History of Rome (Complete)

by Livy

He thought the judges would be even more hostile to him than they had been to Scipio owing to reports which had reached Rome of his allowing the soldiers every kind of licence and completely destroying the discipline which his predecessor Scipio had maintained. Nor were the stories of what had gone on in his province far away from men’s eyes the only things that discredited him. Still worse things were witnessed amongst his soldiers every day’ for it was through the army serving in Asia that the beginnings of foreign luxury were introduced into the City. These men brought into Rome for the first time, bronze couches, costly coverlets, tapestry, and other fabrics, and - what was at that time considered gorgeous furniture - pedestal tables and silver salvers. Banquets were made more attractive by the presence of girls who played on the harp and sang and danced, and by other forms of amusement, and the banquets themselves began to be prepared with greater care and expense. The cook whom the ancients regarded and treated as the lowest menial was rising in value, and what had been a servile office came to be looked upon as a fine art. Still what met the eye in those days was hardly the germ of the luxury that was coming.