"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.