Cæsar’s eye, though dim and sunken, flashed up for a moment with a spark of enthusiasm.
“The beccaficoes,” said he, “were a thought over-seasoned, but the capon’s liver stewed in milk was perfection. Varus, see that it is served again at the imperial table within the week.”
The freedman took out his tablets and made a note of the royal commands with a somewhat unsteady hand, while Vitellius, draining his cup to the dregs, smacked his lips, and let his great chin sink on his breast once more.
The other guests conversed freely. Licinius and one of the senators were involved in an argument on military matters, with which the man of peace seemed almost as conversant as the man of war, and on which he laid down the law with far more confidence. Placidus was describing certain incidents of the campaign in Judæa, with an air of unassuming modesty and a deference to the opinions of others, which won him no little favour from those who sat near and listened, throwing in, every now and then, a chance expression or trifling anecdote, derogatory, by implication, to Vespasian’s military skill, and eulogistic of Vitellius; for this reason doubly sweet in the ears of him at whose board the tribune sat. Montanus, whose cup was filled and emptied with startling rapidity, looked about him for a subject on which to vent some of the sarcasm with which he was charged, and found it in the woebegone appearance of Spado, who, despite the influence of food and wine, seemed unusually depressed and ill at ease. The eunuch on ordinary occasions was a prince of boon-companions, skilled in all the niceties of gastronomy, versed in the laws of drinking, overflowing with mirth and jollity, an adroit flatterer where flattery was acceptable, and a joyous buffoon who could give and take with equal readiness and good-humour, when banter was the order of the day. Now, less thirsty than usual, the feast [pg 109]seemed to have no enlivening effect on his disposition. He was silent, preoccupied, and, to all appearance, intent only on concealing his bruised cheek from the observation of those about him. He had never been struck in anger, never even stood face to face with a man before, and it had cowed him. The soft self-indulgent voluptuary could neither forget nor overcome his feelings of combined wrath, dismay, and shame. Montanus turned round and emptied a brimming goblet to his health.
“You are cheerless to-night, man!” quoth the senator; “you drink not, neither do you speak. What, has the red Falernian lost its flavour? or has some Canidia bewitched you with her evil eye? You used to be a prince of boon-companions, Spado, thirsty as a camel in the Libyan desert, insatiate as the sand on which he travels, and now your eye is dull, your face dejected, and your cup stands untasted, unnoticed, though bubbling to the brim. By the spear of Bacchus, ’tis not the fault of the liquor!” and Montanus emptied his own goblet with the air of a man who thoroughly appreciated the vintage he extolled.
Vitellius looked up for an instant, roused by the congenial theme.
“There is nothing the matter with the wine,” said Cæsar. “Fill round.”
The imperial hint was not to be disregarded, and Spado, with a forced smile, put his goblet to his lips and drained it to the last drop. In doing so the discoloration of his face was very apparent; and the guests, who had now arrived at that stage of conviviality where candour takes the place of politeness, proceeded to make their remarks without reserve.
“You have painted too thick,” said one of the freedmen, alluding to an effeminacy of the times which the male sex were not ashamed to practise.
“You have taken off the paste and the skin with it,” continued the other, whose own mistress was in the daily habit of spreading a kind of poultice over her whole countenance, and who might therefore be a good judge of the process and its results.