FOOD AND DRINK. HOW THE DAY IS SPENT. THE DINNER
=81. Romans Fond of the Table. Gourmandizing. The Famous
Apicius.=--Seldom can there be another age when the importance of
good eating and drinking occupies the place that it does in Rome.
Vast numbers of coarse-grained people devoid of the least ability to
criticize fine bronzes or to comprehend Homer or Virgil can go into
ecstasies over superior oysters. Epicurean philosophers can argue
that “the true, the beautiful and the good” are to be as genuinely
apprehended by the enjoyment of ravishing tastes as by ravishing music.
Gastronomy has become a kind of supreme science and art, and no slaves
sell for better prices than truly expert cooks.
Repeatedly huge fortunes have been ruined merely because their
possessors wished to surpass all rivals with the extravagant
refinements of gluttony. Since 69 A.D. and the coming to power
of the simpler Flavian Cæsars there has been a fortunate decline in
many absurdities, but there are still plenty of people who admire and
envy the fame of Apicius, the true example for the gourmand.
[Illustration: ROMAN BANQUET SCENE. _After Von
Falke._]
Marcus Apicius flourished in Tiberius’s age; and he developed a
positive genius for inventing new sources of culinary delight. Every
quarter of the Roman world was ransacked to find strange objects
whereon to whet his appetite. In Hadrian’s day people continue to
eat Apician cakes and Apician sauces, such as are described in his
encyclopædic cook books. But although he inherited a hundred million
sesterces ($4,000,000), at last his steward reported glumly, “You
have only ten million ($400,000) left.” How was it possible for a true
gourmand to exist in such poverty?--Apicius, therefore, committed
suicide rather than live on commonplace fare! Many will tell you that
he showed the right spirit and that his busts stand as a kind of
inspiration for dozens of rich epicures in their marble triclinia.
=82. Vitellius, the Imperial Glutton.=--One of Apicius’s disciples,
Vitellius, rose to Empire. In his brief reign (April-December 69 A.D.)
before Vespasian’s troops killed him, he taught his subjects how truly
a man can live to eat. He had trained himself by the constant use of
emetics to devour four heavy meals per day.[45] His senatorial friends,
obliged to invite him to their houses, never dared to offer him a
dinner costing less than 400,000 sesterces ($16,000). His brother gave
him a banquet at which were served “2000 choice fishes and 7000 birds”;
but he returned the favor by giving a feast at the imperial palace in
which he served his favorites with “The Shield of Minerva”--a kind of
salad-supreme made of “the livers of charfish, the brains of pheasants
and peacocks, the tongues of flamingoes, and the entrails of lampreys.”
Warships had been sent as far as the Ægean or Spain to round up some of
these viands. It was lucky for the treasury that his reign was a very
short one.
=83. Simple Diet of the Early Romans.=--And yet these worthies
gorged and guzzled in a city whose founders had been famous for their
abstemiousness. For many a generation even prosperous Romans had lived
very largely on coarse bread or even on a coarser wheat porridge
(_puls_). Wheat porridge was what supplied the brawn and courage
to the legionaries who brought to ruin Pyrrhus, Hannibal, Philip of
Macedon, and Antiochus. They were fortunate if their meal was not made
of barley, later counted as being barely fit for inferior slaves.
Even senators, we are told, were glad to pick a few green vegetables in
their gardens to help out the porridge. On feast days there would be a
little pork or bacon from the hanging rack, and if there was a public
sacrifice the worshipers might each take home a lump of beef. Such was
the dietary of the men who originally made possible the fortunes of an
Apicius, and as late as 174 B.C. there were no professional cooks in
Rome. Now, however, there are plenty of purple-fringed exquisites who
“can tell at first bite whether an oyster comes from Circeii, or the
Lucerine rocks or clear from Britain; or at one glance discover the
native shore of a sea-urchin.”
[Illustration: GRIST MILL TURNED BY HORSE AND FILLED AND
EMPTIED BY A SLAVE.]
