Roman decadence Quotes

We are immodest before the barbarians, who are more chaste than we. Even more, the barbarians are wounded at our lack of modesty; the Goths do not permit debauchees of their own nation to remain among them; alone in the midst of them, by the sad privilege of their nationality and their name, the Romans have the right to be impure. The oppressed fly to the barbarians to seek for mercy and a shelter.

I'm sure when they partied when Rome was burning, that was a really great party.

Our society, like decadent Rome, has turned into an amusement society, with writers chief among the court jesters

[The] emperor of the West, the feeble and dissolute Valentinian, [had] reached his thirty-fifth year without attaining the age of reason or courage.

Cease to admire the smoke, wealth, and noise of prosperous Rome.

I certainly don't see myself as Caligula.

The army from Asia introduced a foreign luxury to Rome; it was then the meals began to require more dishes and more expenditure . . . the cook, who had up to that time been employed as a slave of low price, become dear: what had been nothing but a metier was elevated to an art.

Rome ... at its most decadent, had never thought of hiring an actor to go through the motions of being an emperor while the Praetorian Guard ruled.