The Dedalus Book of Roman Decadence- Emperors of Debauchery

by Geoffrey Farrington

  Having had our fill of these delights, we tried to get into the dining room, but one of the boys (who had this as his appointed task) shouted, 'right foot first!' Of course we were worried for a second, in case one of us had crossed the threshold contrary to the rule. As we were all stepping forward, right feet first, a stripped slave fell at our feet and started to beg us to save him from a beating. He wasn't in trouble for anything very serious - the steward's clothes had been stolen from him at the baths, and those clothes were hardly worth ten sesterces anyway. So we withdrew our right feet and begged the steward, who was counting gold pieces in the hall, to let the slave off. He looked up superciliously and said, 'the actual loss doesn't bother me, it's just this lazy wretch's carelessness. He lost my dinner clothes, and a client gave them to me for my birthday. Absolutely genuine Tyrian purple. But it had been washed once. Still, what can you do? He's all yours.'

  We were much obliged for this great benevolence, and when we went into the dining room, the slave for whom we had pleaded ran up to us and to our great surprise waylaid us and showered us with kisses and thanked us for our kindness. `Above all, you will know in a second who it is you have done the favour for. The master's wine is the waiter's to present.'

  At last we sat down, and Alexandrian boys poured water cooled with snow over our hands. Others followed them in, and, squatting at our feet cut our toenails with great skill. Even such an unpleasant duty as this one didn't shut them up, and they kept on singing as they worked. I wanted to find out if the whole household sang, so I asked for a drink. A boy at hand got me one, singing away shrilly, and anyone asked to do something did the same. It was more like a music hall than a formal dinner.

  Some rich and tasty starters were now brought on, as everyone had sat down except for Trimalchio, who, following the new custom, kept the head of the table for himself. A donkey made of Corinthian bronze was standing ready, and in its two panniers there were white olives on one side and black on the other. The donkey was hidden by two silver dishes, around the perimeters of each was inscribed the name Trimalchio, and the weight of each. Little iron trivets on the dishes supported dormice in honey and poppy seed. Then there were hot sausages on a silver griddle with damsons and pomegranate seeds underneath to represent coals. While we were eating these hors d'oeu vres, Trimalchio was brought in to musical accompaniment, and placed amongst a pile of little pillows. Those not expecting this laughed. His cropped head stuck out of his scarlet robe, and around his neck there was a cravat with a wide purple stripe, fringed with tassels. On the pinkie of his left hand he had a heavy gold-plated ring, and on the last joint of his ring finger was a smaller one that seemed to me to be solid gold, but in reality was set with little iron stars. Showing off even more wealth, he had bared his right arm, round which was a gold bracelet and an ivory bangle fastened with a bright metal clasp. Then, picking his teeth with a silver toothpick, he said, `friends, I wasn't ready to come into the dining room yet, but I would have held you back had I delayed any longer. I have given up my own pleasures for your benefit. Allow me, though, to finish off my game.' A boy followed him with a board made from terebinth wood, with crystal squares, and then I noticed the most beautiful thing of all. He had gold and silver coins instead of black and white counters. While he played, Trimalchio kept up a running commentary, and we were still on the starters when a tray with a basket on it was brought in. In it was a wooden hen with her wings spread around, as they are when they are hatching. Two slaves came up at once and the music rose to a crescendo as they began to search through the straw, from which they produced peacock's eggs and handed them round to the guests. Trimalchio turned and looked at this scene and said, `friends, I ordered that peacock's eggs be placed under an ordinary chicken. My word - I hope that they are not going to hatch! Let's try, though, and see if you can still suck them.' We took our spoons - they weighed at least half a pound each - and cracked our pastry-cased eggs. I almost threw my share away, for it looked as though the chicken was already formed. Then I heard a regular guest of Trimalchio's say, 'I wonder what treat we have here.' I poked through the shell with a finger and found a little fat beccafico, covered in seasoned egg yolk.

