Archestrates, whose gastronomic axioms we cannot respect too much, was averse to large dinner parties. Three or four persons—five at most—chosen with care, assembled with taste, appeared to him sufficient[XXXIV_7] for those solemnities in which silence was to be maintained so long, under pain, said Montmaur, of no longer knowing what one eats.
The Lacedæmonians admitted as many as fifteen guests, but they elected a king of the banquet, and that ephemeral autocrat decided without appeal all questions which might have compromised the tranquillity of the banquet.[XXXIV_8]
Greater numbers met together in Athens. Plato gave a supper to twenty-eight of his friends.[XXXIV_9] Hundreds of citizens often met together at the public repasts; but then a magistrate was deputed to see that modesty, moderation, and temperance were observed.[XXXIV_10]
The Romans understood that it is at table that one lives; so they gave those whom they invited the name of conviva (cum vivere, living conjointly), a charming type of that easy, gentle cordiality which arises, is fortified, and displayed between those who partake of the same dishes, drain in friendship cups of the same wine, and separate with the hope of soon seeing a return of the same pleasures.
People were very polite in Rome, as in Greece, when they met in the dining-room. Never did they fail to make a low bow.[XXXIV_11] This act of Roman courtesy recalls a very pretty expression of Fontenelle’s, which we cannot refrain from citing. This grand nephew of the great Corneille passed, on his way to the table, before Madame Helvétius, whom he had not perceived. Fontenelle was then ninety years of age. “See,” said she, “what esteem I must have for your gallantry: you pass before me without looking at me.” “Be not surprised, Madam,” replied the old gallant; “if I had looked at you I should never have passed.”
In the year of Rome 570 (182 B.C.), the tribune of the people, C. Orchius, was the prime mover of the first sumptuary law, which enacted that the number of guests were not to exceed that of the Muses, nor be less than that of the Graces.[XXXIV_12] Subsequently seven were thought to be sufficient, and some insisted that when there were more the banquet ought rather to be called a rout.[XXXIV_13]
In the year of Rome 548, the Consul C. Fannius carried a law (Lex Fannia) which prohibited the assembling of more than three persons of the same family on ordinary days, or more than five at the nones, or on festival days.[XXXIV_14] This rigorous measure was pressingly solicited by the rational portion of every order of citizens, who could not witness without a shudder the whole of Italy plunge into the most brutifying excesses, after obscene orgies which we dare not describe.[XXXIV_15]
But who could dissipate that fearful bewilderment with which nations seem to be seized when they are about to fall? Rome blushed for her ancient virtues, and veiled them with dissolution and crimes. She had exhausted all the prodigies that the genius of debauchery could invent—she created monsters!
Ruinous banquets soon revived, and the number of guests had no other rule than the unbridled desire of ostentation and expense.
Let us not forget those miserable parasites who managed to get to the corner of a table in Greece and Italy, and to whom meagre portions were conceded as a reward for cringing servility, such as the vilest slave would have been ashamed to exhibit. There were three kinds of parasites. Some, under the name of buffoons, amused the company with their grotesque attitudes and ridiculous sayings.[XXXIV_16] Others allowed their ears to be boxed, and suffered a thousand different torments, provided a piece of meat or a bone were afterwards thrown to them. These patient sufferers[XXXIV_17] diverted the Greeks and Romans very much. The adulatory parasites were the most skilful of these hungry parias. They were well treated and almost respected. They were persons who possessed a kind of merit which was always equally appreciated, and to which we still render justice—they flattered whosoever gave them a supper.[XXXIV_18]