ABSTRACT
IT was not only Greece who, in the words of the poet, “vanquished her victors”: all the countries of the East which the legions crossed imposed upon Rome their tastes, their luxuries and their vices. The expansion of industry and commerce which set in half-way through the second century can hardly be understood unless we connect it with this diffusion of Greek and Asiatic influence. New needs arose among the great families which governed the State and whose chiefs had come to know more highly civilized regions and had frequented a more effeminate society on the shores of the Archipelago. At the same time as they sent to Rome the tribute and the spoils which filled the public coffers and thence passed into the hands of the equestrian and senatorial orders, the generals, who had overrrun Pontus, Cilicia, and Syria, and entered Armenia, brought back fruits hitherto unknown and edible birds the very names of which had not penetrated to the Tiber, and precious tissues incomparably more beautiful than the finest products of Graecia Magna.
