dine,
who accepted on condition that he would make no change from his
ordinary arrangements. Lucullus simply said to a slave to have dinner
prepared in the hall of Apollo. A magnificent feast was spread, the
guests were astonished. Lucullus replied he had given no order, that
the expense of his dinners was regulated by the hall where he gave
them; those of the hall of Apollo were to cost not less than $10,000.
A praetor who had to present a grand spectacle asked Lucullus if he
would lend him one hundred purple robes; he replied by tendering two
hundred.

Lucullus remained the representative of the new manners, as Cato of
the old customs. For the ancients Cato was the virtuous Roman,
Lucullus the degenerate Roman. Lucullus, in effect, discarded the
manners of his ancestors, and so acquired a broader, more elevated,
and more refined spirit, more humanity toward his slaves and his
subjects.

=The New Education.=--At the time when Polybius lived in Rome (before
150) the old Romans taught their children nothing else than to
read.[139] The new Romans provided Greek instructors for their
children. Some Greeks opened in Rome schools of poesy, rhetoric, and
music. The great families took sides between the old and new systems.
But there always remained a prejudice against music and the dance;
they were regarded as arts belonging to the stage, improper for a man
of good birth. Scipio AEmilianus, the protector of the Greeks, speaks
with indignation of a dancing-school to which children and young girls
of free birth resorted: "When it was told me, I could not conceive
that nobles would teach such things to their children. But when some
one took me to the dancing-school, I saw there more than 500 boys and
girls and, among the number a twelve-year-old child, a candidate's
son, who danced to the sound of castanets." Sallust, speaking of a
Roman woman of little reputation, says, "She played on the lyre and
danced better than is proper for an honest woman."

=The New Status of Women.=--The Roman women gave themselves with
energy to the religions and the luxury of the East. They flocked in
crowds to the Bacchanals and the mysteries of Isis. Sumptuary laws
were made against their fine garments, their litters, and their
jewels, but these laws had to be abrogated and the women allowed to
follow the example of the men. Noble women ceased to walk or to remain
in their homes; they set out with great equipages, frequented the
theatre, the c