=84. Bread and Vegetables.=--However, there are still multitudes
who have to be content with very simple fare, and for them bread in
some form is (as with all the Mediterranean peoples) very literally
“the staff of life.” In the great mansions there is, of course, a
bakehouse for the huge familia, but the bulk of people frequent the
numerous public bakeries, near which the mills driven by patient
donkeys or by less patient slaves are incessantly grinding flour.
The standard loaves are made very flat, of moderate size, and about
two inches thick, their backs often marked with six or eight notches.
There is a cheap bread of coarse grain (_panis sordidus_) for the
humblest; a second quality (_panis secundus_) for better class
purchasers, and also the very white and sweet _siligineus_. You ask for
“Picenian bread” if you want fine biscuit, and for _libæ_ if you desire
smaller rolls. At feasts there will be wonderful structures of pastry,
and by use of honey and chopped fruits sweet “cake” truly delectable
comes out of many ovens.
Vegetables and fruits can hardly play the part that they will in
later gastronomy: potatoes, tomatoes, oranges, lemons--all these are
grievously wanting. But there are admirable cabbages, “the finest
vegetable in the world,” declared Cato the Elder, and turnips, the
favorite dish of tough old Manius Curius, conqueror of the Samnites.
Around Rome, for many miles, are long stretches of profitable truck
gardens, which send an incessant supply of artichokes, asparagus,
beans, beets, cucumbers, lentils, melons, onions, peas, and pumpkins
into the city. A visitor to Rome should promptly accustom himself to
garlic; and there is a certain fashionable rusticity about garlic
eaters, as if they were trying to bring back the flavor and odor of
“the good old times.”
=85. Fruits, Olives, Grapes, and Spices.=--Italy, of course, is
an excellent fruit country. In the markets are apples, pears, plums,
and quinces, besides an abundance of very fine nuts, such as walnuts,
filberts, and almonds. Peaches, apricots, cherries, and pomegranates
are familiar, although some of these are rather late introductions to
the peninsula from the East. Of course, in season there never fail
magnificent olives and grapes which have abounded in Italy since time
immemorial.
A great demand exists, too, for all kinds of salad greens; cresses
and fine lettuce, also edible mallows. Poppy-seed mixed with honey is
a standard dish for desserts, and such seasonings as anise, fennel,
mint, and mustard can be bought in all the innumerable little grocery
shops scattered over Rome. In the larger foodshops can be had likewise
those Oriental spices in heavy demand by the epicures; and also very
costly imported fruits, often preserved with great ingenuity in an age
that knows not the use of canning processes, refrigerating plants, or
sugar.
=86. Meat and Poultry.=--The demand for meat has been steadily
increasing with the growth of luxury and economic prosperity. Butchers’
shops abound. Poor people buy goats’ flesh, which, however, is
completely disdained by the finical. Many citizens nevertheless never
taste beef or mutton except when it is distributed in the form of a
sacrifice at some of the great public festivals; and even for the rich
beef is not in extraordinary favor.
Pork, however, is always popular. The despised Jews never seem to the
Romans to show their national folly more clearly than in refusing to
eat thereof. Pork in all forms, especially bacon and pork sausages
figure in every important banquet; and up in the Apennines in the vast
acorn forests, uncounted herds of swine are always fattening to satisfy
the incessant demands of the great capital. Poultry is on the whole in
greater demand than meat.[46] Squawking coops of common fowl, ducks,
and geese are on sale at almost every street corner. There is also
good money in raising upon country preserves quantities of partridges,
thrushes, and grouse, and even of cranes. In Cicero’s day peacocks made
a very fashionable dish, and they are still in request, although losing
their old popularity. Hares, rabbits, venison are comparatively cheap,
and everybody with a price can buy wild boar at the better purveyors’
shops.
