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Updated: June 13, 2025
We will dine early, and in the front triclinium this pleasant evening.... In the country here we have not all the delicacies that the city commands, but by the aid of Ostia and yonder village we manage tolerably.... Some wine? Falernian, that my good uncle bought forty years ago. The wax on the jar is stiff with age.
"Why is not Taurus Antinor here this evening?" asked Marcus Ancyrus when this little group of privileged guests once more turned back toward the triclinium. "I think that he will be here anon," replied the host. "I have sent him word that I desired speech with him on business of the State and that I craved the honour of his company." They all assembled at the head of the now deserted tables.
He had bidden me to see to the selection of the flowers for decorating the triclinium, for the garlands, and for sprinkling on the floor; to choose the wines I thought would be most appropriate and to have brought out and used his most prized set of silver, the work of Corinnos of Rhodes, embossed with scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses and acclaimed one of the finest services in Rome.
Choice plants or flowers about the impluvia and xysti, for ornament or refreshment, myrtles, oranges, pomegranates, the rose and the carnation, have disappeared. They dim the bright marbles of the walls and the gilding of the ceilings. They enter the triclinium in the midst of the banquet; they crawl over the viands and spoil what they do not devour.
Tears filled her eyes, and, shivering in every muscle, she sank down upon the seat and buried her face in her hands. Two moons had waxed and waned; Pacuvius Calavius had dined in his winter triclinium for the first time this year, and Marcia was rejoicing at the omen. She watched her host, as he lay back upon his couch, and noted with pity the change that had come over him.
After I had finished reading, dead silence reigned in the triclinium; even Tanno was too dumbfounded to utter any sound. Hirnio spoke first. "Gentlemen," he said, "I beg of you to hear me out with attention. Like our Caius here and like his hereditary antagonist, Ducconius Furfur, I have never taken sides in our age-long local feud.
It is sometimes incorrectly stated that triclinium means three couches, and that a dining-room had the name of triclinium because it contained three couches; which is absurd. Augustus had a census made in his sixth consulship, B.C. 28; and there had then been none for twenty-four years. That of B.C. 42 was in the consulship of M. Æmilius Lepidus and Munatius Plancus.
Would that gigantic blue-eyed Lygian, who had the courage to enter the triclinium and carry her from the feast on his arm? But where could he hide with her; whither could he take her? No! a slave would not have ventured that far. Hence no one had done the deed except Cæsar. At this thought it grew dark in his eyes, and drops of sweat covered his forehead.
Banquets of incredible luxury drew the most celebrated guests into its triclinium, and filled them with envious admiration. The bees swarmed and buzzed about the golden hive. The human insects, gorgeous moths of pleasure and greedy flies of appetite, parasites and flatterers and crowds of inquisitive idlers, danced and fluttered in the dazzling light that surrounded Hermas.
While such was the conversation one not discordant to the tone of mind common among the dissipated of that day, and which might perhaps, a century ago, have found an echo in the looser circles of Paris while such, I say, was the conversation in the gaudy triclinium of Lepidus, far different the scene which scowled before the young Athenian.
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