Ac veluti magno in populo cum saepe coorta est Seditio, saevitque animis immobile vulgus(52),
and in his representation of 'the good King Ancus' as he is called by Ennius and Lucretius, among the unborn descendants of Aeneas, as
iactantior Ancus Nunc quoque iam nimium gaudens popularibus auris(53).
The encouragement and appreciation of the leaders of society involved on the part of the poets a position of deference or dependence; the relation between them had thus its limiting as well as its corrective effects; it tended to make literature tamer in spirit and thought, perhaps also less original in invention and more bounded in its range of human interest.
The great wealth and luxury of Rome, during the latter years of the Republic and the early years of the Empire, exercised also an influence on the life, the imagination, and the thoughts of the poets living in those times. Through commerce and conquest Rome had entered into the possession of the long accumulated wealth of the world, and, as generally happens in eras of advanced civilisation, the enjoyment of these was very unequally distributed. Nothing appears more remarkable in the social life of the latter days of the Republic than the great riches possessed and expended by a few individuals, such as Crassus, Hortensius, and the Luculli. One proof of the immense accumulation of money at that time is the large price which, as we learn from Cicero's letters, was paid for the houses of the leading men among the nobility. The number of villas possessed by Cicero himself, the son of a provincial Eques, and debarred by stringent laws (though probably they were evaded) from turning his pre-eminence as an advocate to profit, and the sums spent by him in their adornment, suggest to us to what an extent the soil of Italy, the works of Greek art, and the natural and artificial products of the East, were at the disposal of the ruling aristocracy of Rome. Still more is this thought forced on us when we think of Proconsuls and Propraetors who came home glutted with the spoils of their provinces, which they squandered in the coarsest luxury. The change to the Empire, though it put a considerable check on this kind of plunder, did little to distribute wealth more generally, or to limit luxurious living. The appropriation during the Civil Wars of the sacred treasures long accumulated in the temples of the gods(54), and the great stimulus given to commerce by the establishment of peace, added largely to the wealth available at Rome for purposes of munificence, of ostentation, or indulgence. But the largest share in the disposal of the wealth of the world had passed from the representatives of the old governing class to the ruling powers of the new Empire, and this change was decidedly for the public advantage. Augustus and his ministers possessed the old Greek virtue of { ~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH TONOS~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}, and understood that immense wealth could be better expended on great public objects than on beautifying their villas and fish-ponds, or giving a more dangerous variety to their entertainments. The policy of Augustus in restoring and building the temples of the gods had an artistic as well as a religious purpose. He wished to make his countrymen proud of the outward beauty of Rome, as Pericles had made the Athenians proud of the beauty of Athens.