Note 163 — LIFE OF SULLA.

P. Cornelius Rufinus was consul B.C. 290. He was also Dictator, but in what year is uncertain. He was ejected from the Senate by the Censor C. Fabricius B.C. 275 for violating one of the sumptuary laws of Rome, or those which limited expense. The story is mentioned by Gellius (iv. 8; xvii. 21). Plutarch has translated the Latin word Libræ by the Greek Litræ.

The Romans made many enactments for limiting expense in dress, entertainments, funerals (Sulla, c. 35), amount of debt to be incurred, and so forth, all of which were unavailing. The notion of regulating private expenditure was not peculiar to the Romans among the states of antiquity; and our own legislation, which in its absurd as well as its best parts has generally some parallel in that of the Romans, contains many instances of sumptuary laws, which prescribed what kind of dress, and of what quality, should be worn by particular classes, and so forth. The English Sumptuary Statutes relating to Apparel commenced with the 37th of Edward III. This statute, after declaring that the outrageous and excessive apparel of divers people against their estate and degree is the destruction and impoverishment of the land, prescribes the apparel of the various classes into which it distributes the people; but it goes no higher than knights. The clothing of the women and children is also regulated. The next statute, 3rd of Edward IV., is very minute. This kind of statute-making went on at intervals to the 1st of Philip & Mary, when an Act was passed for the Reformation of Excessive Apparel. These Apparel Statutes were repealed by the 1st of James I.