CHAPTER VIII.
"And the dessert--how far have you got there?" asked Cethegus, "alreadyat the apples? are these they?" and he looked, screwing up his eyes, attwo heaped-up fruit-baskets, which stood upon a bronze table with ivorylegs.
"Ha, victory!" laughed Marcus Licinius, Lucius's younger brother, whoamused himself with the then fashionable pastime of modelling in wax."There! you see my art, Kallistratos! The Prefect thinks that my waxenapples, which I gave you yesterday, are real."
"Ah, indeed!" cried Cethegus, as if astonished, although he had longsince noticed the smell of the wax with dislike. "Yes, art deceives themost acute. With whom did you learn? I should like to put similarornaments in my Kyzikenian hall."
"I am an autodidact," said Marcus proudly, "and to-morrow I will sendyou my new Persian apples--for you honour art."
"But is the sitting at an end?" asked the Prefect, resting his left armon the cushions of the triclinium.
"No," cried the host, "I will confess the truth. As I could not reckonupon the king of our feast until the dessert, I have prepared a littleafter-feast to be taken with the wine."
"Oh, you sinner!" cried Balbus, wiping his greasy lips upon the roughpurple Turkish table-cover, "and I have eaten such a terrible quantityof your _becca-ficchi_!"
"It is against the agreement!" cried Marcus Licinius.
"It will spoil my manners," said the merry Piso gravely.
"Say, is that Hellenic simplicity?" asked Lucius Licinius.
"Peace, friends!" and Cethegus comforted them with a quotation: "'E'enunexpected hurt, a Roman bears unmoved.'"
"The Hellenic host must adjust himself according to his guests," saidKallistratos, excusing himself. "I feared you would not come again if Ioffered you Marathonian fare."
"Well, at least confess with what you menace us," cried Cethegus."Thou, Nomenclator! read the bill of fare. I will then decide upon thesuitable wines."
The slave--a handsome Lydian boy, dressed in a garment of blue Pelusianlinen, slit up to the knee--came close to Cethegus at the cypress-woodtable, and read from a little tablet which he carried fastened to agolden chain about his neck:
"Fresh oysters from Britannia, in tunny-sauce, with lettuce."
"With this dish, Falernian from Fundi," said Cethegus at once. "Butwhere is the sideboard with the cups? Good wine deserves handsomegoblets."
"There is the sideboard!" And at a sign from the host, a curtain, whichhad concealed a corner of the room opposite the guests, dropped.
A cry of astonishment ran round the table.
The richness of the service displayed, and the taste with which it wasarranged, surprised even these fastidious feasters.
Upon the marble slab of a side-table stood a roomy silver carriage,with golden wheels and bronze horses. It was a model of a booty-wagon,such as were used in Roman triumphal processions, and, like a costlybooty, within it was piled, in seeming disorder, but with an artistichand, a quantity of goblets, glasses, and salvers, of every shape andmaterial.
"By Mars the Victor!" laughed the Prefect, "the first Roman triumph fortwo hundred years! A rare sight! Dare I destroy it?"
"You are the man to set it up again," said Lucius, with fire.
"Do you think so? Let us try! First, we will have that goblet ofpistachio-wood for the Falernian."
"Wind-thrushes from the Tagus, with asparagus from Tarento," continuedthe Lydian, reading the bill of fare.
"With that, red Massikian from Sinuessa, to be drunk out of thatamethyst goblet."
"Young lobsters from Trapezunt, with flamingo-tongues."
"Stop! By holy Bacchus!" cried Balbus, "it is the torture ofTantalus. It is all the same to me out of what I drink, whether frompistachio-wood or amethyst; but to listen to this list of divinedainties with a dry throat, is more than I can stand. Down withCethegus, the tyrant! Let him die, if he lets us thirst!"
"I feel as if I were Emperor, and heard the roar of the faithful Romanpopulace! I will save my life and yield. Serve the dishes, slaves."
At this the sound of flutes was heard from an outer room, and sixslaves entered, marching in time to the music, with ivy in theirshining, anointed locks, and dressed in red mantles and white tunics.They gave to each guest a snowy cloth of finest Sidonian linen, withpurple fringes.
"Oh," cried Massurius, a young merchant who traded principally withbeautiful slaves of both sexes, and enjoyed the rather doubtfulreputation of being a great critic in such wares, "the best cloth isbeautiful hair," and he passed his hands through the locks of aGanymede who was kneeling near him.
"But, Kallistratos, I hope those flutes are of the female sex. Up withthe curtain; let the girls in."
"Not yet," ordered Cethegus. "First drink, then kiss. Without Bacchusand Ceres, you know----"
"Venus freezes, but not Massurius!"
All at once lyres and citharas sounded from the side room, and thereentered a procession of eight youths in shining silken garments of agold-green colour. Foremost the "dresser" and the "carver." The othersix bore dishes upon their heads. They passed the guests with measuredsteps, and halted at the sideboard of citron-wood. While they were busythere, castanets and cymbals were heard from another part of the house;the large double doors turned upon their shining bronze hinges, and aswarm of slaves in the becoming costume of Corinthian youths streamedinto the room.
Some handed bread in ornamentally-perforated baskets; others whiskedthe flies away with fans of ostrich feathers and palm-leaves; somegracefully poured oil into the wall-lamps from double-handled vases;whilst others swept the crumbs from the mosaic pavement with besoms ofEgyptian reeds, or helped Ganymede to fill the cups, which now werecircling merrily.
The conversation grew more rapid and animated, and Cethegus, who,although he remained cool and collected, seemed to be quite lost in theenjoyment of the moment, charmed the young guests by his youthfulgaiety.
"What do you say?" asked the host, "shall we play dice between thedishes? There stands the dice-box, near Piso."
"Well, Massurius," observed Cethegus, with a sarcastic look at theslave-dealer, "will you try your luck with me once more? Will you betagainst me? Give him the dice-box, Syphax," he said to the Moor.
"Mercury forbid!" answered Massurius, with comical fright. "Havenothing to do with the Prefect he has inherited the luck of hisancestor, Julius Caesar."
"Omen accipio!" laughed Cethegus. "I accept the omen, with the daggerof Brutus into the bargain."
"I tell you, he is a magician! Only lately he won an unwinnable betagainst me about this black demon," and the speaker threw a cactus-figat the slave's face, but Syphax caught it cleverly with his shiningwhite teeth, and quietly ate it up.
"Well done, Syphax!" said Cethegus. "Roses from the thorns of theenemy! Thou canst become a conjurer as soon as I let thee free."
"Syphax does not wish to be free: he will always be your Syphax, andsave your life as you saved his."
"What is that--thy life?" asked Lucius Licinius.
"Did you pardon him?" asked Marcus.
"More than that, I bought him off."
"Yes, with my money!" grumbled Massurius.
"You know that I immediately gave him the money I won from you as hisprivate possession," answered Cethegus.
"What about this bet? Let us hear. Perhaps it will afford a subject formy epigrams," said Piso.
"Retire, Syphax. There! the cook is bringing us his masterpiece, itseems."