s.

"Not less than the Graces, nor more than the Muses," he said with a
smile.

"Quick, choose a wreath," said Kallistratos, "and take your place up
there, upon the seat of honour on the couch. We have chosen you
beforehand for the king of the feast."

The Prefect was determined to charm these young people. He knew how
well he could do so, and that day he wished to make a particular
impression. He chose a crown of roses, and took the ivory sceptre,
which a Syrian slave handed to him upon his knees.

Placing the rose-wreath on his head, he raised the sceptre with
dignity.

"Thus I put an end to your freedom!"

"A born ruler!" cried Kallistratos, half in joke, half in earnest.

"But I will be a gentle tyrant! My first law: one-third
water--two-thirds wine."

"Oho!" cried Lucius Licinius, and drank to him, "_bene te!_ you govern
luxuriously. Equal parts is usually our strongest mixture."

"Yes, friend," said Cethegus, smiling, and seating himself upon the
corner seat of the central triclinium, the "Consul's seat," "but I took
lessons in drinking amongst the Egyptians; they drink pure wine. Ho,
cupbearer--what is he called?"

"Ganymede--he is from Phrygia. Fine fellow--eh?"

"So, Ganymede, obey thy Jupiter, and place near each guest; a patera of
Mamertine wine--but near Balbus two, because he is a countryman."

The young people laughed.

Balbus was a rich Sicilian proprietor, still quite young, and already
very stout.

"Bah!" said he, laughing, "ivy round my head, and an amethyst on my
finger--I defy the power of Bacchus!"

"Well, at which wine have you arrived?" asked Cethegus, at the same
time signing to the Moor who now stood behind him, and who at once
brought a second wreath of roses, and, this time, wound it about his
neck.

"Must of Setinum, with honey from Hymettus, was the last. There, try
it!" said Piso, the roguish poet, whose epigrams and anacreontics could
not be copied quickly enough by the booksellers; and whose finances,
notwithstanding, were always in poetical disorder. He handed to the
Prefect what we should call a _vexing-cup_, a bronze serpent's-head,
which, lifted carelessly to the lips, violently shot a stream of wine
into the drinker's throat.

But Cethegus knew the trick, drank carefully, and returned the cup.

"I like your _dry_ wit better, Piso," he said, laughing; and snatched a
wax tablet from a fold in the other's garment.

"Oh, give it me back," said Piso; "it is no ve