_scissor_ (carver) cut up the meats to the sound of musical instruments,
of which he followed the measure. Finally, young slaves
(_procillatores_),[XXXIII-21] served the guests attentively, and poured
out their drink. Those chosen for this employment were fine, beardless,
adolescent youths, with a fresh complexion, whose long silky hair fell
in curls over the shoulders. A wide riband which went twice round the
waist confined their fine, white tunic--a light, graceful vestment,
which descended in front to the knees, and behind hardly covered the
hamstring.[XXXIII-22]
While the guests, softly reclining on their table-couches, were enjoying
the agreeable surprise reserved for them by an amiable amphitryon,
slaves (_sandaligeruli_) attended to their sandals, and fastened them on
at the moment of departure.[XXXIII-23] Others, (_flabellarii_) armed
with fans of peacocks’ feathers,[XXXIII-24] drove away the flies, and
cooled the banqueting-hall.[XXXIII-25]
The banquet terminated, servants with torches and lanterns
(_adversitores_) conducted their masters home, and pointed out to them
the stones that might be lying in their path, and which repeated
libations might have prevented their visual organs from
discovering.[XXXIII-26]
We must not omit, in this nomenclature of the principal servants of a
good house, the taster (_prægustator_), who tasted or tried the viands
before the guests touched them;[XXXIII-27] nor the chief steward
(_triclinarches_), and director of the repast, who had to occupy himself
with an infinity of details in the kitchen, the cellar, the pantry, the
buffet, and the dining-room.[XXXIII-28]
A living synthesis of these multiplied services, he performed them all
himself. The least negligence, the slightest absence of mind on his
part, would have ruined the reputation, utterly marred the sumptuous
hospitality, of his master.
Never did the general of an army tremble under the weight of a
responsibility so redoubtable.
_Procillatores_, or cup-bearer, an officer whose duty was to fill and
present the cup to the king and princes. This charge was known in Egypt,
and the ancients transformed Ganymede into a cup-bearer to the gods.
Charlemagne had master cup-bearers. These officers signed royal
charters, and kept rank amongst the great officers of state. The head
one took the title of _Echanson_ to the king, of master, premier, or
great _échanson_. In the 15th century the _échansons_ exercised their
functions only on the coronations, marriages, and entries of kings and
queens. Louis XVIII. re-established the office of _premier échanson_. It
was abolished in 1830.
There was, moreover, a class of miserable, obscure, despised slaves,
whose useful labours rendered them necessary, and who were treated much
the same as beasts of burden. This order of subaltern servants were
composed of:--
The _lecticarii_. They carried the elegant palanquin in which the
haughty matron or the noble senator were conveyed to the
banqueting-hall.[XXXIII-29]
The stokers (_focarii_), who cut the wood, lighted, and attended to the
fires.[XXXIII-30]
The sweepers (_scoparii_), whose indefatigable activity kept the
apartments and furniture clean.[XXXIII-31]
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE No. XXVIII.
No. 1. Procillatores, or _Echanson_, from a painting at
Herculaneum.
No. 2. Triclinium, from a sculpture at Pompeii.
[Illustration: TRICLINIUM.]
[Illustration: PROCILLATORES.]
The washers (_peniculi_). With a sponge and a cloth they cleaned the
precious tables which adorned the _cœnaculum_, or dining-room.
Sometimes, also, they had to lay the covers.[XXXIII-32]
This rapid sketch will enable the reader to form a sufficiently correct
idea of the comfort and luxury which prevailed among the Romans, and of
which the Greeks set them the example. It is hardly necessary to remark
that the cup-bearers, stewards, carvers, and other household officers,
whose names belong to modern Europe, perform functions analogous to
those which similar servants performed formerly in Italy. But these last
were debased by the stigma of slavery, and degraded by long habit,
whilst the others were citizens.
XXXIV.
THE GUESTS.
The Jews and the Egyptians washed the feet of the persons whom they
received into their houses, and offered them larger portions as a mark
of greater honour.[XXXIV-1] These homely and hospitable usages have
disappeared with the simplicity of the primitive ages.
The Greeks required their guests to arrive neither too soon nor too
late. It was a rule of politeness from which nothing could exempt
them,[XXXIV-2] and which we ourselves observe at this day.
