Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookto serve all their furmety in a dish of Tuscan earthenware: which you may envy, if you are at all that way inclined.[740] The majesty of temples also was more evidently near[741] to men, and a voice[742] heard about midnight and through the midst of the city, when the Gauls were coming from the shore of ocean, and the gods discharged the functions of a prophet, warned us of these. This was the care which Jupiter used to show for the affairs of Latium, when made of earthenware,[743] and as yet profaned by no gold. Those days saw tables made of wood grown at home and from our native trees.[744] To these uses was the timber applied, if the east wind had chanced to lay prostrate some old walnut-tree. But now the rich have no satisfaction in their dinner, the turbot and the venison lose their flavor, perfumes and roses seem to lose their smell, unless the broad circumference of the table is supported by a huge mass of ivory, and a tall leopard with wide-gaping jaws, made of those tusks, which the gate of Syene[745] transmits, and the active Moors, and the Indian of duskier hue than the Moor;[746] and which the huge beast has deposited in some Nabathæan[747] glen, as now grown too weighty and burdensome to his head: by this their appetite[748] is whetted: hence their stomach acquires its vigor. For a leg of a table made only of silver is to them what an iron ring on their finger would be: I therefore cautiously avoid a proud guest, who compares me with himself, and looks with scorn on my paltry estate. Consequently I do not possess a single ounce of ivory: neither my chess-board[749] nor my men are of this material; nay, the very handles of my knives are of bone. Yet my viands never become rank in flavor by these, nor does my pullet cut up the worse on that account. Nor yet will you see a carver, to whom the whole carving-school[750] ought to yield the palm, some pupil of the professor Trypherus, at whose house the hare, with the large sow's udders,[751] and the wild boar, and the roebuck,[752] and pheasants,[753] and the huge flamingo,[754] and the wild goat[755] of Gætulia, all forming a most splendid supper, though made of elm, are carved with the blunted knife, and resounds through the whole Suburra. My little fellow, who is a novice, and uneducated all his days, does not know how to take dexterously off a slice of roe, or the wing of a Guinea-hen;[756] only versed in the mysteries of carving the fragments of a small collop.[757] My slave, who is not gayly dressed, and only clad so as to protect him from cold, will hand you plebeian cups[758] bought for a few pence. He is no Phrygian or Lycian, or one purchased from the slave-dealer[759] and at great price. When you ask for any thing, ask in Latin. They have all the same style of dress; their hair close-cropped and straight, and only combed to-day on account of company. One is the son of a hardy shepherd, another of a neat-herd: he sighs after his mother, whom he has not seen for a long time, and pines for his hovel[760] and his playmate kids. A lad of ingenuous face, and ingenuous modesty; such as _those_ ought to be who are clothed in brilliant purple. He shall hand you wine[761] made on those very hills from which he himself comes, and under whose summit he has played; for the country of the wine and the attendant is one and the same. Gambling is disgraceful, and so is adultery, in men of moderate means. Yet when rich men commit all those abominations, they are called jovial, splendid fellows. Our banquet to-day will furnish far different amusements. The author of the Iliad[762] shall be recited, and the verses of high-sounding Mars, that render the palm doubtful. What matter is it with what voice such noble verses are read?[763] But now having put off all your cares, lay aside business, and allow yourself a pleasing respite, since you will have it in your power to be idle all day long. Let there be no mention of money out at interest. Nor if your wife is accustomed to go out at break of day and return at night, let her stir up your bile,[764] though you hold your tongue. Divest yourself at once of all that annoys you, at my threshold. Banish all thoughts of home and servants, and all that is broken and wasted[765] by them--especially forget ungrateful friends! Meantime, the spectacles of the Megalesian towel[766] grace the Idæan solemnity: and, like one in a triumph, the prey of horses, the prætor, sits: and, if I may say so without offense to the immense and overgrown crowd, the circus to-day incloses the whole of Rome;[767] and a din reaches my ears, from which I infer the success of the green faction.[768] For should it not win, you would see this city in mourning and amazement, as when the consuls were conquered in the dust[769] of Cannæ. Let young men be spectators of these, in whom shouting and bold betting, and sitting by a trim damsel is becoming. Let our skin,[770] which is wrinkled with age, imbibe the vernal sun and avoid the toga'd crowd. Even now, though it wants a whole hour to the sixth, you may go to the bath with unblushing brow. You could not do this for five successive days; because even of such a life as this there would be great weariness. It is a more moderate use[771] that enhances pleasures. FOOTNOTES: [685] _Atticus._ Put for any man of wealth and rank. So _Rutilus_ for the reverse. Cf. xiv., 18. [686] _Lautus._ Cf. Mart., xii., Ep. xlviii., 5. [687] _Apicius_ (cf. iv., 23), having spent "millies sestertium," upward of eight hundred thousand pounds, in luxury, destroyed himself through fear of want, though it appeared he had above eighty thousand pounds left. [688] _Convictus._ Properly, like convivium, "a dinner party." Cf. i., 145, "It nova nec tristis per cunctas fabula cœnas." Tac., Ann., xiv., 4; xiii., 14. [689] _Stationes_, "locus ubi otiosi in urbe degunt, et variis sermonibus tempus terunt." Plin., Ep. i., 13; ii, 9. [690] _Sufficiunt galeæ._ Cf. vii., 32, "Defluit ætas et pelagi patiens et cassidis atque ligonis." [691] _Cogente._ Cf. viii., 167, "Quanti sua funera vendunt Quid refert? vendunt nullo _cogente Nerone_. Nec dubitant celsi prætoris vendere ludis." [692] _Scripturus._ Suet., Jul., 26. Gladiators had to write out the rules and words of command of their trainers, "dictata," in order to learn them by heart. Lubinus gives us some of these: "attolle, declina, percute, urge, cæde." [693] _Macelli._ So called from μάκελλον, "an inclosure," because the markets, before dispersed in the Forum boarium, olitorium, piscarium, cupedinis, etc., were collected into one building; or, from one Romanius Macellus, whose house stood there, and was "propter latrocinia ejus publicè diruta." Vid. Donat. ad Ter., Eunuch., ii., sc. ii., 24, where he gives a list of the cupediarii, "cetarii, lanii, coqui, fartores, piscatores;" or á mactando; as the French "Abattoir." Cf. Sat., v., 95. Suet., Jul., 26. Plaut., Aul., II., viii., 3. Hor., i., Ep. xv., 31. [694] _P |