the Cimmerians.
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[19] Then when they come from the bath of Silvanus or from the healing waters of Mamaea,
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as any one of them emerges he has himself dried with the finest linens, opens the presses and carefully searches amongst garments shimmering with shifting light, of which he brings enough with him to clothe eleven men. At length, some are chosen and he puts them on; then he takes back his rings, which, in order that the dampness may not injure them, he has handed to a servant, and after his fingers have been as good as measured to receive them, he departs.
[20] And, indeed, if any veteran has recently retired because of his years from service with the emperor, such a company of admirers attend him that . . . is considered to be the leader of the old song; the others quietly listen to what he says. He alone, like the father of a family, tells irrelevant stories and entertaining tales, and in most of them cleverly deceiving his hearers.
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[21] Some of these, though few in number, shrink from the name of gamblers, and therefore desire to be called rather
tesserarii,
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persons who differ from each other only as much as thieves do from brigands. But this must be admitted, that while all friendships at Rome are lukewarm, those alone which are formed at the gambling table, as if they were gained by glorious toil, have a bond of union and are united by complete firmness of exceeding affection; whence some members of these companies are found to be so harmonious that you would take them for the brothers Quintilius.
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And so you may see a man of low station, who is skilled in the secrets of dice-playing, walking abroad like Porcius Cato
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after his unexpected and unlooked-for defeat for the praetorship, with a set expression of dignity and sorrow because at some great banquet or assemblage a former proconsul was given a higher place of honour.
[22] Some lie in wait for men of wealth, old or young, childless or unmarried, or even for those who have wives or children—for no distinction is observed in this respect—enticing them by wonderful trickeries to make their wills; and when they have set their last decisions in order and left some things to these men, to humour whom they have made their wills in their favour, they forthwith die; so that you would not think that the death was brought about by the working of the allotment of destiny, nor could an illness easily be proved by the testimony of witnesses; nor is the funeral of these men attended by any mourners.
[23] Another, who attained some rank, moderate though it be, walking with neck puffed up, looks askance at his former acquaintances, so that you might think that a Marcellus was returning after the taking of Syracuse.
[24] Many of them, who deny that there are higher powers in heaven, neither appear in public nor eat a meal nor think they can with due caution take a bath, until they have critically examined the calendar
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and learned where, for example, the planet Mercury is, or what degree of the constellation of the Crab the moon occupies in its course through the heavens.
[25] Another, if he finds a creditor of his demanding his due with too great urgency, resorts to a charioteer
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who is all too ready to dare any enterprise, and causes the creditor to be charged with being a poisoner; and he is not let off until he has surrendered the bill of indebtedness and paid heavy costs. And besides, the accuser has the voluntary debtor
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put in prison as if he were his property, and does not set him free until he acknowledges the debt.
[26] In another place a wife by hammering day and night on the same anvil—as the old proverb has it
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—drives her husband to make a will, and the husband insistently urges his wife to do the same. Skilled jurists are brought in on both sides, one in a bedroom, the other, his rival, in the dining-room to discuss disputed points. These are joined by opposing interpreters of horoscopes,
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on the one side making profuse promises of prefectures and the burial of rich matrons, on the other telling women that for their husbands’ funerals now quietly approaching they must make the necessary preparations. And a maid-servant bears witness, by nature somewhat pale,. . .
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As Cicero says:
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They know of nothing on earth that is good unless it brings gain. Of their friends, as of their cattle, they love those best from whom they hope to get the greatest profit.
[28] Let us now turn to the idle and slothful commons. Among them some who have no shoes are conspicuous as though they had cultured names, such as the Messores, Statarii, Semicupae and Serapini, and Cicymbricus, with Gluturinus and Trulla, and Lucanicus with Porclaca and Salsula, and countless others.
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[29] These spend all their life with wine and dice, in low haunts, pleasures, and the games. Their temple, their dwelling, their assembly, and the height of all their hopes is the Circus Maximus. You may see many groups of them gathered in the fora, the cross-roads, the streets,
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and their other meeting-places, engaged in quarrelsome arguments with one another, some (as usual) defending this, others that.
[30] Among them those who have enjoyed a surfeit of life, influential through long experience, often swear by their hoary hair and wrinkles that the state cannot exist if in the coming race the charioteer whom each favours is not first to rush forth from the barriers, and fails to round the turning-point closely with his ill-omened
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horses.
[31] And when there is such a dry rot of thoughtlessness, as soon as the longed-for day of the chariot-races begins to dawn, before the sun is yet shining clearly they all hasten in crowds to the spot at top speed, as if they would outstrip the very chariots that are to take part in the contest; and torn by their conflicting hopes about the result of the race, the greater number of them in their anxiety pass sleepless nights.
[32] If from there they come to worthless theatrical pieces, any actor is hissed off the boards who has not won the favour of the low rabble with money. And if this noisy form of demonstration is lacking, they cry in imitation of the Tauric race
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that all strangers—on whose aid they have always depended and stood upright
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—ought to be driven from the city. All this in foul and absurd terms, very different from the expressions of their interests and desires made by your commons of old, of whose many witty and happy sayings tradition tells us.
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[33] And it has now come to this, that in place of the lively sound of approval from men appointed to applaud, at every public show an actor of afterpieces, a beast-baiter, a charioteer, every kind of player, and the magistrates of higher and lower rank, nay even matrons, are constantly greeted with the shout
You should be these fellows’ teachers!; but what they ought to learn no one is able to explain.
[34] The greater number of these gentry, given over to over-stuffing themselves with food,
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led by the charm of the odour of cooking
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and by the shrill voices of the women, like a flock of peacocks screaming with hunger, stand even from cockcrow beside the pots
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on tip-toe and gnaw the ends of their fingers
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as they wait for the dishes to cool. Others hang over the nauseous mass of half-raw meat, while it is cooking, watching it so intently that one would think that Democritus
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with other dissectors was examining the internal organs of dismembered animals and showing by what means future generations might be cured of internal pains.
[35] But enough for the present of this account of affairs in the city. Now let us return to the other events which were caused by various incidents in the provinces.
Res Gestae. Ammianus Marcellinus. John C. Rolfe (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1935-1940.
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