Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/74

 38 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE for fewer artificial amusements and intellectual diversions were available to him then. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die," summed up both precisely and completely the life of many an ancient. "Clothes," however, were also a very important matter to many, and the wearing of gems and purple linen, of chaplets and garlands, and the anointing of one's self with oil, pig- ments, aromatics, and unguents, seem to have provided a great source of satisfaction. As for health, medical practice was vastly inferior to that of our time, and was full of magic, and as a result disease was more rife. But outdoor life and the heartless practice of exposing unpromising infants per- haps exerted a counteracting influence in this respect. Society was, however, exceedingly susceptible to the ravages of plagues and pestilences. In estimating both ancient and medieval callousness to cruel customs like torture and gladiatorial combats we must take somewhat into account the fact that men were then more accustomed to physical pain, since they lacked many modern preventives, such as dentistry and anaesthetics. Nowhere can a better notion of the society of the Roman Empire be obtained than from the pages of Plutarch, who Plutarch's wrote his famous Lives of Illustrious Men and his classical ° f so-called Moral Essays about ioo a.d. The latter civilization [ s really a large collection of essays on the most miscellaneous topics, giving us many glimpses of ancient science, religion, superstition, manners, and morals. The same is true of the biographies, where he not only sets before us in pairs for comparison the great names in Greek and Roman history, and tells many facts for which we have nc other sources, but also recounts anecdotes, quotes from his favorite authors, often pauses to moralize and to supply us with precious detail concerning the civilization and customs of his own day as well as of the time of the man whose character and career he is unfolding. Plutarch himself was a cultured and humane man, who often could not approve of the deeds of the great men of the past, and who shows us the higher standards of morality and altruism that were