  By now Trimalchio, breaking off his game, asked in a loud voice for all the dishes to be brought to him, and asked whether any of us wished to take a second glass of wine sweetened with honey. Suddenly the music gave a sign, and the hors d'oeuvres were whipped away by a group of singing slaves. In the muddle, a small silver dish happened to fall on the floor and a boy picked it up. Trimalchio noticed this accident and ordered him to thrown down the dish again. A cleaner came in and began to sweep up this silver with other rubbish. Two longhaired Ethiopians with little wine-skins came in, just like sprinklers in the amphitheatre, and poured wine over our hands - for no one offered us water.

  The host was praised for his most extravagant arrangements. `Mars loves a fair fight,' he said, `and for that reason I ordered everyone be shown to a separate table. In this way the smelly slaves won't make us so hot as they push past us.'

  Glass amphorae, carefully corked with gypsum were then brought in. Around their necks were fixed labels which said: Vintage Falernian, Bottled in the Praetorship of Opimius, 100 years old. While we were studying the labels, Trimalchio clapped his hands and said, `well, wine lives longer than poor old mankind. Let's have a ball! Wine is life. I'm giving you a real vintage - last century, no less! I didn't serve such good stuff at dinner yesterday, and the guests were a much better class of person.'

  And so we drank and admired all the trappings. A slave brought in a silver skeleton, made so that its limbs and spine could be moved and bent in all directions. He put it down on the table a couple of times, setting its flexible joints to strike various poses, and Trimalchio declaimed:

  After the applause a platter followed, not as big as expected, but so novel that everyone stared. It was a round platter with the twelve signs of the zodiac on it and above each the master-chef had placed some special food suitable to the attributes of the sign. Above Aries, a ramekin of buttered chickpeas; above Taurus, a steak; above Gemini, testicles and kidneys; above Cancer, a garland; above Leo, an African fig; above Virgo, a young sow's udder; above Libra, a pair of scales with a tart on one side and a cake on the other; above Scorpio, a little sea-fish; above Sagittarius, a bullseye; above Capricorn, a lobster; above Aquarius, a goose; and above Pisces, two mullets. In the centre was a honeycomb on a clump of grass.

  An Egyptian boy brought bread round in a silver dish, murdering as he did so a hit from a recent musical in an incredibly offensive voice. We sat down rather miserably at such cut-price food. 'I recommend that we eat,' said Trimalchio. 'This is the real sauce of our dinner.' As he said this, four dancers pranced up in time to the music and removed the top half of the dish. Inside it we then saw corn-fed fowls, sows' udders and a hare in the middle. It had wings attached to look like Pegasus. In the corners we spotted four figures of the satyr Marsyas, and from their wine-skins a peppery sauce flowed out over the fishes, who seemed to swim in a rivulet. Started off by the household, we all applauded this, and set off on these trifles with a laugh. Trimalchio was as pleased as we were with the trickery he had played, and called out 'Carve 'em!' A man came up immediately and in time to music he carved up the meat in such a way that you would have thought he was a gladiator, fencing to musical accompaniment. In a very soft voice Trimalchio carried on saying "Carve 'em, Carve 'em!' I suspected that this repetition was part of a joke, and I wasn't ashamed to ask the man sitting next to me. He had watched this game more often than I had, and explained, 'you see that man slicing up the meat? - his name is Carveham. So whenever Trimalchio says "carve 'em," he's calling out the name and the order.'

