ABSTRACT
AS in all decadent communities, luxury reached an unexampled degree of senseless prodigality in the imperial Roman world. However great the distress among the masses, there was always to be found a select oligarchy upon whom the monarch's favours were lavishly bestowed. Deriving its wealth more often by direct spoliation than by the lawful exploitation of the soil or the mines, and accumulating huge fortunes, this plutocracy, which was made or unmade by the caprice of a single individual, gave full rein to its extravagance. In order to understand the increasing attraction which Rome offered until the last to the oriental countries whose millions she yearly swallowed up, one must remember the unwholesome love of display and the Asiatic passion for very rare objects which characterized the official aristocracy—a curious spectacle which was already offered us at the end of the Republic.
