The guests before me were fifty or sixty splendidly attired men, attended by a crowd of domestics equipped with scarcely less splendor, for no man thought of coming to the banquet in the robes of ordinary life. The embroidered couch, itself a striking object, allowed the ease of position, at once delightful in the relaxing climates of the south and capable of combining with every grace of the human figure. At a slight distance the table, loaded with plate, glittering under a profusion of lamps and surrounded by couches covered with rich draperies, was like a central source of light radiating in broad shafts of every brilliant hue. All that belonged to the ornament of the board was superb. The wealth of the patricians and their perpetual intercourse with Greece made them masters of the finest performances of the arts. The sums expended on plate were enormous, but its taste and beauty were essential to the refined enjoyment of the banquet. Copies of the most famous statues and groups of sculpture in the precious metals, exquisite trophies of Greek and Roman victory, models of the celebrated temples, mingled with vases of flowers and burning perfumes; and covering and coloring all was a vast scarlet canopy, which combined the groups beneath the eye, and threw the whole scene into the light that a painter would love.
But yet finer skill was shown in the constant prevention of that want of topic which turns conversation into weariness. There was a rapid succession of new excitements. Even the common changes of the table were made to assist this purpose. The entrance of each course was announced by music, and the attendants were preceded by a procession of minstrels, chaplet-crowned, and playing Grecian melodies. Between the courses a still higher entertainment was offered in the recitations, dramas, and pleasantries, read or acted by a class of professional satirists, of the absurdities of the day.
The Amusements of a Feast
It is easy to imagine how fertile a source of interest this must have been made by the subtle and splenetic Italian moving through Roman life; the most various, animating, and fantastic scene in which society ever shone. The recitations were always looked to as the charm of the feast. They were often severe, but their severity was reserved for public men and matters. The court supplied the most tempting and popular ridicule, but the reciter was a privileged person, and all the better-humored Cæsars bore the castigation without a murmur. No man in the empire was more laughed at than Vespasian, and no man oftener joined in the laugh.
One of this morning’s sports was to collect the burlesques of the night before, give them new pungency by a touch of the imperial pen, and then despatch them to make their way through the world. The strong-headed sovereign knew the value of an organ of public opinion, and used to call their perusal, “sitting for his picture.” The picture was sometimes so strong that the courtiers trembled. But the veteran, who had borne thirty years of battle, laid it up among “his portraits,” laughed the insult away, and repeated his popular saying, “that when he was old enough to come to years of discretion and give up the emperor, he should become reciter himself and have his turn with the world.”
The recitations again were varied by a sportive lottery, in which the guests drew prizes—sometimes of value, gems and plate—sometimes merely an epigram, or a caricature. The banquet generally closed with a theatric dance by the chief public performers of the day, and the finest forms and the most delicate art of Greece and Ionia displayed the story of Theseus and Ariadne, the flight of Jason, the fate of Semele, or some other of their brilliant fictions. In the presence of this vivid display sat, tempering its sportiveness by the majesty of religion, the three great tutelar idols of Rome—Jove, Juno, and Minerva, of colossal height, throned at the head of the hall; completing, false as they were, the most singular and dazzling combination that man ever saw, of the delight of the senses with the delight of the mind.
To me human delight was always a source of enjoyment, and in the sounds of the harps and flutes and the pleasant murmur of cheerful voices I was not unwilling to forget the spot from which I listened. But the prisoner can not long forget his cell, and closing the casement I walked away.
The Steward Tells of Matthan
“Little I ever thought,” sighed the old steward, “of seeing that sight. But all nations have fallen in their time, and perhaps the only wonder is that Israel should have stood so long. It is still stranger to my eyes to see that gallery as it is to-night. It is fifteen years this very day since I saw the light of lamp or the foot of man within those casements.”