In the Homeric ages each one received his share of meat and
wine,[XXXIV-3] and the man who at that epoch piqued himself on his
knowledge of the science of life, never failed to offer his neighbour a
part of his dinner. So Ulysses gives Demodochus one-half of the “chine
of beef” with which he is served.[XXXIV-4] It is true that the King of
Ithaca was regarded as a perfect model of complaisance and delicacy.
Another custom (adopted it is said only in the modern taverns and
dining-rooms) was that of warming the remains of a preceding banquet for
other guests.[XXXIV-5] It must have constituted very poor fare, for the
Greeks were remarkable for a formidable appetite, and their repasts were
prolonged indefinitely. The banquet of Menelaus, noticed by Athenæus, is
a proof of it. They eat at first without speaking, and after prodigies
of mastication they began to discourse. Then, having washed their hands,
face, and beard, a fresh attack was commenced, more formidable than the
first; and when the ardour and energy of the assailants seemed to be
exhausted, they hardly took time to breathe ere they fell on the viands
with renewed avidity. Nothing resisted them; the dishes were cleared;
only a few bones remained to certify their achievement.[XXXIV-6] A
saddening, unsatisfactory trophy for future guests.
Archestrates, whose gastronomic axioms we cannot respect too much, was
averse to large dinner parties. Three or four persons--five at
most--chosen with care, assembled with taste, appeared to him
sufficient[XXXIV-7] for those solemnities in which silence was to be
maintained so long, under pain, said Montmaur, of no longer knowing what
one eats.
The Lacedæmonians admitted as many as fifteen guests, but they elected a
king of the banquet, and that ephemeral autocrat decided without appeal
all questions which might have compromised the tranquillity of the
banquet.[XXXIV-8]
Greater numbers met together in Athens. Plato gave a supper to
twenty-eight of his friends.[XXXIV-9] Hundreds of citizens often met
together at the public repasts; but then a magistrate was deputed to see
that modesty, moderation, and temperance were observed.[XXXIV-10]
The Romans understood that it is at table that one lives; so they gave
those whom they invited the name of _conviva_ (_cum vivere_, living
conjointly), a charming type of that easy, gentle cordiality which
arises, is fortified, and displayed between those who partake of the
same dishes, drain in friendship cups of the same wine, and separate
with the hope of soon seeing a return of the same pleasures.
People were very polite in Rome, as in Greece, when they met in the
dining-room. Never did they fail to make a low bow.[XXXIV-11] This act
of Roman courtesy recalls a very pretty expression of Fontenelle’s,
which we cannot refrain from citing. This grand nephew of the great
Corneille passed, on his way to the table, before Madame Helvétius, whom
he had not perceived. Fontenelle was then ninety years of age. “See,”
said she, “what esteem I must have for your gallantry: you pass before
me without looking at me.” “Be not surprised, Madam,” replied the old
gallant; “if I had looked at you I should never have passed.”
In the year of Rome 570 (182 B.C.), the tribune of the people, C.
Orchius, was the prime mover of the first sumptuary law, which enacted
that the number of guests were not to exceed that of the Muses, nor be
less than that of the Graces.[XXXIV-12] Subsequently seven were thought
to be sufficient, and some insisted that when there were more the
banquet ought rather to be called a rout.[XXXIV-13]
In the year of Rome 548, the Consul C. Fannius carried a law (_Lex
Fannia_) which prohibited the assembling of more than three persons of
the same family on ordinary days, or more than five at the nones, or on
festival days.[XXXIV-14] This rigorous measure was pressingly solicited
by the rational portion of every order of citizens, who could not
witness without a shudder the whole of Italy plunge into the most
brutifying excesses, after obscene orgies which we dare not
describe.[XXXIV-15]
But who could dissipate that fearful bewilderment with which nations
seem to be seized when they are about to fall? Rome blushed for her
ancient virtues, and veiled them with dissolution and crimes. She had
exhausted all the prodigies that the genius of debauchery could
invent--she created monsters!
Ruinous banquets soon revived, and the number of guests had no other
rule than the unbridled desire of ostentation and expense.
Let us not forget those miserable parasites who managed to get to the
corner of a table in Greece and Italy, and to whom meagre portions were
conceded as a reward for cringing servility, such as the vilest slave
would have been ashamed to exhibit. There were three kinds of parasites.
