CHAPTER VII.
Several weeks later we find the grave Prefect in a circle which seemed very ill-suited to his lofty character, or even to his age.
In the singular juxtaposition of heathenism and Christianity which, during the first century succeeding Constantine's conversion, filled the life and manners of the Roman world with such harsh contrasts, the peaceful mingling of the old and the new religious festivals played a striking part. Generally the merry feasts of the ancient gods still existed, together with the great holidays of the Christian Church, though usually robbed of their original significance, of their religious kernel. The people allowed themselves to be deprived of the belief in Jupiter and Juno, of sacrifices and ceremonies, but not of the games, the festivities, the dances and banquets, by which those ceremonies had been accompanied; and the Church was at all times wise and tolerant enough to suffer what she could not prevent. Thus, even the truly heathen Lupercalia, which were distinguished by gross superstition and all kinds of rude excess, were only, and with great difficulty, abolished in the year 496.
The days of the Floralia were come, which formerly were celebrated over the whole continent with noisy games and dances, as being specially a feast of happy youth; and which, in the days we speak of, were at least passed in banqueting and drinking.
And so the two Licinii, with their circle of young gallants and patricians, had made an appointment to meet together for a symposium upon the principal holiday of the Floralia, to which, as at our picnics, every one contributed his share of food and wine.
The guests assembled at the house of young Kallistratos, an amiable and rich Greek from Corinth, who had settled in Rome to enjoy an artistic leisure, and had built, near the gardens of Sallust, a tasteful house, which became the focus of luxury and polite society.
Besides the rich Roman aristocracy, this house was particularly frequented by artists and scholars; and also by that stratum of the Roman youth, which could spare little time and thought from its horses, chariots and dogs for the State, and which until now had therefore been inaccessible to the influence of the Prefect.
For this reason Cethegus was well-pleased when young Lucius Licinius, now his most devoted adherent, brought him an invitation from the Corinthian.
"I know," said Licinius modestly, "that we can offer you no appropriate entertainment; and if the Falernian and Cyprian, with which Kallistratos regales his guests, do not entice you, you can decline to come."
"No, my son; I will come," said Cethegus; "and it is not the old Cyprian which tempts me, but the young Romans."
Kallistratos, who loved to display his Grecian origin, had built his house in the midst of Rome in Grecian style; not in the style then prevalent, but in that of the free Greece of Pericles, which, by contrast with the tasteless overcharging usual in Rome in those days, made an impression of noble simplicity.
Through a narrow passage one entered the peristyle, or open court, surrounded by a colonnade, in the centre of which a splashing fountain fell into a coloured marble basin. The colonnade, open to the north, contained, besides other rooms, the banqueting hall, in which the company was now assembled.
Cethegus had stipulated that he should not be present at the cœna, or actual banquet, but only at the compotatio, the drinking-bout which followed.
So he found the friends in the elegant drinking-room, where the bronze lamps upon the tortoise-shell slabs on the walls were already lighted, and the guests, crowned with roses and ivy, lay upon the cushions of the horse-shoe-shaped triclinium.
A stupefying mixture of wine-odours and flower-scents, a glare of torches and glow of colour, met him upon the threshold.
"Salve, Cethegus!" cried the host, as he entered. "You find but a small party."
Cethegus ordered the slave who followed him, a beautiful and slender young Moor, whose finely-shaped limbs were rather revealed than hidden by the scarlet gauze of his light tunic, to unloose his sandals. Meanwhile he counted the guests.
"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 verses--just the contrary--a list of my debts for wine and horses."
"Well," observed Cethegus, "I have taken it--so it and they are mine. To-morrow you may fetch the quittance at my house; but not for nothing--for one of your most spiteful epigrams upon my pious friend Silverius."
"Oh, Cethegus!" cried the poet, delighted and flattered, "how spiteful one can be for 40,000 solidi! Woe to the holy man of God!"