Roman Society Quotes

When Rome burned, the emperor's cats still expected to be fed on time.

Unlike settled, patriarchal societies such as classical Greece and Rome, where women stayed home to weave and mind children, the lives of nomadic steppe tribes centered on horses and archery.

Julius Caesar's wife, who said to Julius, We are not naming our son Sid! Never got a dinner!

As to Caesar, when he was called upon, he gave no testimony against Clodius, nor did he affirm that he was certain of any injury done to his bed. He only said, He had divorced Pompeia because the wife of Caesar ought not only to be clear of such a crime, but of the very suspicion of it.

The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate [politician], as equally useful.

History has scarcely deigned to notice [Libius Severus's] birth, his elevation, his character, or his death.

The Romans, we are told, were by nature a peculiarly warlike race.

Limits the Romans' anxieties to two things - bread and games.

I am a Roman citizen.

While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of eunuchs and bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with transport in every part of the empire, except in the palace of Constantius.

A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded, "Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful?" holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. "Yet," added he, "none of you can tell where it pinches me.''

Ancient Rome was a violent place.

These spend all their life with wine and dice, in low haunts, pleasures, and the games. Their temple, their dwelling, their assembly, and the height of all their hopes is the Circus Maximus. You may see many groups of them gathered in the fora, the cross-roads, the streets, and their other meeting-places, engaged in quarrelsome arguments with one another... torn by their conflicting hopes about the result of the race, the greater number of them in their anxiety pass sleepless nights.

Apuleius married a rich widow, then wrote _The Golden Ass_.

We are fascinated with our own history, and we are fascinated with the Romans because they were millennia ago, and yet they still capture our imagination because they were actually so similar to us. They were very civilized. They had a very similar political system.

The supreme nobility of a Roman emperor does not consist in being a master of slaves, but in being a lord of free men, who loves freedom even in those who serve him.

PLEBEIAN, n. An ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained nothing but his hands. Distinguished from the Patrician, who was a saturated solution.

That Rome was comparatively great and wealthy is certain.

Placetne, magistra?" "Placet.

If we could survive without a wife, citizens of Rome, all of us would do without that nuisance.

I know not why any one but a school boy in his declamation would whine over the Commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they were rich, grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves and of one another.

Nobody remembers who was the richest toga salesman in Rome.

Two things only the people actually desire: bread and circuses.

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.