Some, under the name of buffoons, amused the company with their
grotesque attitudes and ridiculous sayings.[XXXIV-16] Others allowed
their ears to be boxed, and suffered a thousand different torments,
provided a piece of meat or a bone were afterwards thrown to them. These
patient sufferers[XXXIV-17] diverted the Greeks and Romans very much.
The adulatory parasites were the most skilful of these hungry parias.
They were well treated and almost respected. They were persons who
possessed a kind of merit which was always equally appreciated, and to
which we still render justice--they flattered whosoever gave them a
supper.[XXXIV-18]
An energetic, familiar expression in French often replaces the word
_parasite_, transmitted to us by the Greeks and Romans: that expression,
which conveys the same idea, is _pique-assiette_, an image necessarily
associated with disdain and insult.
The Count de Gerval had invited to his table several persons of high
distinction, among whom was remarked one of those intruders who find
means to get themselves received, notwithstanding the profound contempt
they inspire. The dessert was just served, and a magnificent pear
attracted the attention of the parasite, who endeavoured to bear it off
on the point of his knife, but, in so doing, he broke a valuable plate.
“The deuce take it, sir,” said the master of the house; “_piquez
l’assiette_ as long as you like, but don’t break it!”
The guests always washed their hands, and frequently their feet, before
they placed themselves on the triclinium.[B][XXXIV-19] They received
that custom from the orientals, and we find numerous examples of it in
the Old and New Testaments.[XXXIV-20] Perfumes were then poured on their
heads,[XXXIV-21] as among the Jews,[XXXIV-22] and wreaths of flowers
were offered them.[XXXIV-23]
It was at this solemn moment that the guests turned their attention to
the election of the king of the banquet, whose grave functions consisted
in regulating the number of cups that each one was expected to empty
during the repast.[XXXIV-24]
Among the Anglo-Saxons, he who wished to drink asked the nearest person
to pledge him. The latter replied affirmatively, and immediately armed
himself with his knife or his sword to protect the other while he
emptied his cup. The death of Edward the Martyr, it is said, gave rise
to this custom. Elfrida, his mother-in-law, caused him to be basely
assassinated from behind whilst he was drinking.[XXXIV-25]
“The following,” says Strutt, “according to ancient historians, is the
manner in which Rowena, daughter or niece of Hengist, drank to the
health of Vortigern, King of the Britons. She entered the
banqueting-hall where the prince was with his guests, and, making a low
curtsey, she said: ‘To your health, my lord and king.’ Then, having put
the cup to her lips, she presented it on her knees to Vortigern, who
took it and emptied it, after having replied: ‘I drink to your
health.’ ”[XXXIV-26]
We find in the works of Pasquier an affecting anecdote of the
unfortunate Queen of Scotland, Mary Stuart: “On the eve of her death,”
says he, “towards the end of the supper, she drank to all her
attendants, commanding them to pledge her; the which obeying, and
mingling their tears with their wine, they drank to their mistress.”
Divers spectacles, of which we shall have occasion to speak hereafter,
occupied the leisure of the guests during the interval necessary to
remove the remains of one course and serve the next. These
representations and amusements, of which they never tired in the middle
ages, received from our ancestors, in France, the name of _entre-mets_;
a designation much more true and just than the modern acceptation
imposed on the word--anything served between the roast and the dessert.
The _entre-mets_ were interludes, pantomimes, concerts, and even
melodramas performed between each course. So that a piece which in our
days attracts crowds to one or other of the theatres, would have been
then a little _entre-met_, or a cold side-dish (_hors-d’œuvre_).
