Word: parvenus
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Dates: during 1960-1960
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...Parvenus & Lunatics. The earliest Romans, despite their reputation for solid, simple virtue, were "frippish" and "tinkled and gleamed with jewelry in every part of their bodies. . . If any of them did lead the simple life, it was for the same reason many of us have led it-they hadn't the money to do otherwise. Those who had. lived like lords." The lawgivers renowned for political genius were to "the Romans themselves a subject of hilarity and despair," and the empire "was run on a system of looting rendered merciful by corruption." The stalwart Roman soldiery took 121 years...
Rome, the city of grandiose ruins, was "erected by parvenus," new-rich "imperial lunatics" with no hint of classical restraint: "Whatever is classical is subtly proportioned. The proportions of a building such as the Colosseum are as subtle as those of a Greenland whale." As for the Renaissance, Rome and the Italians were impervious to it, says Menen, until the Arabians sparked "the rebirth of learning" by rediscovering mathematics and the great Greek texts. Italy's Renaissance princes kept scholars as show-off status symbols ("The scholars cost more than a dog, but not always more than a horse...