=87. Fish in Great Demand.=--Rome, however, somewhat resembles Athens
in one particular; the butcher shops are less important than the fish
dealers’ stalls.[47] Poor people eat salt fish or pickled fish, from
little sardines to slices of the big _cybium_, as forming frequently
the only break in an otherwise vegetarian diet. They also make up salt
fish with various vegetables and cheese into a kind of fishballs. A
man of income, however, is unhappy without his fresh fish daily. This
creates a serious and expensive problem for Rome. There are a few eels
and pike of good flavor caught right in the Tiber between the bridges,
but the great fish supply must be brought from a distance--often in
warm weather without aid of refrigerating plants. Frequently along
the road from Ostia, and very often down the Via Appia clear from
Puteoli can be seen large wagons tearing in hot haste. They bring not
government dispatches but fresh fish that will frequently command
absurd prices in the city.
Often all kinds of sea-food are transported still alive in small tanks;
and sometimes the distance whence they can be imported is astonishing.
The best turbots (large flat fish) come from Ravenna on the Adriatic.
Eels can be brought in good flavor from Sicily and even from Spain.
Gourmands go into ecstasies over oysters from Circeii or Baiæ, but of
late people wishing to astonish their fashionable friends have actually
claimed to import such shellfish from Britain. The real fish for the
epicure, notwithstanding, is by common confession the noble mullet. The
flavor of the best specimens is ravishing, and, for a truly large and
perfect mullet, the prices paid are astonishing. It is a common story
that a certain Crispinus, a satellite of Domitian’s, once gave 6000
sesterces ($240) for a single six-pound mullet; “More than the cost of
the slave-fisherman!” indignantly exclaimed the outraged Juvenal.
Many great nobles, however, disdain having to depend on the public
markets. At their seaside villas they have huge salt-water tanks and
artificial fishponds; therein mullet, turbot, carp, and eels can be
bred, fattened, and brought to perfection, and on the day of a feast a
slave will hurry them up to Rome still gasping.
=88. Olive Oil and Wine: Their Universal Use.=--Supplementing
the salt fish and bread, the poor of the capital, like all genuine
Mediterranean folk, seldom fail to get their oil and wine. Olives are
gladly eaten green, ripened, or preserved in great quantities with salt
or pickle, but their greatest value comes from their oil. To Rome as
to Athens olive oil is not merely food; it largely takes the place of
toilet soap, and it supplies also the most common illuminant (see “A
Day in Old Athens,” p. 177). It is a complete substitute for butter in
the average dietary, often making dry or moldy bread palatable, and as
earlier stated (p. 98), it is the basis for most of the ointments and
perfumery wherein the average citizen delights.
As for drink, practically every Roman has his wine. There are, indeed,
beverages made from wheat and barley, and also from fermented quince
juice, but for daily purposes beer and distilled liquors never appear
at Italian banquets. Cider is sometimes drunk, and a little so-called
“wine” made from mulberries; but the enormous vineyards existing in
every part of the country testify to the importance of ordinary grape
wine.
Vintners’ stalls are almost as common along the streets as bakeries.
The drink they sell in jars, skins, or small flagons is sometimes
decidedly resinous after the Greek fashion, and in any case is
extremely sour, so that a large admixture of honey is often required
to make the favorite sweet _mulsum_. In any case only sheer
barbarians will drink their wine undiluted, and really good wine can
stand as much as eight parts of water to one of itself without losing
too much flavor.
=89. Vintages and Varieties of Wine.=--There are as many varieties
of wine as there are regions around the Mediterranean. Each produces
a vintage that is tolerable, and some are highly select. Your average
poor plebeian can get a large jug of palatable stuff for a sesterce
(4 cents). The wealthy will think nothing of paying heavily for
_amphoræ_ (tall jars) of choice old Setinian (the best wine in
Italy), or for Falernian, Albanian, or Massic which count next among
the native vintages. If, however, you are giving a formal dinner
party, etiquette dictates that at least one imported drink should be
served. It makes an excellent impression to bring in Chian, Thasian, or
Lesbian from the Ægean, or even Mareotian from Egypt and the splendid
Chalybonium from Damascus, the delight of Oriental kings.
