C., had we not some data
which go to prove the concentration of property, the disparity between
classes, and the depopulation of Italy within the same century as the
Gracchi. Cicero was not considered one of the richest men in Rome, yet he
possessed many villas, and he has himself told us that one of them cost
him 3,500,000 sesterces, about $147,000.[11] Cornelia, the mother of the
Gracchi, had a country residence in the vicinity of Micenum which cost[12]
75,000 drachmae ($14,000); Lucullus some years afterwards bought it for
500,200 drachmae ($100,040). According to Cicero,[13] Crassus had a fortune
of 100,000,000 sesterces ($4,200,000). This does not astonish us when we
see upon the _via Appia,_ near the ruins of the circus of Caracalla and but
a short distance from the Catacombs of St. Sebastian and the fountain of
Aegeria, the still important remains of the tomb of Caecilia Metella,
daughter of Metellus Creticus and wife of the tribune Crassus, as the
inscription testifies. It is a vast "funereal fortress" constructed of
precious marble, and which gives us the first example of the luxury
afterwards so common among the Romans.
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