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ON THEATRE AND CINEMA— UNIVERSAL
peculiar vices of this city (Tacitus speaks of Rome), a liking for actors and a passion for gladiators and horses, are all but conceived in the mother's womb'' (my italics). The analogy with our own historic situation is striking. Our children, as the later parts of this book will prove, are to a considerable extent 'movie-made'. Indeed, they are taken to the cinemas before they can walk.
This passage from Tacitus's dialogue is by no means an incidental remark of the great historian. In his Germania, which is perhaps less a factual description of early Teutonic tribal life than a Romantic Utopia for his Roman readers, Tacitus writes the significant sentence: Ergo saepta pudicitia agunt, nullis spectaculorum illecebris, nullis conviviorum irritationibus corruptae.1
We could fill many pages, if not a whole book, with similar quotations from Cicero, Livius, Plutarch, Polybius, and many other Roman classics, yet for the present purpose it may suffice to conclude with the following sentences which are taken from Augustine's De Civitate Dei: 'They do not trouble,' writes the Christian father, 'about the moral degradation of the Empire; all they ask is that it should be prosperous and secure. What concerns us, they say, is that every one should be able to increase his wealth so that he can afford a lavish expenditure and can keep the weaker in subjection. Let the poor serve the rich for the sake of their bellies and so that they can live in idleness under their protection, and let the rich use the poor as dependants and to enhance their prestige .... Let the laws protect the rights of property and leave men's morals alone (my italics). Let there be plenty of public prostitutes for whosoever wants them, above all for those who cannot afford to keep mistresses of their own. Let there be gorgeous palaces and sumptuous banquets, where anybody can play and drink and gorge himself and be dissipated by day or night, as much as he pleases or is able. Let the noise of dancing be everywhere, and let the theatres resound with lewd merriment and with every kind of cruel and vicious pleasure. Let the man who dislikes these pleasures be regarded as a public enemy, and if he tries to interfere with them, let the mob be free to hound him to death. But as for the rulers who devote themselves to giving the people a good time, let them be treated as gods and worshipped accordingly. Only let them take care that neither war nor plague nor any other calamity interfere with this reign of prosperity.'2
1 Germania, Chapter XIX.
2 Condensed from De Civitate Dei, II, XX; I have used Christopher Dawson's translation. Cf. his Enquiries into Religion and Culture, London 1934, p. 205 sq.
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