  I wasn't able to eat much more, so I turned to my dinner companion to find out as much as possible - I started to dig for gossip, and to find out who the woman was who was running about all over the place. `She's called Fortunata. She's Trimalchio's wife, and she counts her money by the room
ful. And before she married him, what was she? I would not have taken a piece of bread - pardon my French - from her poxy hand. No-one knows how or why, but now she's in seventh heaven and is Trimalchio's reason for living. In fact, if she were to tell him that it was dark at midday, he'd believe it. He doesn't even know how much he has, he's that rich. But this vixen keeps an eye on everything, even where you wouldn't think she could. She's cold, sober and sharp as a knife, but she's got a wicked tongue and jolly well uses it. If she likes you, she likes you; if she doesn't, she doesn't. Trimalchio has estates it would take a hawk a day to fly over. The man is worth millions. There is more silver lying around in his porter's lodge than others have in their entire bank-accounts. And have you seen his household? Ye gods! I really don't believe that one in ten knows their own master by sight. He could blow any of your young upstarts right out of the water. And don't think that he buys anything, either. Everything is grown at home - wool, lemons, pepper. You could have hen's milk if you wanted. At one time his wool wasn't of a good enough quality, so he bought Tarentine rams and crossbred them in with his flock. He ordered bees from Athens so that he could have Attic honey at home (and, by the way, his own bees were improved by the little Greek fellows). Look, within the last couple of days he has written off to India for some mushroom spores. And he doesn't have a single mule which wasn't fathered by a wild ass. You see all of these cushions? Every one of them has either purple or crimson stuffing. That's true happiness. Make sure you don't look down on the other freedmen here. They're loaded. You see that one reclining on the very bottom couch? Today he's worth a good eight hundred K. It grew from nothing. A little time ago he was carrying wood on his back. I don't know, but they do say that he found a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Still, I'm not jealous of what the gods give. Anyway, he can still remember the feel of his master's slap, and he wants to indulge himself. And so he has just put up a notice on the dump where he lives, saying Gaius Pompeius Diogenes - Attic to let from July 1. Owner has recently purchased house. And then that one there, in the freedman's place. How well he's had it! I don't blame him. He had a million, but he invested badly. Now I don't think he can call his hair his own. But I'd swear it wasn't his fault, and there isn't a better chap alive, but his own bloody freedmen took him for everything. You know how it is - your company's pot goes off the boil and when things start to go downhill, your friends disappear. You see him like this, but what a responsible business he used to run! He was an undertaker. He used to eat meals fit for a king - whole roast boar, wonderful pastry creations and game - he kept cooks and pastry-chefs. There was more wine spilt under his table than others have in their cellars. He lived in a dream more than in reality. When he was scared that his creditors would think that he might have to file for bankruptcy, when things were going badly, he advertised a sale: Gaius Julius Proculus will be auctioning off a few surplus knick-knacks.'

  Trimalchio interrupted this wonderful flow of reminiscences. The course had now been taken away and the mellowing guests began to pay attention to the wine and the general conversation, when he lay back on his couch and said, `you must make this wine slip down pleasantly. Fish need to swim. I ask you, did you really think I would be happy with that course? The one you saw on the other part of the dish? "Is this," as Vergil put it, "the Ulysses we know and love?" Well, is it? We must have culture, even at dinner. God rest the bones of my patron, he wanted me to be a real gentleman among gentlemen. No one can teach me anything new, as that last dish proved. Heaven, where the twelve gods live, changes into that number of shapes. First it becomes Aries the ram, and whoever is born under that sign has many flocks, a lot of wool, a hard head, a lot of front, and sharp horns. Many academics are born under that sign, as well as woolly-minded people.' We applauded the panache of our astrologer, and so he continued, `then the whole sky becomes a little bull. People who run at things like a bull at a gate are born then, as well as cowboys and cud-chewers. Under Gemini, however, you get pairs-in-hand, yoked oxen, men with big balls, and people who sit on the fence. I was born under Cancer, so I stand on my own feet and own a lot of property on land and at sea - because a crab is as happy on both. That's why I didn't put anything above Cancer earlier, in case I weighed down my own horoscope. Greedy and tyrannical people are born under Leo; under Virgo, women, fugitives and members of chain-gang; under Libra, butchers, perfume makers and anyone who weighs things up first; under Scorpio, poisoners and hit-men; cross-eyed people are born under Sagittarius, the ones who look at the two veg., but take the meat; under Capricorn you get poor beggars whose bad luck makes them grow horns; under Aquarius, publicans and drips; under Pisces, fish-chefs and political piss-artists. So the world turns like a mill-wheel, and there is always trouble. Men being born or dying. You saw the turf in the middle of the platter with a honey comb on it? I do everything for a reason. Mother Earth is in the middle, round like an egg, and she has all the goodness inside her, just like a honeycomb.