In 1287, at the marriage of Robert, son of Saint-Louis, with Machault,
Countess of Artois, very singular spectacles were given between each
course of the banquet. A horseman crossed the hall by making his horse
walk on a thick cord, extended above the heads of the guests. At the
four corners of the table were musicians seated on oxen; and monkeys,
mounted on goats, seemed to play the harp.[XXXIV-27]
A droll custom prevailed at the court of the Frank kings. St. Germier
having come to solicit some favour from the King of the Franks, Clovis,
that haughty Sicamber received the bishop with kindness, and had an
excellent dinner served for him. The holy bishop took leave of the king
after the banquet, and the king, who sometimes piqued himself upon his
politeness, pulled out a hair, according to the custom of the time, and
offered it to his guest. Each of the courtiers hastened, in his turn, to
imitate the benevolent monarch, and the virtuous prelate returned to his
diocese enchanted with the reception he had met with at the
court.[XXXIV-28]
Among other amusements prepared for Queen Elizabeth, during her sojourn
at the celebrated castle of Kenilworth, “There was,” says Laneham, “an
Italian juggler who performed feats of strength and leaps, and cut such
capers with so much suppleness and ease, that I began to ask myself
whether it were a man or a sprite. Indeed I know not what to say of that
comical fellow,” adds the artless chronicler; “I suppose his back must
resemble that of a lamprey--it had no bone.”[XXXIV-29]
In England, during the middle ages, the courts of princes and the
castles of the great were crowded with visitors, who were always
received with sumptuous hospitality. The pomp displayed by the lords was
truly extraordinary, and it is difficult to understand how their
fortunes could suffice for it. They had their privy-counsellors,
treasurers, secretaries, chaplains, heralds, pursuivants-at-arms, pages,
guards, trumpeters--in a word, all the officers, all the servants, with
which royalty itself is surrounded. And besides this numerous domestic
establishment, there were troops of minstrels, clowns, jugglers,
strolling players, rope-dancers, &c., lodged there at the great
banqueting times. Each of the apartments open to the guests presented
spectacles in harmony with the gross taste of the epoch. It was a
marvellous confusion, a prodigious chaos, in which the ear was struck at
once with the sound of dishes, of cups clashing one against another, of
harmonious music, with the bustle of the dance, the notes of the song,
pasquinades, somersaults, and everywhere the most boisterous laughter.
The face of decency alone was slightly veiled.[XXXIV-30]
Sometimes the term _entre-mets_ was also applied to decorations, which
were paraded through the banqueting hall, and which represented cities,
castles, and gardens, with fountains, whence flowed all kinds of
liquors. At the dinner which Charles V. of France gave to the Emperor
Charles IV. there was a grand spectacle, or _entre-met_. A vessel
appeared with its masts, sails, and rigging; it advanced into the middle
of the hall, by means of a machine concealed from the view of all. A
moment after there appeared the city of Jerusalem; its towers covered
with Saracens. The vessel approached it, and the city was taken by the
Christian knights who manned the vessel.[XXXIV-31]
Among the Egyptians a funereal idea was made the means of rousing the
erewhile buoyant spirits of the guests at the end of a repast. A servant
entered carrying a skeleton, or the representation of a mummy, which he
took slowly round the dining-room. He then approached the guests, and
said: “Eat, drink, amuse yourselves to-day; to-morrow you
die.”[XXXIV-32]
Greece, and Rome in particular, adopted this lugubrious emblem of the
rapid flight of time and pleasure. This sepulchral image hurried them on
in the enjoyment of the present: it never revealed to paganism a “hope
full of immortality.”[XXXIV-33]
XXXV.
A ROMAN SUPPER.
Two lustres had passed since the world obeyed Domitius Nero, son of
Agrippina. The Romans, a herd of vile slaves, docile adulators of the
infamous Cæsar, had already celebrated nine anniversaries of his happy
accession to the empire, and the Flamen of Jupiter solemnly thanked the
gods at each of these epochs for all the benefits that the well-beloved
monarch had unceasingly lavished on the earth.
Few princes, it is true, ever equalled Nero. He and his mother had
poisoned Junius Silanus, the pro-consul of Asia; subsequently the young
emperor made away with Agrippina, and the senate applauded that horrible
crime, which was only the prelude to outrageous enterprises which
astonish the historian who narrates them.
The Flamen was, indeed, bound to offer up solemn thanksgivings to
Jupiter for having hitherto restrained the crowned monster from the
commission of evil which afterwards marked his flagitious career.
It was the 64th year of the Christian era. The emperor had passed some
time at Naples, whence it was thought he would go into Greece; but
suddenly changing his project, he returned to the capital of the world,
to prepare, it was said, a spectacle of unheard-of splendour, and such
as Nero alone could conceive.
