Life in the Roman world of Nero and StPaul . ry; and, since Romans have at all times soughtthe ostentatious and grandiose, perhaps such dwell-ings were larger and more pretentious in proportionto wealth than they are in most civilised countriesat the present day. Seneca, who made himselfextremely comfortable in the daj^s of Nero, exclaimsupon the rage for costly decoration. Says he of thebathing of the plutocrat: He seems to himself poorand mean, unless the walls shine with great costlyslabs, unless marbles of Alexandria are picked outwith reliefs of Numidian stone, unless the wholeceiling is
Life in the Roman world of Nero and StPaul . ry; and, since Romans have at all times soughtthe ostentatious and grandiose, perhaps such dwell-ings were larger and more pretentious in proportionto wealth than they are in most civilised countriesat the present day. Seneca, who made himselfextremely comfortable in the daj^s of Nero, exclaimsupon the rage for costly decoration. Says he of thebathing of the plutocrat: He seems to himself poorand mean, unless the walls shine with great costlyslabs, unless marbles of Alexandria are picked outwith reliefs of Numidian stone, unless the wholeceiling is elaborately worked with all the varietyof a painting, unless Thasian stone encloses theswimming baths, unless the water is poured outfrom silver taps. These, indeed, are comparativelyhumble. What of the baths of the freedmen ?What a mass of statues! What a multitude of i68 LIFE IN THE ROMAN WORLD pillars supporting nothing, but put there only forornament ! What an amount of water runningover steps with, a purhng noise — and all for show !. Fig. 44. — Siecimen of Wall-Painting. (Pompeii.) CHAPTER X THE COUNTRY HOMESTEAD AND COUNTRY SEAT Throughout the romanized parts of the empire —in other words, wherever Romans settled, in Italy,Spain, Gaul, Britain, and also wherever the richernatives imitated the Roman fashions — the house inany city or considerable town was built as nearly aspossible after the type described. In the country the poor naturally had their muchsimpler cottages and cabins of a room or two,commonly thatched or shingled, knowing nothingof hall and court and all these arrangements of artand luxury. In the case of the more well-to-docountry people of Italy — the larger farmers, wine-growers, olive-growers, and the like — the homesteadwas of a kind which made for simplicity and was in such homes that one would find the mostwholesome life and the soundest moral fibre of thetime. Normally the homestead would be a large, andoften a rambling, build
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