![]() ![]() ![]() Can the Roman state really have been in constant decline for more than a millennium?Īn orgy of Tiberius on Capri, Henryk Siemeradzki, 1881 (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia). Obviously, the theory of Roman degeneracy had quickly become something of a literary cliché, and it sometimes seems ridiculous. And the tradition was carried on into the Byzantine period by the likes of Procopius (AD c.500–c.565), Michael Psellus (c.1017–78), and Anna Comnena (1083–1153), whose histories suggest a very dim view of contemporary people and events. Later we find Ammianus Marcellinus (AD 330– 95) rehearsing scathing criticisms of luxury, greed, idleness, pretence, exaggerated devotion to the circus, and so forth. Imperial biographies, such as those found in Suetonius’ Twelve Caesars (written AD c.120) and the Historia Augusta (written in the 4 th century AD), are tales of vice and folly. Tacitus (AD 56-c.120) thought he saw a long descent from virtue and freedom, and felt sure that nothing was left of the old Roman morality. Polybius (c.200–c.118 BC) and Sallust (c.86–c.35 BC) believed that the decline of Rome had begun immediately after the final destruction of Carthage in 146 BC. ![]() Commentary on Roman decadence is so pervasive in Classical literature that there was no period of Roman history that was not considered degenerate by its own historians. Livy’s idea that something was wrong in his own time (c.59 BC–AD 17) was not unique. A Roman orgy in Caesar’s day, Henryk Siemeradzki, 1872 (Russian Museum, St Petersburg, Russia). ![]()
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