144 ^^' ■^' ^ -I- 



faw I^oUia Paulina at a moderate entertainment (not a folemn occafion) 

 drefied in jewels which coft /?322,9i6: 13 : 4. of our modern fterling 



money *. \HiJI. nat. L. ix, c. ;^^ jrlrriatii Indica, p. 525, ed. Blancard — 



Arbuthnot's I'ables, p. 141.] No antient author, T believe, fays any thing 

 of the price of diamonds at Rome; but Julius Caeflir gave /^48,437 : 10 

 for a pearl, which he prefented to one of his miftrelles : and he gave 

 ^15,500 for a picture. A ftatue of Apollo fold for above /Tag.ooo. For 

 the kinds of fifli, which happened to be in fafhion (for one kind fre- 

 quently drove out another) they gave the moft extravagant prices ; 

 £6\ was the price of a mullet (' muUus') ; and the mursena (fuppofed 

 to be the lamprey) was too pretious in the eftimation of fome epicures 

 to be fold for money. The price of fat thrufhes was about two fhillings 

 each ; and a white nightingale fold for ^^48 : 8 : 9. [See Arbiithnofs 

 l'ables.'\ 



But, though the Romans went fo prodigioully beyond the moderns in 

 extravagant expenfes, they appear to have had much lefs tafte ; or lea- 

 ther, inftead of tafte, they had only a rage for luxuries, many of which 

 had nothing but their monftrous expenfe to recommend them. Indeed, 

 from Pliny it is evident, that, even in his time, when a fucceflion of 

 three or four mad emperors had given the imperial fanction to the ex- 

 cefs of profufion, luxury was new, and, as we may fay, unformed, in 

 Rome. 



While the rich Romans were giving the wealth of a province for a 

 fingle article of frantic luxury, bread and butcher meat appear to have 

 beeii fold as low, as their moft moderate prices have been with us in 

 times of peace for forty or fifty years paft : fo that the luxury of the 

 rich was hitherto harmlefs to the great body of the people, at leaft 

 with refped to thofe eflentially-necelTary articles of dayly confumption. 

 But it was very different with refped to houfe rent. The ample fpaces 

 occupied by the pleafure grounds, attached to the fpacious palaces of the 

 rich \, left very little room within the walls for houfes to accommodate 

 people of middling or fmall incomes. Hence they were obliged to 

 raile them aloft in the air to the inconvenient height of above feventy 

 feet X ; and each floor was let to a feparate family at annual rents equal 

 to the complete purchafe of a moderate houfe and garden in other 

 towns of Italy, if we may truft to the poetical and fatyrical information 



• Pliny adds thnt lier grandfather M. Lollius, ' fufficient lodging room in houl'ts, which occupy 



from whom fne inherited her fortinie, became fo ' more ground than the Dictator Cii cinnatus had 



infamous for his extortions, that he withdrew from ' in his wliole ellate.' [_Fale>: Max. L. iv, c, 4.] 

 the difgracc by poifoning himfclf. But, in the J Auguitus made a law that houfes fhould not 



progrcfs of corruption, extortion was no longer exceed feventy feet in height. But the law was 



branded with infamy ; and even the manumitted eluded, or overlooked, zt appears by its being re- 



flaves of the emperors amatfed fortunes of fome peattd by fucceeding emperors. [See Lipfins de 



millions of fterling money. magnitudmc Rom. L. iii, c. 4.J 



•)• • They nowadays complain that they have not 