In summer time wines, of course, are drunk cold, and at luxurious
banquets they are even chilled with snow water. In winter, however,
you will often see a kind of bronze samovar, heated by charcoal, used
for preparing _calda_, warm water and wine, heavily charged with
spices; and at the cheap eating houses the calda counter is often
thronged, especially on chilly afternoons. Common soldiers, slaves, and
plebeians of the lowest class have a special beverage all their own,
namely _posca_, which is simply vinegar mixed with enough water to
make it palatable. It probably forms a really refreshing drink, if one
can acquire the taste for it.[48]
Time fails to tell of various rare vintages which are treasured by the
epicures as if worth their weight in gold. In 121 B.C. there
was a wonderful yield of wine called Vina Opimia from the then Consul
Opimius. By Hadrian’s day the last drops of this precious liquor have
long since disappeared, but men still discuss the traditions of its
nectarous flavor. In every great house the wine cellar retains a number
of web-covered and dirty glass jars carefully sealed with gypsum, and
with labels showing that they were laid away perhaps a hundred years
ago. As for the undesirability of wine-drinking, that idea has hardly
crossed any man’s head; and Horace in Augustus’s day voiced a universal
thought when he sang that good wine, “Made the wise confess their
secret lore; brought hope to anxious souls, and gave the poor strength
to lift up his horn.”
=90. Kitchens and the Niceties of Cookery.=--With such attention
to good eating and drinking a Roman kitchen necessarily requires
an elaborate equipment. Cook stoves there are none; but there are
extensive masonry or brick hearths. The charcoal fire heats the stones
until a broad surface is glowing and ready for remarkable culinary
achievements. The head cook in Calvus’s house rejoices in a great
battery of copper utensils often of truly elegant shape; and copper
ware (more expensive than tin, but far more durable) appears in every
Roman kitchen. There are pastry molds, dippers, ladles, great spoons,
little spoons, baking pans for small cakes, in short, everything to
delight the heart of the housewife of another age.
Nobody expects us to investigate rudely the peculiar dishes evolved in
the kitchen of a genuine gourmand. Cookery, the disciples of Apicius
aver, is not a common handicraft, but the noblest of sciences. Only a
thrice-initiated epicure, a man who has carefully trained his tongue
to discriminate the least shades of taste, and his fingers to endure
hot viands so that he may pluck out the morsels at precisely the proper
temperature, can appreciate many of the refinements.
Calvus laughs, indeed, at a friend of his who lately insisted on
serving “a wild boar from Lucania caught when the South wind was
blowing,” with “honey apples picked under a waning moon,” and
“lampreys caught just before spawning.” Such people will also explain
dogmatically that “eggs of oblong shape have better flavor than round
ones;” and that “after drinking wine the appetite is better stimulated
by dried ham than by boiled sausage,” or that “it spoils the flavor of
Massic wine to strain it through linen; but you can clear it by mixing
with the lees of Falernian and then adding the yolk of a pigeon’s
egg.”[49] A new dish coming loyally into favor is that to which Hadrian
is personally so partial--a huge meat pie wherein pheasant, peacock,
sow’s udder, and wild-boar flesh are all baked up together.
Needless to say many coarse fellows who boast themselves “epicures”
really are merely gluttons. Their appetites have become simply animal.
Rome has plenty of twin-brothers to that Santra derided by Martial, who
at a banquet “asked three times for boar’s neck, four times for the
loin, then for hare, thrushes, and oysters.” After that he bolted sweet
cakes, and finally devoid of all decency hid some fruit and a cooked
dove in the folds of his gown and sneaked home with a small jar of wine!
=91. A Roman Gentleman’s Morning: Breakfast (_jentaculum_) and the
Visit to the Forum.=--However, even gluttons like Santra spend all the
earlier part of the day under conditions of relative abstemiousness.
