Wealth & Money Quote by Marcus V. Pollio

Caesar here is doing something more strategic than humblebragging: he is drawing a bright moral boundary around architecture as a public calling, not a cash machine. In a late Republican world where patronage, bribery, and prestige were tangled together, claiming you did not “amass wealth” from your art is a bid for credibility. It tells the audience, especially elite patrons, that your work can be trusted because it wasn’t extracted through flattery, shortcuts, or the quiet corruption that often rode along with big commissions.

The line pivots on an unusually modern-sounding tradeoff: “a small fortune and reputation” beats “abundance accompanied by a want of reputation.” Wealth is not condemned outright; it’s framed as acceptable only when it doesn’t poison the thing that actually lasts - esteem, and by extension, civic usefulness. That’s the subtext: reputation functions like a quality guarantee. If the architect is known to chase “abundance,” the buildings become suspect, the measurements negotiable, the materials cheapened, the safety of the public quietly risked.

Context matters: Roman architects and engineers operated inside a system of powerful patrons and monumental public projects where visibility was everything and accountability could be hazy. By insisting he preferred modest means with honor, Pollio signals a refusal to be merely an ornament-maker for the rich. It’s professional ethics packaged as self-portrait, a preemptive defense against accusations of opportunism, and a reminder that in an empire of stone and spectacle, integrity is also a construction material.