ed, the worst demoralization
of the ancient world--had become so flourishing that a lucrative business
was done in the sale of the programmes for them; and it was at this time
that the horrible innovation was adopted by which the decision
as to the life or death of the vanquished became dependent,
not on the law of duel or on the pleasure of the victor,
but onthe caprice of the onlooking public, and according to its signal
the victor either spared or transfixed his prostrate antagonist.
The trade of fighting had so risen or freedom had so fallen in value,
that the intrepidity and the emulation, which were lacking
on the battle fields of this age, were universal in the armies
of the arena and, where the law of the duel required, every gladiator
allowed himself to be stabbed mutely and without shrinking; that in fact
free men not unfrequently sold themselves to the contractors for board
and wages as gladiatorial slaves. The plebeians of the fifth century
had also suffered want and famine, but they had not sold their freedom;
and still less would the jurisconsults of that period have lent
themselves to pronounce the equally immoral and illegal contract
of such a gladiatorial slave "to let himself be chained, scourged,
burnt or killed without opposition, if the laws of the institution
should so require" by means of unbecoming juristic subtleties
as a contract lawful and actionable.

Extravagance

In the world of quality such things did not occur, but at bottom
it was hardly different, and least of all better. In doing nothing
the aristocrat boldly competed with the proletarian; if the latter
lounged on the pavement, the former lay in bed till far on
in the day. Extravagance prevailed here as unbounded as it was
devoid of taste. It was lavished on politics and on the theatre,
of course to the corruption of both; the consular office was purchased
at an incredible price--in the summer of 700 the first voting-division
alone was paid 10,000,000 sesterces (100,000 pounds)--
and all the pleasure of the man of culture in the drama was spoilt
by the insane luxury of decoration. Rents in Rome appear to have been
on an average four times as high as in the country-towns;
a house there was once sold for 15,000,000 sesterces (150,000 pounds).
The house of Marcus Lepidus (consul in 676) which was at the time
of the death of Sulla the finest in Rome, did not rank a generation
afterwards even as the hundredth on the list of Roman pa