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Show ROMAN FORTUNES. The Roman fortunes would not be thought extraordinary at London, Paris or New York. A French financier, reputed to have left between [pound sign] 20,000,000 and [pound sign] 30,000,000, on hearing that the ?? parties of a well known English house has left only [pound sign] 3,500,000, exclaimed, "Ah ?? plus a son ??." Crassus used to say that no man was to be esteemed ?? who could not out of his own treasury maintain an army but his fortune is estimated by Pliny at less than [pound sign] 2,000,000. He ?? to it by ?? ?? and the skilled labor of slaves, but the rich Roman commonly lived upon his capital, investments were precarious, to save was to invite proscription, and when popularity led to power and power to wealth, the patrician demagogue, bent on making a fortune, began by spending one Caesar owed nearly [pound sign] 300,000 before he ?? any public office. The debts of ?? were computed at double the sum. Mr. Trollope, in his able and spirited defense of Cicero, contends that he did not owe more than a Roman of rank might or ought to owe, and a partisan of Wilkes ?? that he did not squint more than a gentlemen ought to squint. Cicero, after buying one of the finest houses in Rome with borrowed money, writes "Know then that I am so much in debt that I would be willing to conspire, if any one would accept me." We collect from his letters that he had "several villas" ?? his town house. Crassus, when a candidate for the Consulship, gave a feast of ten thousand tables, to which all the citizens of Rome were indiscriminately invited. Caesar, to celebrate the funeral of a daughter, gave one of twenty-two thousand tables, with accommodation for three guests at each. This entertainment was repeated and exceeded for his triumph. He brought together more gladiators and wild beasts then were ever produced on any former occasion in the amphitheatre, but his exhibitions of this kind were so completely outshone that it were a waste of time to dwell upon them. In a document annexed to his testament Augustus states as a title to public gratitude that he had exhibited 8,000 gladiators and brought more than 3,500 wild beasts to be killed in the circus. In the course of the festivities instituted by Titus to celebrate the opening of the Coliseum, 5,000 wild beasts were set loose and killed by the gladiators. The Emperor Probus collected for a single show 400 lions, 100 lionesses, 100 Libyan and 100 Syrian leopards, 800 bears and 600 gladiators. Having caused the circus to be planted with trees to resemble a forest he let loose 1,000 ostriches, 1,600 stags, 1,000 dogs and 1,000 boars, to be hunted by the populace, who were to keep whatever they could catch or kill. The fiercer animals were encountered by the gladiators. It does not appear how long this show lasted. Although given to elicit pleasures in his youth Augustus was temperate in his habits after he became Emperor, and he tried to check the progress of corruption but it was in the bosom of his own family that it proved irrepressible. His daughter Julia was the centre of a gay and glittering throng of young patricians, and became so conspicuous for her dissolute behavior that he had no alternative but to exile her. When reproached by a friend for her extravagance in dress, she replied. "My father does not know how to preserve his dignity. As for me, I know and shall never forget that I am the daughter of the emperor."-Quarterly Review |