The Age of Wealth

The god of mammon makes his appearance on the historical scene. Selfishness, greed and vanity uproot the virtues of dedication, sacrifice and duty that were the norm in past ages. The civilizational decline that occurs in the age of affluence is further hastened by an increasing preoccupation with welfare. At the peak of rome's affluence, for example, between the rule of emperor augustus and emperor claudius, nearly one in three citizens were on the dole.