That They Were Crouded Together Appears From The Height Of Their
Houses, Which The Poet Rutilius Compared To Towers Made For
Scaling Heaven.
In order to remedy this inconvenience, Augustus
Caesar published a decree, that for the future no houses should
be built above seventy feet high, which, at a moderate
computation, might make six stories.
But what seems to prove,
beyond all dispute, that the antient Romans were dirty creatures,
are these two particulars. Vespasian laid a tax upon urine and
ordure, on pretence of being at a great expence in clearing the
streets from such nuisances; an imposition which amounted to about
fourteen pence a year for every individual; and when Heliogabalus
ordered all the cobwebs of the city and suburbs to be collected,
they were found to weigh ten thousand pounds. This was intended
as a demonstration of the great number of inhabitants; but it was
a proof of their dirt, rather than of their populosity. I might
likewise add, the delicate custom of taking vomits at each
other's houses, when they were invited to dinner, or supper, that
they might prepare their stomachs for gormandizing; a beastly
proof of their nastiness as well as gluttony. Horace, in his
description of the banquet of Nasiedenus, says, when the canopy,
under which they sat, fell down, it brought along with it as much
dirt as is raised by a hard gale of wind in dry weather.
- trahentia pulveris atri,
Quantum non aquilo Campanis excitat agris.
Such clouds of dust revolving in its train
As Boreas whirls along the level plain.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 407 of 535
Words from 108833 to 109094
of 143308
