The Historians' History of the World 06 [The Early Roman Empire]

Roman Dinner-table

(After De Montfaucon)

Augustus would fain have restrained these excesses, which shamed the dignified reserve which he wished to characterise the imperial court; he exerted himself by counsel and example, as well as by formal enactments, to educate his people in the simpler tastes of the older time, refined but not yet enervated by the infusion of Hellenic culture.[39] His laws, indeed, shared the fate of the sumptuary regulations of his predecessors, and soon passed from neglect into oblivion. His example was too austere, perhaps, to be generally followed even by the most sedulous of his own courtiers. He ate but little, and was content with the simplest fare: his bread was of the second quality, at a time when the best was far less fine than ours; and he was satisfied with dining on a few small fishes, curds or cheese, figs and dates, taken at any hour when he had an appetite rather than at regular and formal meals. He was careful, however, to keep a moderately furnished table for his associates, at which he commonly appeared himself, though he was often the last to arrive, and the first to retire from it.

The ordinary arrangement of a Roman supper consisted of three low couches, disposed, horse-shoe fashion, before a low table, at which the attendant slaves could minister without incommoding the recumbent guests. Upon each couch three persons reclined, a mode which had been introduced from Greece, where it had been in use for centuries, though not from heroic times. The Egyptians and Persians sat at meat; so, till the Greeks corrupted them, did also the Jews; the poetical traditions of Hellas represented the gods as sitting at their celestial banquets. The Macedonians also, down to the time of Alexander, are said to have adopted the more ordinary practice; and such was the custom at Rome till a late period. When the men first allowed themselves the indulgence of reclining, they required boys and women to maintain an erect posture, from notions of delicacy; but in the time of Augustus no such distinction was observed, and the inferiority of the weaker sex was only marked by setting them together on one of the side couches, the place of honour being always in the centre.

Reclined on stuffed and cushioned sofas, leaning on the left elbow, the neck and right arm bare and his sandals removed, the Roman abandoned himself, after the exhaustion of the palæstra and the bath, to all the luxury of languor. His slaves relieved him from every effort, however trifling; they carved for him,[40] filled his cup for him, supplied every dish for him with such fragmentary viands as he could raise to his mouth with his fingers only, and poured water upon his hands at every remove. Men of genius and learning might amuse themselves with conversation alone; those for whom this resource was insufficient had many other means of entertainment to resort to. Music and dancing were performed before them; actors and clowns exhibited in their presence; dwarfs and hunchbacks were introduced to make sport for them; Augustus himself sometimes escaped from these miserable vulgarities by playing at dice between the courses; but the stale wit and practical humour, with which in many houses the banquet seems to have been seasoned, give us a lower idea of the manners of the Roman gentlemen than any perhaps of these trifling pastimes. The vulgarity, however, of the revellers of Rome was far less shocking than their indecency, and nothing perhaps contributed more to break down the sense of dignity and self-respect, the last safeguard of pagan virtue, than the easy familiarity engendered by their attitude at meals.

Some persons, indeed, men no doubt of peculiar assurance and conceit, ventured to startle the voluptuous languor of the supper-table by repeating their own compositions to the captive guests. But for the most part the last sentiments of expiring liberty revolted against this intolerable oppression. The Romans compounded for the inviolate sanctity of their convivial hours by surrendering to the inevitable enemy a solid portion of the day. They resigned themselves to the task of listening as part of the business of the morning.c

Banquets of a more pretentious order played a very important part in the life of the Romans of all classes. Anniversaries, religious festivals, the necessity also that those who belonged to the same college should treat common affairs together, or simply the desire of spending life more enjoyably, had multiplied them during the empire to an unlimited degree. Men of distinction especially sought at them the pleasure of conversing freely with their friends. During the endless and capricious conversations politics were not forgotten. What was said after dinner, when the heat of festivity had animated the guests and loosened their tongues was not always favourable to the imperial government. It was during one of these repasts that the prætor Antistius read those insulting verses concerning Nero which led to his banishment. As has just been said, however, the banquet-hall was not the place usually chosen for reading verses or other compositions. Freer scope for this and for the public promulgation of serious ideas in general was found in the so-called “circles.”