Note 41 — Chapter VI

The 'meretrix blanda' of Menander was probably more refined, but not essentially different from the 'libertina' of Rome. Among the rare glimpses into social life which Livy affords behind the stately but somewhat monotonous pageant of consuls and imperators, armies in the field, senators in council, and political assemblies of the people, none is more interesting than that given in the inquiries into the horrors of the Bacchanalia at Rome41. The relations between P. Aebutius and the freedwoman Hispala Fecenia bring to mind those existing between the Philematiums, the Phileniums, or Planesiums of comedy and their lovers. The 'leno insidiosus' and the 'improba lena' are probably much the same in all times and countries; but there is a vigorous brutality and inhuman hardness about Ballio and Cleaereta which seem more true to Roman than to Greek life. The kind of life which comedy represents must have had great attractions for a race of vigorous organisation like the Romans, after continued success and prosperity had broken down the old restraints on conduct and desire, and the accumulated wealth of the world had become the prize of their energy. Yet their inherited instincts for industry and frugality must have made it difficult for them to realise gracefully the hollow life of light-hearted enjoyment which came easily to a Greek in the third century b.c. The average Roman learned to exaggerate the profligacy without acquiring the refinement of his teachers.