lastic
to act as a sort of spring, rendering the couches softer and more
luxurious than they would otherwise have been. Gold and silver plate,
especially in the shape of drinking-cups, was largely displayed in all
the wealthy mansions, each household priding itself on the show which it
could make of the precious metals.

In respect of eating and drinking, the Persians, even better sort, were
in the earlier times noted for their temperance and sobriety. Their
ordinary food was wheaten bread, barley-cakes, and meat simply roasted
or boiled, which they seasoned with salt and with bruised cress-seed, a
substitute for mustard. The sole drink in which they indulged was water.
Moreover, it was their habit to take one meal only each day. The poorer
kind of people were contented with even a simpler diet, supporting
themselves, to a great extent, on the natural products of the soil, as
dates, figs, wild pears, acorns, and the fruit of the terebinth-tree.
But these abstemious habits were soon laid aside, and replaced by luxury
and self-indulgence, when the success of their arms had put it in their
power to have the full and free gratification of all their desires and
propensities. Then, although the custom of having but one meal in the
day was kept up, the character of the custom was entirely altered by
beginning the meal early and making it last till night. Not many sorts
of meat were placed on the board, unless the occasion was a grand one;
but course after course of the lighter kinds of food flowed on in
an almost endless succession, intervals of some length being allowed
between the courses to enable the guests to recover their appetites.
Instead of water, wine became the usual beverage; each man prided
himself on the quantity he could drink; and the natural result followed
that most banquets terminated in general intoxication. Drunkenness even
came to be a sort of institution. Once a year, at the feast of Mithras,
the king of Persia, according to Duris, was bound to be drunk. A general
practice arose of deliberating on all important affairs under the
influence of wine, so that, in every household, when a family crisis
impended, intoxication was a duty.

The Persians ate, not only the meats which we are in the habit of
consuming, but also the flesh of goats, horses, asses, and camels. The
hump of the last-named animal is considered, even at the present day, a
delicacy in many parts of the East; but in ancient Persia it would