To the soft flute and cittern’s silver sound.[[66]]
Through the fair streets the matrons, in a row,
Stand in their porches and enjoy the show.”[[67]]
The song on this occasion sung received the name of the “Carriage Melody,” from the carriage in which the married pair rode while it was chaunted.[[68]]
The house of the bridegroom, diligently prepared for their reception, was decorated profusely with garlands, and brilliantly lighted up. When, among the Bœotians, the lady, accompanied by her husband, had descended from the carriage, its axletree was burnt, to intimate that having found a home she would have no further use for it.[[69]] The celebration of nuptial rites generally puts people in good temper, at least for the first day; and new-married women at Athens stood in full need of all they could muster to assist them through the crowd of ceremonies which beset the entrances to the houses of their husbands. Symbols of domestic labours, pestles, sieves,[[70]] and so on, met the young wife’s eye on all sides. She herself, in all her pomp of dress, bore in her hands an earthen barley-parcher.[[71]] But, to comfort her, very nice cakes of sesamum,[[72]] with wine and fruit and other dainties innumerable, accompanied by gleeful and welcoming faces, appeared in the background beyond the sieves and pestles. The hymeneal lay,[[73]] with sundry other songs, all redolent of “joy and youth,” resounded through halls now her own. Mirth and delight ushered her into the banqueting-room, where appeared a boy covered with thorn branches, and oaken boughs laden with acorns, who, when the epithalamium chaunters had ceased, recited an ancient hymn beginning with the words, “I have escaped the worse and found the better.”[[74]] This hymn, constituting a portion of the divine service performed by the Athenians during a festival instituted in commemoration of the discovery of corn, by which men were delivered from acorn-eating, they introduced among the nuptial ceremonies to intimate, that wedlock is as much superior to celibacy as wheat is to mast. At the close of the recitation, there entered a troop of dancing girls crowned with myrtle-wreaths, and habited in light tunics reaching very little below the knee, just as we still behold them on antique gems and vases, who, by their varied, free, and somewhat wanton, movements, vividly represented all the warmth and energy of passion.
The feast which now ensued was, at Athens, to prevent useless extravagance, made liable to the inspection of certain magistrates. Both sexes partook of it; but, in conformity with the general spirit of their manners and institutions, the ladies, as in Egypt, sat at separate tables.[[75]] At these entertainments we may infer that, among other good things, great quantities of sweetmeats were consumed, since the woman employed in kneading and preparing them, and in officiating at the nuptial sacrifices, was deemed of sufficient importance to possess a distinct appellation, (δημιουργὸς,)[[76]] while the bride-cake, which doubtless was the crowning achievement of her art, received the name of Gamelios. The general arrangement of the banquet, however, they entrusted to the care of a sort of major-domo, who received the appellation of Trapezopoios.[[77]]
Among the princes and grandees of Macedonia the nuptial banquet differed very widely, as might be expected, from the frugal entertainments of the Athenians; but as it may assist us in comprehending the changes introduced into Hellenic manners by the conquests of Alexander and his successors, I shall crave the reader’s permission to lay before him a description, bequeathed to us by antiquity, of the magnificent banquet[[78]] given at the marriage of Caranos.
The guests, twenty in number, immediately on entering the mansion of the bridegroom, were crowned by his order with golden stlengides,[[79]] each valued at five pieces of gold. They were then introduced into the banqueting-hall, where the first article set before them on taking their places at the board was, no doubt, exceedingly agreeable, consisting of a silver beaker presented to each as a gift, which, when they had drained off, they delivered to their attendant slaves, who, according to the custom of the country, stood behind their seats with large baskets intended to contain the presents to be bestowed on them by the master of the feast.[[80]] There was then placed before every member of the company a bronze salver, of Corinthian workmanship, completely covered by a cake, on which were piled roast fowls and ducks and woodcocks, and a goose, together with other dainties in great abundance. These, likewise, followed the beakers into the corbels of the slaves, and were succeeded by numerous dishes, of which the guests were expected to partake on the spot. Next was brought in a capacious silver tray, also covered by a cake, whereon were heaped up geese, hares, kids, other cakes curiously wrought, pigeons, turtle-doves, partridges, with a variety of similar game, which, likewise, after they had been tasted, I presume, were handed to the servants.[[81]]
When the rage of hunger had been appeased, as it must soon have been, they washed their hands, after which crowns, wreathed from every kind of flower, were brought in, and along with them other golden stlengides, equal in weight to the former, were placed, for form’s sake, on the heads of the company, before they found their way to the baskets in the rear.
While they were still in a sort of delirium of joy, occasioned by the munificence of the bridegroom, there entered to them a troop of female flute players, singers, and Rhodian performers on the Sambukè,[[82]] naked in the opinion of some, though others reported them to have worn a slight tunic. When these performers had given them a sufficient taste of their art, they retired to make way for other female slaves, bearing each a pair of perfume vases, containing the measure of a cotyla, the one of gold, the other of silver, and bound together by a golden thong. Of these every guest received a pair. In fact, the princely bridegroom, in order, as we suppose, that his friends might share with him the joy of his nuptials, bestowed upon every one of them a fortune instead of a supper; for immediately upon the heels of the gift above described came a number of silver dishes, each of sufficient dimensions to contain a large roast pig, laid upon its back, with its paunch thrown open, and stuffed with all sorts of delicacies which had been roasted with it, such as thrushes, metræ, and becaficoes, with the yolk of eggs poured around them, and oysters and cockles. Of these dishes every person present received one, with its contents, and, immediately afterwards, such another dish containing a kid hissing hot. Upon this, Caranos observing that their corbils were crammed, caused to be presented to them wicker panniers, and elegant bread-baskets, plaited with slips of ivory.[[83]] Delighted by his generosity, the company loudly applauded the bridegroom, testifying their approbation by clapping their hands. Then followed other gifts, and perfume vases of gold and silver, presented to the company in pairs as before. The bustle having subsided, there suddenly rushed in a troop of performers worthy to have figured in the feast of the Chytræ,[[84]] at Athens, and along with them ithyphalli, jugglers, and naked female wonder-workers, who danced upon their heads in circles of swords, and spouted fire from their mouths. These performances ended, they set themselves more earnestly and hotly to drink, from capacious golden goblets, their wines, now less mixed than before, being the Thasian, the Mendian, and the Lesbian. A glass dish, three feet in diameter, was next brought in upon a silver stand, on which were piled all kinds of fried fish. This was accompanied by silver bread-baskets, filled with Cappadocian rolls, some of which they ate, and delivered the rest to their slaves. They then washed their hands, and were crowned with golden crowns, double the weight of the former, and presented with a third pair of gold and silver vases filled with perfume. They by this time had become quite delirious with wine, and began a truly Macedonian contest, in which the winner was he who swallowed most; Proteas, grandson of him who was boon companion to Alexander the Great, drinking upwards of a gallon at a draught, and exclaiming—