ruin that stirs the artist and makes the philosopher think; but if
one sets himself to measure them, to conjecture from the remains the
proportions of the entire edifices, he does not conjure up buildings
that rival large modern constructions. The palace of Tiberius, for
example, rose above a street only two metres wide--less than seven
feet,--an alley like those where to-day in Italian cities live only
the most miserable inhabitants. We have pictured to ourselves
the imperial banquets of ancient Rome as functions of unheard of
splendour; if Nero or Elagabalus could come to life and see the
dining-room of a great hotel in Paris or New York--resplendent with
light, with crystal, with silver,--he would admire it as far more
beautiful than the halls in which he gave his imperial feasts. Think
how poor were the ancients in artificial light! They had few wines;
they knew neither tea nor coffee nor cocoa; neither tobacco, nor the
innumerable _liqueurs_ of which we make use; in face of our habits,
they were always Spartan, even when they wasted, because they lacked
the means to squander.

The ancient writers often lament the universal tendency to physical
self-indulgence, but among the facts they cite to prove this dismal
vice, many would seem to us innocent enough. It was judged by them
a scandalous proof of gluttony and as insensate luxury, that at a
certain period there should be fetched from as far as the Pontus,
certain sausages and certain salted fish that were, it appears, very
good; and that there should be introduced into Italy from Greece the
delicate art of fattening fowls. Even to drink Greek wines seemed for
a long time at Rome the caprice of an almost crazy luxury. As late
as 18 B.C., Augustus made a sumptuary law that forbade spending for
banquets on work-days more than two hundred sesterces (ten dollars);
allowed three hundred sesterces (fifteen dollars) for the days of the