  `Genius,' we all exclaimed, raising our hands to the ceiling and swearing that even Hipparchus and Aratus - the greatest Greek astronomers - could not compare with Trimalchio. Then the servants came up and spread covers on the couches, embroidered with nets, hunters with hunting spears and all the accoutrements that go with hunting. We still didn't know what to look at first, when there was a huge rumpus just outside the dining room. Spartan hunting dogs began to run all over the place - even round the table. Close on their tails came a huge platter with a wild boar of immense size on it. It was wearing a freed man's cap, and two baskets made of palm leaves hung from its tusks. One was full of the best fresh dates and the other full of the best dried dates. Around it were little piglets made of cake, placed as if they were suckling, and thus suggesting that it was a sow. These were in fact presents to take away. Surprisingly the man who came to divide up the boar was not old Carveham, who'd cut up the game, but a huge bearded man, wearing leggings and a damask hunting-coat. He pulled out a hunting knife and stabbed it hard into the boar's side and out from it flew a flock of thrushes. But there were bird catchers ready with limed twigs as snares, and as the birds flew round the dining room they caught them in a moment. Trimalchio ordered that each guest be presented with a bird and then said, `now look at all the acorns this woodland boar has eaten.' At once boys went to the baskets which dangled from the tusks and divided up the dried and fresh dates equally among the guests.

  In the meantime, I had kept quiet, because I was trying out to myself all sorts of ideas as to why the boar had come in with a freedman's cap on. After I had come up with all kinds of dumb answers, I asked my knowledgeable neighbour what was bothering me. He said, 'even your slave could explain that to you. There's no mystery. It's perfectly obvious. This boar was brought in yesterday as a last course, but he was let go by the guests. So today he comes back to dinner as a free man.' I cursed my slowness, and didn't ask any more questions in case it looked as if I had never dined in company before.

  Suetonius

  The Fire of Rome

  The phrase `Nero fiddled while Rome burned' is of course anachronistic, since there were no `fiddles' in Nero's time. It might however serve as an apposite metaphor for the fact that Nero was not interested in the business of government, and abandoned himself- to the scandal of the Roman people - to his passion for performing music and drama upon the public stage, while his corrupt ministers and agents were allowed to despoil the empire. It is generally agreed among modern historians that Nero was not responsible for the great fire that ravaged Rome in AD 64. Indeed he was not in Rome at the time but staying in Antium on the Latium coast, and he hurried back when news was brought, to organise efforts to fight the blaze.

  It is agreed by ancient historians, however, that he did sing, while the fire raged, his composition `The Fall of Troy' while accompanying himself on the lyre. It is quite likely to be true. The sheer epic drama of the situation may have been more than he could resist. Some ancient sources, Suetonius included, accuse him directly of having started
the fire, and his subsequent act of claiming a large area of the ruined city centre to build his vast new palace complex, the Domus Aurea or Golden House - the ultimate gentleman's folly - doubtless made the whole tragedy seem suspicious to his contemporaries.

  NERD, 38

  Nero showed no mercy to the people, nor to the walls of his capital city. In general conversation someone once said to him, `when I am dead, let fire consume the earth.' Nero retorted, `no, rather while I am still alive.' And he meant it, too. As if disgusted by the ugliness of the old buildings and the narrow, winding streets, he set fire to the city of Rome so openly that although a number of high-ranking public officials caught the emperor's men with dry flax and wood on their estates, they did not do anything to stop them. There were some storehouses on land near the palace, his Golden House, land which he greatly desired. Because their walls were made of stone, these storehouses were destroyed with machines of war and then burnt to the ground. Destruction raged for six days and seven nights - so much so that the people of Rome were forced to find shelter in public monuments and tombs. During the fire, the houses of former military leaders - still decorated with the spoils of war - and temples of the gods, dedicated either by the kings, or later, in the Punic and Gallic wars, were also burned, as were a great number of blocks of flats. So, too, was anything else worth seeing and notable that had survived from ancient times. Looking down at this blaze from the tower of Maecenas and revelling in what he called, `the beauty of the flames,' he chanted the `Lay of the Fall of Troy,' wearing his usual stage clothes. To get as much booty and riches as possible from this, he promised the free removal of corpses and rubble, but did not allow anyone to get near what remained of his property. From the donations that he not only received, but also actually demanded, he almost bankrupted the provinces and people.