Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T10:55:12.354Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 1 - Decadence in Ancient Rome

from Part I - Origins

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2019

By
Jerry Toner
Edited by
Jane Desmarais  and
David Weir
Jane Desmarais
Affiliation:
Goldsmiths, University of London
David Weir
Affiliation:
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
Get access

Summary

The Romans had a difficult relationship with the kind of luxury and excess that we think of as indicators of moral and social decadence. But in many ways they revelled in such luxury. Readily accepting the financial rewards of empire, they spent huge sums on their own benefits. Whether in the colossal public games in the amphitheatre and the circus, in the opulent imperial bath complexes, or in extravagant private villas, Romans of all social levels delighted in the very best that life was thought to offer. Chapter 1 examines how far the evidence supports this somewhat melodramatic view of Rome by looking at the ways in which luxury spread in the Roman world. It also looks at the ways this growth in luxury compelled the Romans to create new concepts to understand the phenomenon. Luxury was almost never seen as a simple index of increased wealth. Rather, it raised all manner of moral issues among Rome’s ruling classes, many of which long outlived the end of the Roman empire itself.

Keywords

RomandecadenceToneroriginsmoralityluxuryexcessdeclineApuleiusAugustus
Type
Chapter
Information
Decadence and Literature , pp. 15 - 29
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Marcellinus, Ammianus (1963–1964). Res Gestae, J. C. Rolfe, trans., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Apuleius, (1989). Metamorphoses, J. A. Hanson, trans., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gellius, Aulus (1961). Attic Nights, J. C. Rolfe, trans., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Betts, Eleanor, ed. (2017). Senses of the Empire: Multisensory Approaches to Roman Culture, London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chaunu, Pierre (1981). Histoire et décadence, Paris: Perrin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Columella (1954–1955). On Agriculture, H. B. Ash, E. S. Forster, and E. H. Heffner, trans., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dalby, Andrew (2000). Empire of Pleasures: Luxury and Indulgence in the Roman World, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Elsner, Jaś, and Masters, Jamie (1994). Reflections of Nero: Culture, History, and Representation, London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Gleason, Maud W. (1995). Making Men: Sophists and Self-presentation in Ancient Rome, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Horace, (1929). Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica, H. R. Fairclough, trans., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Juvenal, (2014). Satires, S. M. Braund, trans., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Livy, (1976). Ab Urbe Condita, B. O. Foster, trans., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Morley, Neville (2004). Decadence as a Theory of History. New Literary History, 35, 573–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petronius, (2014). Satyricon, M. Heseltine, trans., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pliny, (1968). Natural History, H. Rackham, trans., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Seneca, (1962–1967). Epistulae Morales, R. M. Gummere, trans., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Seneca, (1971–1972). Naturales Quaestiones, T. H. Corcoran, trans., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Suetonius, (1970). The Lives of the Caesars, J. C. Rolfe, trans., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tacitus, (1962). The Histories, C. F. Moore, trans., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Toner, Jerry (1995). Leisure and Ancient Rome, Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Toner, Jerry (2009). Popular Culture in Ancient Rome, Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Toner, Jerry (2015). Barbers, Barbershops, and Searching for Roman Popular Culture. Papers of the British School at Rome, 83, 91–109.Google Scholar
Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew (2008). Rome’s Cultural Revolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew (2014). The Senses in the Marketplace: The Luxury Market and Eastern Trade in Imperial Rome. In Toner, Jerry, ed., A Cultural History of the Senses in Antiquity, London: Bloomsbury, pp. 69–89.Google Scholar
Zanda, Emanuela (2013). Fighting Hydra-Like Luxury: Sumptuary Regulation in the Roman Republic, London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Zarmakoupi, Mantha (2014). Designing for Luxury on the Bay of Naples: Villas and Landscapes (c.100 BCE–79 CE), Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×