Revelation Now :
Daily Devotional Bible Studies in Revelation
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The Extravagant Luxury of Rome : Day 66 
When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. Terrified at her torment, they will stand far off and cry; "Woe! Woe, O great city, O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come!" (Revelation 18.9-10)
Rome's Wealth
Here we have the mourning song for Rome; the mourning song sung by the kings (1),. Again and again we hear of the greatness, the wealth and the wanton "luxury" of Rome.
There is a saying in the Talmud that ten measures of wealth came down into the world and that Rome received nine and all the rest of the world only one. One famous scholar said that in modern times we are babes in the matter of enjoyment compared with the ancient world; and another remarked that our most extravagant "luxury" is poverty compared with the prodigal magnificence of ancient Rome.
In this first century the world was pouring its "luxury" and riches into the lap of Rome. "The long peace, the safety of the seas, and the freedom of trade, had made Rome the entry way for the peculiar products and delicacies of every land from the British Channel to the Ganges" (2). "Merchandise is brought from every land and sea, everything that every season begets, and every country produces, the products of rivers and lakes, the arts of the Greeks and the barbarians, so that, if anyone were to wish to see all these things, he would either have to visit the whole inhabited world to see them or to visit Rome; so many great ships arrive from all over the world at every hour, at every season, that Rome is like some common factory of the world, for you may see such great cargoes from the Indies, or, if you wish, from the blessed Arabias, that you might well conjecture that the trees there have been stripped naked; clothing from Babylon, ornaments from the barbarian lands, everything flows to Rome; merchandise, cargoes, the products of the land, the emptying of the mines, the product of every art that is and has been, everything that is begotten and everything that grows. If there is anything you cannot see at Rome, then it is a thing which does not exist and which never existed." (3).
Fortunes Wasted
"Luxury" possessed and the money spent was colossal. One of Nero's freedman regarded a man with a fortune of $1,252,000 as a pauper. Apicius is said to have squandered a fortune of $2,000,000 in refined debauchery, and committed suicide when he had only $200,000 left because he could not live on such a pittance. In one day, Caligula squandered the revenues of three provinces amounting to$200,000 and in a single year spent $40,000,000. Nero declared that the only use of money was to squander it, and in a few years, he squandered $36,000,000. At one banquet of his, the Egyptian roses alone cost $70,000.
Reckless Extravagance
Of Caligula it is written, "In reckless luxury he outdid the prodigals of all times in ingenuity, inventing a new sort of baths and unnatural varieties of food and feasts; for he would bathe in hot or cold perfumed oils, drink pearls of great price dissolved in vinegar, and set before his guests loaves and meats of gold." (4). He even built galleys whose sterns were studded with pearls. Of Nero, Suetonius tells us that he compelled people to set before him banquets costing $40,000. "He never wore the same garment twice. He played at dice for $4,000 a point. He fished with a golden net drawn by cords woven of purple and scarlet threads. It is said that he never made a journey with less than a thousand carriages, with his mules shod with silver."
Drinking pearls dissolved in vinegar was a common ostentation of luxury. Cleopatra is said to have dissolved and drunk a pearl worth $160,000. Valerius Maximus at a feast set a pearl to drink before every guest, and he himself, Horace tells us, swallowed the pearl from Metalla's ear ring dissolved in wine that he might be able to say that he had swallowed a million sesterces at a gulp.
Extraordinary Gluttony
It was an age of extraordinary gluttony and luxury. Dishes of peacocks' brains and nightingales' tongues were set before the guests at banquets. Vitellius, who was emperor for less than a year, succeeded in spending $14,000,000 mainly on food. "In this he mingled the livers of pike, the brains of pheasants and peacocks, the tongues of flamingos, and the milk of lampreys, brought by his captains and triremes from the whole empire from Parthia to the Spanish strait" (5). At Trimalchio's banquet: "One course represented the twelve signs of the zodiac. . . . Another dish was a large boar, with baskets of sweetmeats hanging from its tusks. A huge bearded hunter pierced its side with a hunting knife, and forthwith from the wound there issued a flight of thrushes which were dexterously captured in nets as they flew about the room. Towards the end of the meal the guests were startled by strange sounds in the ceiling and a quaking of the whole apartment. As they raised their eyes the ceiling suddenly opened, and a great circular tray descended, with a figure of Priapus, bearing all sorts of fruit and bon-bons" (6).
In the time when John was writing, a kind of insanity of wanton extravagance and luxury, unparalleled in history, had invaded Rome.
Words to meditate on
Are we addicted to our own luxurious times? How do our lives reflect the holiness and righteousness of the poor carpenter of Nazareth?
Words to pray
"Just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me" (7)
Notes
(1) verses 9 and 10 (2) Dill (3) Aristides on the way in which things flowed into Rome (4) The Roman Suetonius, a pagan historian, describes his emperors (5) Suetonius tells of his favorite dish (6) Petronius (7)
"The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place."
