In the hall like that of Mecaenas', one divided against itself, the
upper half containing the couches and tables, the other reserved for
the service and the entertainments that follow, the ceiling was met by
columns, the walls hidden by panels of gems. On a frieze twelve
pictures, surmounted by the signs of the zodiac, represented the dishes
of the different months. Beneath the bronze beds and silver tables
mosaics were set in imitation of food that had fallen and had not been
swept away. And there, in white ungirdled tunics, the head and neck
circled with coils of amaranth--the perfume of which in opening the
pores neutralizes the fumes of wine--the guests lay, fanned by boys,
whose curly hair they used for napkins. Under the supervision of
butlers the courses were served on platters so large that they covered
the tables; sows' breasts with Lybian truffles; dormice baked in
poppies and honey, peacock-tongues flavored with cinnamon; oysters
stewed in garum--a sauce made of the intestines of fish--sea-wolves
from the Baltic; sturgeons from Rhodes; fig-peckers from Samos; African
snails; pale beans in pink lard; and a yellow pig cooked after the
Troan fashion, from which, when carved, hot sausages fell and live
thrushes flew. Therewith was the mulsum, a cup made of white wine,
nard, roses, absinthe and honey; the delicate sweet wines of Greece;
and crusty Falernian of the year six hundred and thirty-two. As the
cups circulated, choirs entered, chanting sedately the last erotic
song; a clown danced on the top of a ladder, which he maintained
upright as he danced, telling meanwhile untellable stories to the
frieze; and host and guests, unvociferously, as good breeding dictates,
chatted through the pauses of the service; discussed the disadvantages
of death, the value of Noevian iambics, the disgrace of Ovid, banished
because of Livia's eyes.

Such was the Rome of Augustus. "Caesar," cried a mime to him one day,
"do you know that it is important for you that the people should be
interested in Bathylle and in myself?"

The mime was right. The sovereign of Rome was not the Caesar, nor yet
the aristocracy. The latter was dead. It had been banished by barbarian
senators, by barbarian gods; it had died twice, at Pharsalus, at
Philippi; it was the people that was sovereign, and it was important
that that sovereign should be amused--flattered, too, and fed. For
thirty years not a Roman of note had died in his bed; not one but had