As to the popular festivals, the importation of transmarine wild beasts prohibited in the time of Cato(48) was, apparently about the middle of this century, formally permitted anew by a decree of the burgesses proposed by Gnaeus Aufidius; the effect of which was, that animal- hunts came into enthusiastic favour and formed a chief feature of the burgess-festivals. Several lions first appeared in the Roman arena about 651, the first elephants about 655; Sulla when praetor exhibited a hundred lions in 661. The same holds true of gladiatorial games. If the forefathers had publicly exhibited representations of great battles, their grandchildren began to do the same with their gladiatorial games, and by means of such leading or state performances of the age to make themselves a laughing-stock to their descendants. What sums were spent on these and on funeral solemnities generally, may be inferred from the testament of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (consul in 567, 579; 602); he gave orders to his children, forasmuch as the true last honours consisted not in empty pomp but in the remembrance of personal and ancestral services, to expend on his funeral not more than 1,000,000 -asses- (4000 pounds). Luxury was on the increase also as respected buildings and gardens; the splendid town house of the orator Crassus (663), famous especially for the old trees of its garden, was valued with the trees at 6,000,000 sesterces (60,000 pounds), without them at the half; while the value of an ordinary dwelling-house in Rome may be estimated perhaps at 60,000 sesterces (600 pounds).(49) How quickly the prices of ornamental estates increased, is shown by the instance of the Misenian villa, for which Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, paid 75,000 sesterces (750 pounds), and Lucius Lucullus, consul in 680, thirty-three times that price. The villas and the luxurious rural and sea- bathing life rendered Baiae and generally the district around the Bay of Naples the El Dorado of noble idleness. Games of hazard, in which the stake was no longer as in the Italian dice-playing a trifle, became common, and as early as 639 a censorial edict was issued against them. Gauze fabrics, which displayed rather than concealed the figure, and silken clothing began to displace the old woollen dresses among women and even among men. Against the insane extravagance in the employment of foreign perfumery the sumptuary laws interfered in vain.
But the real focus in which the brilliance of this genteel life was concentrated was the table. Extravagant prices--as much as 100,000 sesterces (1000 pounds)--were paid for an exquisite cook. Houses were constructed with special reference to this object, and the villas in particular along the coast were provided with salt-water tanks of their own, in order that they might furnish marine fishes and oysters at any time fresh to the table. A dinner was already described as poor, at which the fowls were served up to the guests entire and not merely the choice portions, and at which the guests were expected to eat of the several dishes and not simply to taste them. They procured at a great expense foreign delicacies and Greek wine, which had to be sent round at least once at every respectable repast. At banquets above all the Romans displayed their hosts of slaves ministering to luxury, their bands of musicians, their dancing-girls, their elegant furniture, their carpets glittering with gold or pictorially embroidered, their purple hangings, their antique bronzes, their rich silver plate. Against such displays the sumptuary laws were primarily directed, which were issued more frequently (593, 639, 665, 673) and in greater detail than ever; a number of delicacies and wines were therein totally prohibited, for others a maximum in weight and price was fixed; the quantity of silver plate was likewise restricted by law, and lastly general maximum rates were prescribed for the expenses of ordinary and festal meals; these, for example, were fixed in 593 at 10 and 100 sesterces (2 shillings and 1 pound) in 673 at 30 and 300 sesterces (6 shillings and 3 pounds) respectively. Unfortunately truth requires us to add that, of all the Romans of rank, not more than three--and these not including the legislators themselves--are said to have complied with these imposing laws; and in the case of these three it was the law of the Stoa, and not that of the state, that curtailed the bill of fare.
It is worth while to dwell for a moment on the luxury that went on increasing in defiance of these laws, as respects silver plate. In the sixth century silver plate for the table was, with the exception of the traditionary silver salt-dish, a rarity; the Carthaginian ambassadors jested over the circumstance, that at every house to which they were invited they had encountered the same silver plate.(50) Scipio Aemilianus possessed not more than 32 pounds (120 pounds) in wrought silver; his nephew Quintus Fabius (consul in 633) first brought his plate up to 1000 pounds (4000 pounds), Marcus Drusus (tribune of the people in 663) reached 10,000 pounds (40,000 pounds); in Sulla's time there were already counted in the capital about 150 silver state-dishes weighing 100 pounds each, several of which brought their possessors into the lists of proscription. To judge of the sums expended on these, we must recollect that the workmanship also was paid for at enormous rates; for instance Gaius Gracchus paid for choice articles of silver fifteen times, and Lucius Crassus, consul in 659, eighteen times the value of the metal, and the latter gave for a pair of cups by a noted silversmith 100,000 sesterces (1000 pounds). So it was in proportion everywhere.
How it fared with marriage and the rearing of children, is shown by the Gracchan agrarian laws, which first placed a premium on these.(51) Divorce, formerly in Rome almost unheard of, was now an everyday occurrence; while in the oldest Roman marriage the husband had purchased his wife, it might have been proposed to the Romans of quality in the present times that, with the view of bringing the name into accordance with the reality, they should introduce marriage for hire.