Abstract
The Romans saw luxury as the cause of moral corruption and political instability - of their decline. Morality and politics were much more closely linked than they are today, and the former was central to the identity of the Roman elite. A eulogy recounted by Pliny the Elder is particularly illustrative. In it, the deceased Lucius Metellus is adorned with ten virtues, some of which relate to the private and economic spheres : the fulfillment of the duties of a family man, from which derives great prestige, and the acquisition of great wealth in an honest manner. Wealth is not condemned for its own sake, as long as it differs from luxury, the cause of corruption from abroad. Indeed, for both Pliny(Natural History, 33.149) and Livy(Roman History, 39.6), luxury and decline come from the East ; for Sallustus, from the disappearance of a real adversary after the defeat of Carthage(Jugurtha, 41.2). The decadence of the present is contrasted with a fantasized past in which Romans were preserved from luxury, and virtue and self-control reigned. If the etymology of the term is anything to go by, the moral and political reasons for hostility to luxury are compounded by psychological control : luxus can be traced back to the adjective " luxé ", i.e. dislocated, but also, in rural parlance, to unruly vegetation that has grown crookedly. Thus, the individual desire for luxury distances the citizen from the social norm and, consequently, from the community.
We might then wonder about the viewpoint of Roman jurists, who, as " technicians of wealth ", might also have a conception of history in terms of growth and corruption. But the technicality of their writings rarely suggests a personal ideology. The perspective of their discourse is most often that of an internal legal reasoning to which external reality remains subordinate. To get a better idea of this possible subjective perception, a fragment by the jurist Paul(Opinions, 3.4.7) offers a moral analysis of the law of the Twelve Tables prohibiting prodigality insofar as it squanders family property and impoverishes relatives. The prodigal dissipates his possessions because of his depravity and vice and, by jeopardizing the chain of intergenerational succession, ultimately threatens the survival of the city. But other jurists, such as Pomponius and Celsus, are more neutral. The former, tracing the history of Rome, focuses on legal and institutional innovations and explains their transformations in terms of the city's financial and demographic growth (Pomponius, Enchiridion, D. 1.2.2.1). The second, questioning a testator's intention regarding a bequest of household utensils(suppellex) whose scope is difficult to identify in the light of changing mores, focuses on the definition of terms (Celsus, Book XIX of the Digestes, D. 33.10.7.pr). Celsus seems only interested in this new luxury from a technical point of view - it is more important to take into account the function of things than their material - and without making any moral judgment. It is only through his references to older jurists, Labeon and Tuberon, that a hint of nostalgia shines through Celsus' text.