Romans never eat three hearty meals a day; they merely stay their
stomachs until dinner, the event they ordinarily look forward to from
early morning. In Calvus’s house everybody is supposed to rise at gray
dawn. Just as the first bars of light are making darkness visible a
_decuria_ (squad of ten) of slaves under a chamberlain (_atriensis_)
brushes down the atrium and peristylium before the master and mistress
rise and are dressed by their body servants. As promptly as possible
these noble folk are served, often in their chambers, with their
breakfast, the _jentaculum_--merely a few pieces of fine bread,
sprinkled with salt or dipped in wine, and with a few raisins and
olives, and a little cheese added. If Calvus is now expecting to go
on a journey or to put in a hard day debating in the Senate, he may
however call for some eggs and a cup of heartening mulsum.
After that, the clients are let into the atrium, greet their patron
with their _aves_, receive his counter greetings, and get their
money doles for service (see p. 150). Next, upon an ordinary day,
Calvus calls for one of his second-best togas, and issues forth. If the
Senate is convening, he, of course, seeks the Curia. If not, he will
often visit his banker upon the Via Sacra to talk over investments,
will call at the mansion of a sick friend, will go to witness a will
for another friend (a very familiar ceremony), or will go to one of the
Basilicas, where still another friend is arguing a case, and expects
all his best acquaintance--the more distinguished the better--to sit
near him and applaud as he makes his points. During all these rounds
Calvus is, of course, followed by some two dozen clients and freedmen
as well as by at least as many slaves.
=92. The Afternoon and Dinner-Time. Importance of the Dinner
(_cena_).=--After that it is near the sixth hour (12 M.). All over
Rome work ceases almost automatically; the poorer classes make for
the cook shops or itinerant food venders; while people of rank either
go home or accept the hospitality of friends for the mid-day lunch,
the _prandium_. This is a real meal, although taken as informally as
possible. The food is mostly cold,--bread, salads, olives, cheeses, and
meats remaining from last night’s dinner; although sometimes there are
hot dishes, such as hams and pigs’ heads, and a good deal of common
wine is drunk.
During the next hour everybody who can possibly spare the time takes
a short siesta. Rome, in fact, in summer seems to have gone to sleep
under the glaring sun. Then for the humbler folk toil resumes;
while the fortunate classes make for the great baths where, indeed,
under the guise of sociability a great deal of real business can be
transacted. By the ninth hour (3. P.M.) Calvus and Gratia
alike have usually finished all the formal duties for the day and are
being escorted homeward preparatory to the standard climax of every
four-and-twenty hours--the dinner.
The dinner (_cena_) is always eaten at home or at the house of
some friend. It is so strictly personal an affair that there are
almost no first-class, handsomely appointed, public restaurants in
Rome, although there is a superabundance of cheaper eating houses,
yet many of these close up during the afternoon. There are almost no
other evening entertainments--no receptions, no balls, no theaters,
no concerts.[50] But Italians in every age have been a sociable,
talk-loving, gregarious people, and the dinner seems to many of them
apparently the “be all and end all” of existence.
=93. Dinner Hunters and Parasites (“Shadows”).=--Wealthy and popular
personages never have to bother about the dinner problem; every
night they can invite whom they desire, or be sure of a summons to a
congenial board. Plenty of substantial citizens are willing and happy
to join in a simple family meal in the good old style, the master
reclining on a couch, with his wife in a somewhat more conventional
attitude beside him, the younger children sitting on a lower couch, the
freedmen and more important slaves arranged on benches at a respectful
distance.
The city nevertheless abounds in shabby-genteel individuals or social
climbers who are miserable every afternoon because some senator or an
eques does not tell them, “Come home to dinner!” For example, there
is a certain ubiquitous Selius. He hangs about the law courts, and
if a pleader is rich and noble, is always interrupting with a loud
“Excellent!” or “How clever!” Some afternoons, however, he is seen
dragging about, “the picture of misery.” Has his wife just died or his
steward embezzled? Not so. He “must dine alone at home.” Thus there
develops a type of high-class parasites, “_shadows_,” men of thick
hide and nimble wit who snap at every possible excuse for thrusting
into a dinner party, and who are willing to pay for the least honored
place on the couches by becoming the butts of the jests, or by bringing
laughter on themselves by such feats as swallowing whole cheese cakes
at a mouthful.