One of his ancient freed-men, Caius Domitius Seba, resolved to celebrate
the return to Rome, and the tenth anniversary of the reign of his
master, who was now become his patron and friend. That man possessed
immense riches, a formidable credit at court, and an insolence which had
struck so much terror into the souls of the proudest families of the
empire, that they had long since humbled themselves before him.
[Illustration: ROMAN BANQUET IN THE YEAR 64.]
So that it was no sooner whispered among the Roman aristocracy that the
magnificent Seba intended to give a banquet, than one and all became
anxious to be numbered with the guests of Cæsar’s favourite.
However, days past, the time for the nocturnal festival approached, and
the Invitor had not made his appearance.
Among the Hebrews, nothing was more simple and unsophisticated than an
invitation to dinner;[XXXV-1] but, with the Romans, etiquette required
that the amphitryon should send one of his servants to each person who
was to participate in his pompous hospitality. This servant, who was
generally a freed-man, went from house to house, and indicated, with
exquisite politeness, the day and precise hour of the banquet.[XXXV-2]
Seba’s Invitor was at last announced to the two consuls of the year,
Lecanius Bassus and Licinius Crassus, who accepted with tender gratitude
the distinguished honour which the enfranchised slave deigned to confer
upon them.
After them the same favour was received with the same gratitude by the
Agrippas, the Ancuses, the Cossuses, the Drususes, and all those who
were the most noble, powerful, and proud in Rome.
The next day, about two o’clock in the afternoon (the repast was to
begin at six o’clock), an unusual movement reigned in the Palatine
baths, and those of Daphnis, near the Sacred Way. The _mediastini_ kept
up a steady fire under the coppers; the _capsarii_ folded with care the
clothes of the bathers; the _unguentarii_ sold their oils and unguents;
and the _fricatores_, armed with the _strigil_--a sort of wooden, iron,
or horn spoon--rubbed and scraped the skin before the _tractatores_ came
gently to manipulate the joints, and skilfully shampoo the body, which
gained by this operation more elasticity and suppleness.[XXXV-3]
The upper classes of the Romans never sat down to table until they had
undergone all these preliminaries of minute cleanliness.[XXXV-4]
The future guests return home, after the bath, to employ the skill of
the barbers (_tonsores_), who are in waiting to give more grace to the
hair, and remove, with the aid of tweezers and pumice, the first silvery
indications of the lapse of years, which, though incessantly effaced,
still re-appeared.[XXXV-5]
A more serious occupation succeeded. Epicureans should never neglect
their teeth--particularly at the approach of a banquet. Nor did the
ingenious gastronomy of the first century of our era neglect to invent
tooth-powder, which cleaned the enamel without injuring it, and
fortified the gums--those fortresses of mastication. Some persons made
use of substances which no one would adopt in the present day, because
our delicacy revolts against them.[XXXV-6] But preparations less
offensive were employed, and men of good taste, as well as fashionable
ladies, extolled ox-gall, goats’ milk, the ash of stags’ horns, of pigs’
hoofs, and of egg-shells.[XXXV-7]
Thus were the teeth equipped, as the comic Plautus has it;[XXXV-8] or,
rather, thus were they prepared to undergo the labour required of them.
Those who had had the misfortune to lose some of those powerful
gastrophagic auxiliaries substituted false ones of ivory, which art
found means to render absolutely similar to their neighbours. The eye
was deceived: what more could be required?[XXXV-9]
But the clepsydræ[XXXV-10] and the celebrated clock of the field of
Mars[XXXV-11] announce that it is time to put on the white, light robe,
a little longer than the pallium of the Greeks, and to which the Latins
have given the names of _vestis cœnatoria_, _vestis triclinaria_,
_vestis convivalis_.[XXXV-12] This last part of their toilet finished,
the guests set out for the magnificent abode of their host, preceded by
a few slaves, and followed by their shadows--those hungry hangers-on of
whom mention has already been made, and who strive to obtain, on the
road, a smile or a word by dint of cringing obsequiousness.
Arrived at the _atrium_, the crowd of Roman nobles are conducted into
the interior of the house by the parasites of Seba. The proud freed-man
disturbed himself for nobody; but, like the opulent Greeks, whom he
aped, he left to these ignoble familiars the care of replacing him in
the honours of his palace.[XXXV-13]