German Philologists

"Until the fire set by Nero, Rome was not a beautiful city in the modern sense of the word. After it had been burned by the Gauls, it was rebuilt without a pre-established plan, and as if by chance. The neighborhoods were irregular; the narrow, winding streets; the tall houses, mostly leaning against each other, and until the times of the Pyrrhic War ( eighty four years before the Christian era) the roofs of the wooden ones, contributed to making it poorer , the darker the appearance, and the city remained more or less so in the following centuries. At the court of Philip of Macedonia, one hundred and seventy-four years before the birth of Christ, the party opposed to the Romans mocked the mean appearance of the capital of Italy."

"Rome never had grandiose views such as Antioch and Alexandria, with their long, straight and wide streets, cut at right angles. Furthermore, several peculiarities of Roman domestic architecture must have brought to the architectural effect of the streets. Such were the frequent deviations of several houses from the straight line, the different heights of the various floors of the houses, the irregularity of the windows particularly in the upper floors, and finally the frequency of recesses and projections in the houses, which made the the section of the road surface. (vol. I, The city of Rome, pp. 14-15)"

"However, despite all the defects of its streets and its position, Rome was a city that had no equal, and it produced a great impression due to the immense crowds that continually came there, coming from all parts of the world; for the motion, for the life that continually stirred there; for the quantity and splendor of its public establishments and , and finally for the endless extension of the city. The gaze of anyone who had then climbed to the top of the Capitoline Hill would have been almost lost in a forest of monumental buildings, palaces, monuments of every kind, which stretched out beneath his feet, occupying, several miles away, hills and valleys. Where at present a deserted region extends towards the Alban mountains, populated by ruins, ravaged by the Maremma fever , there was at that time a plain that was not at all unhealthy, entirely cultivated, crossed by roads which teemed with people. The city continually expanded in the fields, in the surrounding towns, and its suburbs gave way to new and stupendous villas, to temples, to monuments, whose roofs and marble domes shone in the sun, among the luxuriant greenery of the woods and of the gardens. (vol. I, The city of Rome, pp. 15-16)"

"The [at table] service at Augustus was very simple, three to six portals at most; among Tiberius, who wanted to lead everyone to frugality and savings with his example, he was barely decent; on the other hand Titus Flavius ​​Vespasian, economical and good farmer in every other way, kept a splendid table with the aim of favoring the sellers of edible objects. Pertinax called for moderation at the imperial banquets, in which Commodus had madly lavished treasures. It seems that the custom generally observed at large banquets in Rome of treating guests differently according to the diversity of their order and condition was not practiced at the imperial table. At the very least, it appears that Hadrian in order to obviate any possible abuse of his cooks, sometimes had food brought from the other tables, not excluding the last ones. (vol. I, The court, p. 98)"

"An anecdote reported by Dio proves what treatments Domitian's guests were exposed to. One day he invited the most distinguished personalities of the senate and the order of knights to lunch; the rooms were decorated in black, the servants dressed in black, almost like ghosts; the food was served in black vessels, as was customary during funeral banquets; next to each guest there was a tablet with each person's name written on it, and next to it stood a lit candelabra, like in tombs. After having tortured his guests in this way, so much so that they all returned home with the fear of receiving the death sentence at any moment, they instead found precious gifts from the emperor. (vol. I, The court, p. 100)"

"Ludovico Friedlaender, Studii around the habits and customs of the Romans in the first two centuries of the common era, translation from the German by Augusto Di Cossilla, vol. I, Establishment Tip.-Lib. F. Manini publishing company, Milan, C.E.1874."

"Seneca is the most notable subject of this time. In the liveliness and agility of form he has no one similar to him, apart from Ovid: but Seneca had at the same time a lively feeling of these qualities in him; and his strength was so great that at every opportunity that was offered to him, he could not refrain from showing it, nor did it even occur to him that he would seize it. . However, it can only rarely be said that he made blameworthy use of his great talents and high status; and if his life often shows a wisdom lowered to the level of prudence, his death has the imprint of a deliberate renunciation of the goods of this life. (vol. II, p. 61)"

"Among the various types of poetry, drama portrays most of the Roman popular character. Like all Italians, the Romans also had a keen eye for what falls under the senses, the gift of fine observation, of lively imitation and rapid reproduction. Improvising, songs for mockery and ridicule, as well as the form of dialogues and songs reciprocally, are therefore very ancient things in Italy. (vol. I, p. 3)"

"G. S. Teuffel, History of Roman literature, first translation from German by the abbot prof. Domenico Favaretti, vol. I, Establishment of P. Prosperini, Padua, C.E.1873."

"Even as a writer, Seneca is a faithful of his time, who valued splendor more than depth. He wrote in that way out of intimate conviction of his goodness, and for this he gambled the approval of the following age. (vol. II, p. 63)"

"The ' took their name from Fescennio, a village located in the south of Etruria, but are generally typical of middle Italy. They were an element of country entertainment, they were performed on happy occasions, and those who took part in them came out in mutual jokes, in rude jokes according to the coarse taste of the people and the like. This custom, which was originally also practiced at country festivals (e.g. after the harvest, at the festival of the goddess Tellure and the god of the woods), was gradually reduced to a smaller circle and limited to weddings. When, after the fall of the republic, artistic poetry appropriated the Fescennini, it removed them partly from their burlesque side, partly from their use in weddings. (vol. I, p. 4)"

"[...] also the orators Asinius Pollio and M. , who had survived the republic, one more than the other could be seen disappearing before their camp; now there was no longer any means: either one had to remain silent, or adapt to the new form of artificial eloquence that had no purpose or gravy, that is to say, declamations. (vol. I, p. 482)"

"As for Asinius Pollio, he gave himself the air of being superior, especially with his criticism; and his color of political opposition meant that none of the members of the other circles, except some of the least dutiful, such as Orazio, risked meddling with him. (vol. I, p. 487)"

"Domitius Afro of Nimes [...] held high offices under Tiberius and Caligula and Nero and had previously practiced in the forum, better speaker than man, although even the reputation of a good speaker abandoned him before his life. (vol. II, p. 23)"

"Partly under Tiberius and partly under his successors, Phaedrus of Pieria, a freedman, published five books of Aesopian fables in well-constructed iambic senarii. The fairy tales themselves are also interspersed with anecdotes of things that happened then or not long before. The various persecutions that the author suffered caused him here and there to burst into of resentment. The style is fluent, in the latest books often even verbose; the serene, sometimes resentful ; the correct language, but not without traces of time. Moreover, this collection did not come to us in its entirety. (vol. II, p. 50)"