=94. The Standard Dinner Party--Nine Guests.=--In Athens in other
days a delightful informality prevailed at banquets. The number of
guests was seldom fixed, and it was quite proper to intrude two or
three more at the last minute. Romans are more grave, methodical, and,
be it said, more commonplace. The standard size for a dinner party is
determined by an almost inflexible custom--nine. Three couches, three
guests to a couch;--that number can concentrate around a single set of
serving tables, and let everybody mingle easily in the conversation.
Of course, you can get along with fewer guests, but it is the height
of meanness to have more than three to a couch. For a larger affair
one must therefore have two or three or more triclinia,--eighteen or
twenty-seven guests, etc. Unlike Athens, however, it is perfectly
proper to invite high-born ladies to mixed dinner parties, although
not to the free and easy drinking bouts that sometimes follow; and
the women apparently recline on the couches with perfect decorum and
modesty. Nevertheless, “stag” parties are extremely common, and one
such, of a very conventional nature, Calvus gave recently in honor of a
friend, Manlius, who was just departing as _proquæstor_ (assistant
governor) of Africa.
=95. Preparing the Dinner and Mustering the Guests.=--The guests
were invited by personal greetings at the Forum or Baths of Trajan
except one who had to be summoned by slave messenger at his home.
However two places on the couches have been left vacant deliberately
to let Manlius invite any two acquaintances he desired--a frequent
prerogative of the guest of honor. The dinner was to be a strictly
decorous affair, and, therefore, it did not begin before the tenth hour
(4 P.M.). If Calvus had desired a carouse, he might have begun
at 3 P.M. in order to get plenty of leeway for a long riotous
evening; but “early dinners” are ordinarily as great a reproach in Rome
as “late dinners” will be later.
During the morning while the master-cook was tyrannizing over his
scullions in the kitchen, and evolving various triumphs in pastry, the
chamberlain, an upper-slave, was standing whip in hand over a whole
platoon of lower slaves, giving orders like a centurion: “Sweep and
scrub the pavement!” “Polish up those pillars!” “Down with all those
spider webs!” “One of you clean the plain silver ware, and another
the embossed dishes!” The whole mansion, therefore, was furbished up
thoroughly, for a few signs of dirt before dinner guests is the most
disgraceful of shortcomings.
By the tenth hour the triclinium was in perfect order. The three
elegant sofas with purple cushions embroidered with gold thread were
arranged around the finest citrus-wood table. Small pillows were
laid upon the cushions to mark the positions of the feasters and for
them to thrust under their elbows as they lay and ate. Presently the
street before the vestibule became jammed with the retinues of the
eight guests as each swung up in his litter. Calvus greeted each of
the invited friends in the atrium, while the bulk of their escorts
turned back home to return again with torches when the party should be
over; but each guest was followed into the house by his own special
valet, who took off his shoes as soon as he stretched himself out upon
the couch, and then stood by to help Calvus’s servants serve his own
master. The triclinium was thus a decidedly crowded place, with eight
strange slaves present, besides a mobilization of all the handsomest
and most efficient of the house servants.
=96. Arrangement of the Couches: Placing the Guests.=--The guests were
each in the gay _synthesis_ or other gala costume, and quite in the
mood to obey the grave _nomenclater_, a handsome and experienced slave
of the host who pointed out to each his place on the couches. This
location of feasters, however, was an extremely solemn business. How
many social feuds have been created by blunders concerning it! Nay,
if the guest chances to be a public character, a certain position is
really a matter of legal right to many dignitaries and its refusal
possibly can give matter for a lawsuit.[51] The three couches were set
around three sides of the table, the fourth being left open for the
service. Approaching from the open side that couch to the right was
reckoned the first (_summus_), then the middle one opposite (_medius_),
then the one on the left (_imus_).
