Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 1).djvu/137

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mystic rite,^[1] a triumph of superstition^[2] over concupiscence pretended more often perhaps than real.^[3]

The luxury of the rich, especially in the use of the precious metals and ivory, is in this age maintained at the maximum. Practically all the furniture in the house of a wealthy man, as far at least as the visible parts are concerned, is constructed of those costly materials. Gilding or plates of gold or silver are applied to every available surface—to tables, chairs, footstools, and bedsteads; even silver night-*urns are essential to the comfort of the fastidious plutocracy.^[4] For banqueting the Byzantines make use of a large semi-*

↑ Chrysostom, Epist. ad Innocent., Bishop of Rome, 3 (in Migne, iii, 533). He here describes how the women had to fly naked from the Baptistery during the riots connected with his deposition from the see of Constantinople. It must be noted, however, that the severe modesty of modern times had scarcely been developed amid the simplicity of the ancient world, as it has not among some fairly civilized peoples even at the present day.
↑ I had almost said piety, one of the words destined, with the extinction of the thing, to become obsolete in the future, or to be applied to some other mental conception.
↑ Chrysostom, In Matth. Hom. xvii, 2 (in Migne, vii, 256). He inveighs against the farce of ascetics taking virgins to live with them, who are supposed to remain intact; cf. De Virginitate (in Migne, i, 533); also Cod. Theod., XVI, ii, 20, to which Godefroy supplies practical illustrations.
↑ Chrysostom, In Epist. ad Coloss., iii, Hom. vii, 5 (in Migne, xi, 350); in Matth. Hom. lxxxiii, 4 (in Migne, vii, 750). Or even of more costly materials, gold, crystal; Plutarch, Adv. Stoic., 22; Clement Alex. Paedag., ii, 3. The notion of unparalleled luxury has been associated with the Theodosian age, but without sufficient reason. It was rather the age of a man of genius who denounced it persistently and strenuously, and whose diatribes have come down to us in great bulk, viz., Chrysostom. The period of greatest extravagance was, in fact, during the last century of the Republic and the first of the Empire, and the names of Crassus, Lucullus, Nero, Vitellius, etc., are specially connected with it.

[1] Chrysostom, Epist. ad Innocent., Bishop of Rome, 3 (in Migne, iii, 533). He here describes how the women had to fly naked from the Baptistery during the riots connected with his deposition from the see of Constantinople. It must be noted, however, that the severe modesty of modern times had scarcely been developed amid the simplicity of the ancient world, as it has not among some fairly civilized peoples even at the present day.

[2] I had almost said piety, one of the words destined, with the extinction of the thing, to become obsolete in the future, or to be applied to some other mental conception.

[3] Chrysostom, In Matth. Hom. xvii, 2 (in Migne, vii, 256). He inveighs against the farce of ascetics taking virgins to live with them, who are supposed to remain intact; cf. De Virginitate (in Migne, i, 533); also Cod. Theod., XVI, ii, 20, to which Godefroy supplies practical illustrations.

[4] Chrysostom, In Epist. ad Coloss., iii, Hom. vii, 5 (in Migne, xi, 350); in Matth. Hom. lxxxiii, 4 (in Migne, vii, 750). Or even of more costly materials, gold, crystal; Plutarch, Adv. Stoic., 22; Clement Alex. Paedag., ii, 3. The notion of unparalleled luxury has been associated with the Theodosian age, but without sufficient reason. It was rather the age of a man of genius who denounced it persistently and strenuously, and whose diatribes have come down to us in great bulk, viz., Chrysostom. The period of greatest extravagance was, in fact, during the last century of the Republic and the first of the Empire, and the names of Crassus, Lucullus, Nero, Vitellius, etc., are specially connected with it.

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