Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero - W. Warde Fowler

The meal over, the man of politics or business would leave his house, outside which his clients and friends or other hangers-on would be waiting for him, and proceed to the Forum,—the centre, as we have seen, of all his activity—accompanied by these people in a kind of procession. Some would go before to make room for him, while others followed him; if bent on election business, he would have experienced helpers,[424] either volunteers or in his pay, to save him from making blunders as to names and personalities, and in fact to serve him in conducting himself towards the populace with the indispensable blanditia.[425] Every Roman of importance liked to have, and usually had, a train of followers or friends in descending to the Forum of a morning from his house, or in going about other public business; what Q. Cicero urges on his brother in canvassing for the consulship may hold good in principle for all the public appearances of a public man,—"I press this strongly on you, always to be with a multitude."[426] It may perhaps be paralleled with the love of the Roman for processions, e.g. the lustrations of farm, city, and army,[427] and with his instinctive desire for aid and counsel in all important matters both of public and private life, shown in the consilium of the paterfamilias and of the magistrate. Examples are easy to find in the literature of this period; an excellent one is the graphic picture of Gaius Gracchus and his train of followers, which Plutarch has preserved from a contemporary writer. "The people looked with admiration on him, seeing him attended by crowds of building-contractors, artificers, ambassadors, magistrates, soldiers, and learned men, to all of whom he was easy of access; while he maintained his dignity, he was gracious to all, and suited his behaviour to the condition of every individual; thus he proved the falsehood of those who called him tyrannical or arrogant."[428]

Arrived at the Forum, if not engaged in a trial, or summoned to a meeting of the senate, or busy in canvassing, he would mingle with the crowd, and spend a social morning in meeting and talking with friends, or in hearing the latest news from the provinces, or in occupying himself with his investments with the aid of his bankers and agents. This is the way in which such a sociable and agreeable man as Cicero was loved to spend his mornings when not deep in the composition of some speech or book,—and at Rome it was indeed hardly possible for him to find the time for steady literary work. It was this social life that he longed for when in Cilicia; "one little walk and talk with you," he could write to Caelius at Rome, "is worth all the profits of a province."[429] But it was also this crowded and talkative Forum that Lucilius could describe in a passage already quoted, as teeming with men who, with the aid of hypocrisy and blanditia, spent the day from morning till night in trying to get the better of their fellows.[430]

After a morning spent in the Forum, our Roman might return home in time for his lunch (prandium), which had taken the place of the early dinner (cena) of the olden time. Exactly the same thing affected the hours of these meals as has affected those of our own within the last century or so; the great increase of public business of all kinds has with us pushed the time of the chief meal later and later, and so it was at Rome. The senate had an immense amount of business to transact in the two last centuries B.C., and the increase in oratorical skill, as well as the growing desire to talk in public, extended its sittings sometimes till nightfall.[431] So too with the law-courts, which had become the scenes of oratorical display, and often of that indulgence in personal abuse which has great attractions for idle people fond of excitement. Thus the dinner hour had come to be postponed from about noon to the ninth or even the tenth hour,[432] and some kind of a lunch was necessary. We do not hear much of this meal, which was in fact for most men little more than the "snack" which London men of business will take standing at a bar; nor do we know whether senators and barristers took it as they sat in the curia or in court, or whether there was an adjournment for purposes of refreshment. Such an adjournment seems to have taken place occasionally at least, during the games under the Empire, for Suetonius (Claud. 34) tells us that Claudius would dismiss the people to take their prandium and yet remain himself in his seat. A joke of Cicero's about Caninius Rebilus, who was appointed consul by Caesar on the last day of the year 45 at one o'clock, shows that the usual hour for the prandium was about noon or earlier; "under the consulship of Caninius," he wrote to Curius, "no one ever took luncheon."[433]

After the prandium, if a man were at home and at leisure, followed the siesta (meridiatio). This is the universal habit in all southern climates, especially in summer, and indeed, if the mind and body are active from an early hour, a little repose is useful, if not necessary, after mid-day. Busy men however like Cicero could not always afford it in the city, and we find him noting near the end of his life, when Caesar's absolutism had diminished the amount of his work both in senate and law-courts, that he had taken to the siesta which he formerly dispensed with.[434] Even the sturdy Varro in his old age declared that in summer he could not possibly do without his nap in the middle of the day.[435] On the other hand, in the famous letter in which Cicero describes his entertainment of Caesar in mid-winter 45 B.C., nothing is said of a siesta; the Dictator worked till after mid-day, then walked on the shore, and returned, not for a nap but for a bath.[436]