The best place of all was reckoned to be the third position on the
middle couch “The Consul’s Post,”[52] and here, of course, Manlius
was consigned. Calvus by custom took the host’s place, on the third
couch, but nearest the guest of honor. The distribution of the other
places was a matter for great discrimination, but peace was kept by
placing the two African gentlemen whom Manlius brought, upon the middle
couch beside him, and setting the young eques Nepos (the junior of the
company) at the outer end of the third couch. All nine, therefore,
spread themselves out unconventionally and chattered about the newest
jockeys in the circus, while a troupe of slave-boys, half-stripped
but pomaded and curled, passed around silver bowls of water and fine
towels for washing and wiping the hands.[53] This ceremony happily
accomplished, a tall upper slave magnificently arrayed nodded from the
doorway to Calvus that the cook had declared himself ready, and Calvus
nodded back his approval. The dinner could begin.
[Illustration: NINE GUESTS IN A TRICLINIUM.]
=97. Serving the Dinner.=--The giver of this feast only desired
a grave and conventional dinner for sedate people, and a strictly
normal order was followed without epicurean niceties or a low revel
as a climax. No tablecloths; the serving boys running to and from
the kitchen set on the beautiful polished surface of the table before
the guests first a preliminary course, the _gustatio_, supposed
to stimulate the appetite. On silver dishes were served some choice
crabs, salads, mushrooms, and also eggs. The guests ate these without
forks, dexterously picking up the food in their fingers. The handsomely
embossed silver cups were handed about filled with sweet mulsum
properly diluted in order not to befuddle the intellect; after that
followed the formal dinner itself.
[Illustration: ROMAN SERVING FORKS.]
At really elaborate feasts there would be six or even seven courses,
but Calvus had merely ordered the orthodox number of three--a
succession of daintily cooked meats and fish tastily garnished with
vegetables, but with no rarities such as heathcock from Phrygia or
sturgeon from Rhodes. The honor of the house, however, required that
every viand should be arranged carefully on its dish, and every dish
upon its tray by a special slave, the _structor_, a true artist, who
also acted as master carver, cutting up a roast of boar with his knife
keeping time to a flute-player. The mere fact, however, that one man
was allowed both to arrange the dishes and then to do the carving was a
sign that Calvus was among the less ostentatious senators.
Between each course water and towels were again passed about, and the
guests washed their hands. Finally for dessert there was brought on
a great quantity of curious pastry--artificial oysters and thrushes
filled with dried grapes and almonds; and a great dish whereon stood
an image, made of baked dough, of the orchard god Vertumnus, holding a
pastry apron full of fruits, while heaped around his feet were sweet
quinces stuck full of almonds, and melons cut into fantastic shapes.[54]
[Illustration: DRINKING CUP.]
=98. The Drinking Bout (_Comissatio_) after the Dinner.=--This
concluded the regular dinner, but Calvus had invited his friends (since
Manlius had much to talk about) to stay to a _comissatio_, a social
drinking spell afterwards. The nine guests rose and adjourned to the
host’s private baths, whence, after they had refreshed themselves and
taken a turn around the colonnades in the peristylium, they returned to
the triclinium to find that the slaves had changed all the couch covers
and pillows, had swept the floor, and had actually brought in new
tables. It was now quite dark, beautiful silver lamps gleamed on high
against the fretwork of the ceiling and on the tall inlaid sideboard
stood two great silver tankards; one was filled with snow;[55] the
other had a charcoal brazier beneath it and steamed with hot water.
If Calvus’s party had now been composed of younger merrymakers, some
one would have called out, “Let’s drink in the ‘Greek style’ and elect
a king”; and everybody would have joined in throwing dice to select
the _rex_, or lord of the revels. That potentate would have been
obligated to decide how much water was to be mixed with the wine, and
how many cups must be drunk to the health of each feaster’s lady love,
and to arrange the forfeits, riddles, and practical jokes inseparable
from a jolly evening. If the party had been still more uproarious,
Spanish dancing girls might have been provided by the host, or a corps
of pantomimes, acrobats, or farce players, and the whole scene could
have ended in a very coarse orgy.
