'Liberty with restraint,' I answered, 'operating upon all, and equally upon all, is the true account of a state of freedom. Gallus unrestrained is a slave—a slave of passion and the sport of chance. He is not truly free until he is bound.'
With such talk we amused ourselves as we wandered over the estate, through its more wild and more cultivated parts. Dinner was presently announced, and we hastened to the house.
Lucilia awaited us in a small six-sided cabinet, fitted up purposely for a dining-room for six or eight persons. It was wholly cased with a rich marble of a pale yellow hue, beautifully panelled, having three windows opening upon a long portico with a southern aspect, set out with exotics in fancifully arranged groups. The marble panels of the room were so contrived that, at a touch, they slipped aside and disclosed in rich array, here the choicest wines, there sauces and spices of a thousand sorts, and there again the rarest confections brought from China and the East. Apicius himself could have fancied nothing more perfect—for the least dissatisfaction with the flavor of a dish, or the kind of wine, could be removed by merely reaching out the hand and drawing, from an inexhaustible treasure-house, both wines and condiments, such as scarce Rome itself could equal. This was an apartment contrived and built by Hortensius himself.
The dinner was worthy the room and its builder, the marbles, the prospect, the guest, the host, and the hostess. The aforementioned Apicius would have never once thought of the panelled cupboards. No dish would have admitted of addition or alteration.
When the feasting was over, and with it the lighter conversation, and more disjointed and various, which usually accompanies it, Marcus arose, and withdrawing one of the sliding panels, with much gravity and state, drew forth a glass pitcher of exquisite form filled with wine, saying, as he did so,
'All, Piso, that you have as yet tasted is but as water of the Tiber to this. This is more than nectar. The gods have never been so happy as to have seen the like. I am their envy. It is Falernian, that once saw the wine vaults of Heliogabalus! Not a drop of Chian has ever touched it. It is pure, unadulterate. Taste, and be translated.'
I acknowledged, as I well might, its unequalled flavor.
'This nectarean draught,' he continued, 'I even consider to possess purifying and exalting qualities. He who drinks it is for the time of a higher nature. It is better for the temper than a chapter of Seneca or Epictetus. It brings upon the soul a certain divine calm, favorable beyond any other state to the growth of the virtues. Could it become of universal use, mankind were soon a race of gods. Even Christianity were then made unnecessary—admitting it to be that unrivalled moral engine which you Christians affirm it to be. It is favorable also to dispassionate discussion, Piso, a little of which I would now invite. Know you not, I have scarce seen you since your assumption of your new name and faith? What bad demon possessed you, in evil hour, to throw Rome and your friends into such a ferment?'
'Had you become, Lucius,' said Lucilia, 'a declaiming advocate of Epicurus, or a street-lecturer upon Plato, or turned priest of Apollo's new temple, it would have all been quite tolerable, though amazing—but Christian!'—
'Yes, Lucius, it is too bad,' added Marcus. 'If you were in want of moral strength, you would have done better to have begged some of my Falernian. You should not have been denied.'