Caesar, as he was Cicero's guest, must have taken his bath in the villa, probably that at Cumae (see above, p. 257). Most well-appointed private houses had by this time a bath-room or set of bath-rooms, providing every accommodation, according to the season and the taste of the bather. This was indeed a modern improvement; in the old days the Romans only washed their arms and legs daily, and took a bath every market-day, i.e. every ninth day. This is told us in an amusing letter of Seneca's, who also gives a description of the bath in the villa of the elder Scipio at Liternum, which consisted of a single room without a window, and was supplied with water which was often thick after rain.[437] "Nesciit vivere," says Seneca, in ironical allusion to the luxury of his own day. In Cicero's time every villa doubtless had its set of baths, with at least three rooms,—the apodyterium, caldarium, and tepidarium, sometimes also an open swimming-bath, as in the House of the Silver Wedding at Pompeii.[438] In Cicero's letter to his brother about the villa at Arcanum, he mentions the dressing-room (apodyterium) and the caldarium or hot-air chamber, and doubtless there were others. Even in the villa rustica of Boscoreale near Pompeii, which was a working farm-house, we find the bath-rooms complete, provided, that is, with the three essentials of dressing-room, tepid-room, and hot-air room.[439] Caesar probably, as it was winter, used the last of these, took in fact a Turkish bath, as we should call it, and then went into a tepidarium, where, as Cicero tells us, he received some messenger. Here he was anointed (unctus), i.e. rubbed dry from perspiration, with a strigil on which oil was dropped to soften its action.[440] When this operation was over, about the ninth hour, which in mid-winter would begin about half-past one, he was ready for the dinner which followed immediately.[441] This we may take as the ordinary winter dinner-hour in the country; in summer it would be an hour or so later. In an amusing story given as a rhetorical illustration in the work known as Rhetorica ad Herennium, iv. 63, the guests (doomed never to get their dinner that day except in an inn) are invited for the tenth hour. But in the city it must have often happened that the hour was later, owing to the press of business. For example, on one occasion when the senate had been sitting ad noctem, Cicero dines with Pompeius after its dismissal (ad Fam. i. 2.3). Another day we find him going to bed after his dinner, and clearly not for a siesta, which, as we saw, he never had time to take in his busy days; this, however, was not actually in Rome but in his villa at Formiae, where he was at that time liable to much interruption from callers (ad Att. ii. 16). Probably, like most Romans of his day, he had spent a long time over his dinner, talking if he had guests, or reading and thinking if he were alone or with his family only.

The dinner, cena, was in fact the principal private event of the day; it came when all business was over, and you could enjoy the privacy of family life or see your friends and unbend with them. At no other meal do we hear of entertainment, unless the guests were on a journey, as was the case at the lunch at Arcanum when Pomponia's temper got the better of her (see above, p. 52). Even dinner-parties seem to have come into fashion only since the Punic wars, with later hours and a larger staff of slaves to cook and wait at table. In the old days of household simplicity the meals were taken in the atrium, the husband reclining on a lectus,[442] the wife sitting by his side, and the children sitting on stools in front of them. The slaves too in the olden time took their meal sitting on benches in the atrium, so that the whole familia was present. This means that the dinner was in those days only a necessary break in the intervals of work, and the sitting posture was always retained for slaves, i.e. those who would go about their work as soon as the meal was over. Columella, writing under the early Empire, urges that the vilicus or overseer should sit at his dinner except on festivals; and Cato the younger would not recline after the battle of Pharsalia for the rest of his life, apparently as a sign that life was no longer enjoyable.[443]

But after the Second Punic war, which changed the habits of the Roman in so many ways, the atrium ceased to be the common dining-place, and special chambers were built, either off the atrium or in the interior part of the house about the peristylium, or even upstairs, for the accommodation of guests, who might be received in different rooms, according to the season and the weather.[444] These triclinia were so arranged as to afford the greatest personal comfort and the best opportunities for conversation; they indicate clearly that dinner is no longer an interval in the day's work, but a time of repose and ease at the end of it. The plan here given of a triclinium, as described by Plutarch, in his Quaestiones conviviales,

PLAN OF A TRICLINIUM.

will show this sufficiently without elaborate description; but it is necessary to notice that the host always or almost always occupied the couch marked H on the plan, while the one immediately above him, i.e. No. 3 of the lectus medius, was reserved for the most important guest, and called lectus consularis. Plutarch's account, and a little consideration, will show that the host was thus well placed for the superintendence of the meal, as well as for conversation with his distinguished guest; and that the latter occupied what Plutarch calls a free corner, so that any messengers or other persons needing to see him could get access to him without disturbing the party.[445] The number that could be accommodated, nine, was not only a sacred and lucky one, but exactly suited for convenience of conversation and attendance. Larger parties were not unheard of, even under the Republic, and Vitruvius tells us that some dining-rooms were fitted with three or more triclinia; but to put more than three guests on a single couch, and so increase the number, was not thought courteous or well-bred. Among the points of bad breeding which Cicero attributes to his enemy Calpurnius Piso, the consul of 58, one was that he put five guests to recline on a single couch, while himself occupying one alone; so Horace: