Realm of Indulgence: Leisure, Pleasure and Passions in Ancient Rome

Was the Roman Empire the mythical world of infinite pleasures, violent games, infinite gambling and unstoppable indulgence, or is there another side that we have not yet adequately explored?

In order to analyse the topic, we focus on researching various aspects of the Roman way of life, which may have seemed ordinary for the average citizen of Rome, but certainly had moments of excessive display, like the famous Saturnalia celebrations performed by Emperor Nero, who remained in the history books as a portrait of Rome, filled with lust.

Ray Laurence in his book “ Roman Passions: A History of Pleasure in Imperial Rome”, says that τhe Romans of the first century CE had access to a broader array of goods, tastes, scents, sights, colors, and possibly even sounds compared to those of the previous century.

The way these new items were engaged with, displayed, or used in social settings helped to establish them as a recognized repertoire of pleasure. Additionally, there was a sense that the appeal of these new or enhanced passions during the first century CE relied on their potential to be criticized by others.

To truly enjoy an activity during this time, one needed a moralist, often an older man, to condemn the actions of younger or older men who embraced these new trends favored by the youth.

Thus, the pursuit of pleasure became a rhetorical tool for attacking someone’s character, and in a society dominated by rhetoric, these new pleasures provided ample material for such critiques.