In the present case Calvus had decided to let his friends merely drink
enough to loosen their tongues and to exchange their best wit and
wisdom. The slaves, therefore, brought in with decent solemnity the
little images of the family lares, and a small smoking brazier, and
Calvus cast a trifle of meal and salt and a few drops of wine upon
the fire. “The gods are propitious!” announced a slave in loud voice,
after which the guests preserved a reverent silence for an instant, to
be followed by vigorous conversation the moment the divine images were
carried out.
=99. Distribution of Garlands and Perfumes. Social
Conversation.=--While one corps of slaves was passing about the wine,
asking each guest whether “Hot?” or “Cold?” others were distributing
wreaths of fragrant flowers, to put on the forehead and even around
the neck (by their odor supposedly preventing drunkenness) and also
little alabaster vials of choice perfumes which the guests immediately
broke and poured upon their hands and hair. Then followed long
conversations, grave or gay according to the mood. Calvus had not
provided any professional entertainers, but all through the drinking
a good flute-player and a good harpist hid behind a curtain kept up a
soft pleasing melody.
While Manlius and the older guests discussed the control of the Moorish
tribes of Numidia, young Nepos and one or two others found much to say
about a new “Thracian” who had just fought at the Flavian Amphitheater,
and presently all the others pressed the host (knowing him to be a
little vain on the subject) to show some new moves in “robbers”
(_latrunculi_, a board game with men extremely like checkers) which he
had evolved with peculiar pride. It would have been good form also to
have played at making impromptu verses, or at matching riddles, but
for a Roman gentleman to indulge in anything like singing a song, even
before a group of friends, would have been undignified; Nero possibly
shocked public opinion even more by appearing openly as a common
theater performer than he did by killing his mother!
At last the evening ended. It was only 8 o’clock by later reckoning;
but everybody had to be up again by gray dawn. The streets were already
dark and deserted save by prowlers and the police-watch. “My shoes,
boy,” called Manlius to his valet. All the other guests imitated him,
and already their retinues with slaves and torches were crowding in the
vestibule. The eight diners departed after thanking Calvus. The slaves
cleared out the triclinium, and quenched the lights. Soon the whole
domus was asleep.
=100. Elaborate and Vulgar Banquets. Simple Home Dinners.=--Such
was a very decorous and ordinary dinner. It could easily have run
off to greater follies and vastly greater magnificence, useless to
describe. Space lacks, also, to describe the magnificent imperial
banquets at the palace when all the gold, glitter, and luxury of the
capital is on display. Calvus is no great philosopher, or he might have
followed the mode and insisted upon his guests conversing solely about
the “Stoic Conception of Duty”; or the “Immortality of the Soul.”
A host of another type might have imitated certain very mean patrons
who would invite poor clients to fill up the triclinium and then
deliberately serve them with cheap wine and coarse scrappy food,
while the best was being set before himself and the guests of honor.
Such great men were also equal to pettiness of stationing special
slaves behind each less-favored guest to watch lest the latter
should with his finger nails pick out the gems set in the drinking
cups. Pliny the Younger has already recorded his emphatic opinion of
noblemen who will not serve dependents with as good fare as they get
themselves,--declaring that if the host _must_ economize, he should eat
and drink nothing better that night than what he gives his clients and
freedmen.
Of course, many an evening meal is far simpler than the one just
described. If the triclinium is not full, Calvus and Gratia may
sometimes offer their near acquaintances merely “some lettuce, three
snails, two eggs, spelt mixed with honey and snow, olives from Spain,
cucumbers, onions, and a few like delicacies.” Old Roman simplicity
still--but every dish will be perfect of its kind, and the cookery
excellent; and even the modest Calvi are none too fond of this diet
praised by the philosophers. Rome is not merely the mistress of the
world, she is the citadel of the gourmands.