We read, too, that the Carthaginian ambassadors declared that no people lived on more amicable terms among themselves than the Romans, for that wherever they had dined they had always met with the same[1091] silver plate. And yet, by Hercules! to my own knowledge, Pompeius Paulinus, son of a Roman of equestrian rank at Arelate,[1092] a member, too, of a family, on the paternal side, that was graced with the fur,[1093] had with him, when serving with the army, and that, too, in a war against the most savage nations, a service of silver plate that weighed twelve thousand pounds!
CHAP. 51.—AT WHAT PERIOD SILVER WAS FIRST USED AS AN ORNAMENT FOR COUCHES.
For this long time past, however, it has been the fashion to plate the couches of our women, as well as some of our banquetting-couches,[1094] entirely with silver. Carvilius Pollio,[1095] a Roman of equestrian rank, was the first, it is said, to adorn these last with silver; not, I mean, to plate them all over, nor yet to make them after the Delian pattern; the Punic[1096] fashion being the one he adopted. It was after this last pattern too, that he had them ornamented with gold as well: and it was not long after his time that silver couches came into fashion, in imitation of the couches of Delos. All this extravagance, however, was fully expiated by the civil wars of Sulla.
CHAP. 52.—AT WHAT PERIOD SILVER CHARGERS OF ENORMOUS SIZE WERE FIRST MADE. WHEN SILVER WAS FIRST USED AS A MATERIAL FOR SIDEBOARDS. WHEN THE SIDEBOARDS CALLED TYMPANA WERE FIRST INTRODUCED.
In fact, it was but very shortly before that period that these couches were invented, as well as chargers[1097] of silver, one hundred pounds in weight: of which last, it is a well-known fact, that there were then upwards of one hundred and fifty in Rome, and that many persons were proscribed through the devices of others who were desirous to gain possession thereof. Well may our Annals be put to the blush for having to impute those civil wars to the existence of such vices as these!
Our own age, however, has waxed even stronger in this respect. In the reign of Claudius, his slave Drusillanus, surnamed Rotundus, who acted as his steward[1098] in Nearer Spain, possessed a silver charger weighing five hundred pounds, for the manufacture of which a workshop had had to be expressly built. This charger was accompanied also by eight other dishes, each two hundred and fifty pounds in weight. How many of his fellow-slaves,[1099] pray, would it have taken to introduce these dishes, or who[1100] were to be the guests served therefrom?