. The grandeur that was Rome; a survey of Roman culture and civilisation:. ar that the ordinary Roman was naturallyaddicted to intemperance either in eating or drinking. Thepraise of wine is with Horace a literary pose; personally hehad a poor head and a poor stomach. The Italian is not, andprobably never was a great natural eater or drinker judged bynorthern standards. But rhetoricians and satirists have de-lighted to dwell upon the immensity of Roman dinner-partieswhich often lasted all day and included a hideous series ofcurious and exotic dainties. This was the form which, indefault of any
. The grandeur that was Rome; a survey of Roman culture and civilisation:. ar that the ordinary Roman was naturallyaddicted to intemperance either in eating or drinking. Thepraise of wine is with Horace a literary pose; personally hehad a poor head and a poor stomach. The Italian is not, andprobably never was a great natural eater or drinker judged bynorthern standards. But rhetoricians and satirists have de-lighted to dwell upon the immensity of Roman dinner-partieswhich often lasted all day and included a hideous series ofcurious and exotic dainties. This was the form which, indefault of any nobler ideals, wealth at Rome had chosen for itsdisplay. Time hung heavily on this slave-tended aristocracy:to dine from dawn to twilight was one of the ways of killingit. So the guests reclined on their couches, dancers jiggedbefore them, musicians played, occasionally a tumbler or atight-rope walker would appear, in literary households a slavewould read philosophy; and all the time the soft-footed slaveswere coming and going with dishes of strange morsels gathered136. Plate 19. JULIUS C^SAR(See p. 157) Maitsell[p- 136 LAST CENTURY OF THE REPUBLIC from the ends of the earth, and rare wines from the four cornersof the globe. A dish of nightingales tongues is not the sortof thing to please one who is a gourmet by conviction ornatural taste. Eating was for most of these poor starvedimaginations the only form of culture they understood. It was,however, conducted with tremendous ceremony. There was a tricliniarch to marshal his decuries of slaves as eachdish came into the room. There was a special structor toarrange the dishes, a special analecta to pick up the frag-ments that the diners dropped. Carving was a science withvarious branches, as in old England, and the skilful carverhad his scheme of gesticulations for each kind of dish. Therewas another slave specially appointed to cry out the nameand quality of each plat. In addition to these every guest hadhis own footman standing
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