Roman decadence
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Roman decadence defines the gradual decline in the ancient Roman republican values of family, farming, virtus, and dignitas.
Some contemporary critics of Roman decadance, such as Cato the Younger, attributed its rise to the influence of the Hellanistic philosophy epicurianism, while modern historians such as Edward Gibbon and Cyril Robinson also attribute increasing Roman affluence and the pacifying luxury it afforded.
Examples
On a broad cultural level
- The increasing popularity of orgies: in the Roman world, the term orgy did not necessarily contain its modern sexual connotation. It referred to a party of unrestrained indulgence during which guests consumed copious quantities of food and drink to such excesses that they often relieved themselves by vomiting (though not in a room called a vomitorium).
- The increasing extravagance of popular entertainment: exemplified by the inauguration of the Colloseum under the emperor Titus. Dio Cassius said that 9,000 wild animals were killed in the one hundred days of celebration which inaugurated the amphitheatre opening.
Decadence of the emperors
- Tiberius: according to ancient historians such as Suetonius, Tiberius indulged in the most lurid sexual perversions in his reclusive estate on the Island of Capri. The popular television series, I Claudius, goes so far as to portray him as a bi-sexual pedophile.
- Caligula: perhaps the most famous of the decadent emperors, Caligula satisfied his egomania and sexual perversions by naming his favorite horse consul; declaring himself a god and having his face put on statues of the gods throughout the empire; creating a brothel and forcing patrician Roman women to prostitute themselves within it.
- Claudius: a notorious glutton, Claudius passed a law declaring it not impolite to pass wind at the table and married his own niece.
- Nero: An egomaniacal and psychopathic despot, Nero is said to have idolized his uncle Gaius (Caligula) for his vices. He ascended to power by patricide, poisoning his stepfather Claudius. He later poisoned his half-brother Britannicus and, after an amusing botched attempt to drown her, had his mother stabbed to death.
- Suetonius tells us that Nero succumbed to numerous sexual perversions, defiling young boys, seducing married women of high birth and even debauching a vestal virgin. Indulging his penchant for sado-masochism, Nero took to covering himself in wild animal skins and attacking the private parts of men and women bound to stakes. He is said even to have lusted after his mother, though his advances were prevented from fruition out of the fear that it would afford her greater influence over the young emperor.
- Nero was also known as a reckless and extravagant spender, declaring that, ‘only a miser counted what he spent, while a true gentleman wasted and squandered.’ On occasion, Nero gave astonishingly generous grants of largesse to the most curious of recipients, including musicians and gladiators.
- As his capricious spending exhausted the imperial treasury, Nero was forced to find creative means of supplementing his income. He resorted to garnishing the wills of freedmen, confiscating the estates of those convicted of his false accusations and outright robbery.
- To divert attention from the widespread public belief that he had started the great fire of Rome in order to confiscate a large parcel of land for his luxurious palace and gardens, Nero blamed the conflagration on the marginal eastern sect called Christians. In his attempt to appease the mob, he ordered Christians thrown to the lions, crucified and burned alive atop great pillars in the Circus.
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