choice been free; but it was better to have a certainty at a bad hour than by waiting for a better hour to make it an uncertainty. For it was a camp proverb-Pransus, paratus ; armed with this daily meal, the soldier is ready for service. It was not, however, that all meals, as Isidore imagined, were indiscriminately called prandium, but that the one sole meal of the day, by accidents of war, might, and did, revolve through all hours of the day. The first introduction of this military meal into Rome itself would be through the honourable pedantry of old centurions, &c., delighting (like the Commodore Trunnions of our navy) to keep up in peaceful life some image or memorial of their past experience, so wild, so full of peril, excitement, and romance, as Roman warfare must have been in those ages. Many non-military people for health's sake, many as an excuse for eating early, many by way of interposing some refreshment between the stages of forensic business, would adopt this hurried and informal meal. Many would wish to see their sons adopting such a meal, as a training for foreign service in particular, and for temperance in general. It would also be maintained by a solemn and very interesting commemoration of this camp repast in Rome. This commemoration, because it has been greatly misunderstood by Salmasius (whose error arose from not marking the true point of a particular antithesis), and still more because it is a distinct confirmation of all I have said as to the military nature of prandium, I shall detach from the series of my illustrations, by placing it in a separate paragraph. 66 On a set day the officers of the army were invited by Cæsar to a banquet; it was a circumstance expressly noticed in the invitation, that the banquet was not a cœna," but a "prandium." What did that imply? Why, that all the guests must present themselves in full military accoutrement; whereas, observes the historian, had it been a cœna, the officers would have unbelted their swords; for, he adds, even in Cæsar's presence the officers are allowed to lay aside their swords. The word prandium, in short, converted the palace into the imperial tent; and Cæsar was no longer a civil emperor and princeps senatus, but became a commander-in chief amongst a council of his staff, all belted and plumed, and in full military fig. On this principle we come to understand why it is that, whenever the Latin poet speaks of an army as taking food, the word used is always prandens and pransus, and, when the word used is prandens, then always it is an army that is concerned. Thus Juvenal in a well-known passage: "Credimus altos Desiccasse amnes, epotaque flumina, Medo that rivers were drunk up, when the Mede (i.e. the Median army under Xerxes) took his daily meal: prandente, observe, not conante: you might as well talk of an army taking tea and buttered toast as taking cœna. Nor is that word ever applied to armies. It is true that the converse is not so rigorously observed; nor ought it, from the explanations already given. Though no soldier dined (cœnabat), yet the citizen sometimes adopted the camp usage, and took a prandium. But generally the poets use the word merely to mark the time of day. In that most humorous appeal of Persius, "Cur quis non prandeat, hoc est ?"-is this a sufficient reason for losing one's prandium ?—he was obliged to say prandium, because no exhibitions ever could cause a man to lose his cœna, since none were displayed at a time of day when nobody in Rome would have attended. Just as, in alluding to a parliamentary speech notoriously delivered at midnight, an English satirist might have said, Is this a speech to furnish an argument for leaving one's bed ?—not as what stood foremost in his regard, but as the only thing that could be lost at that time of night. On this principle also-viz. by going back to the military origin of prandium-we gain the interpretation of all the peculiarities attached to it: viz.-1, its early hour; 2, its being taken in a standing posture; 3, in the open air; 4, the humble quality of its materials-bread and biscuit (the main articles of military fare). In all these circumstances of the meal, we read, most legibly written, the exotic (or noncivic) character of the meal, and its martial character. Thus I have brought down our Roman friend to noon day, or even one hour later than noon, and to this moment the poor man has had nothing to eat. For, supposing him to be not impransus, and supposing him jentasse beside, yet it is evident (I hope) that neither one nor the other means more than what it was often called-viz. ßovкkiμos, or, in plain English, a mouthful. How long do we intend to keep him waiting? Reader, he will dine at three, or (supposing dinner put off to the latest) at four. Dinner was never known to be later than the tenth hour at Rome,—which in summer would be past five, but for a far greater proportion of days would be near four, in Rome. And so entirely was a Roman the creature of ceremonial usage that a national mourning would probably have been celebrated, and the "sad augurs" would have been called in to expiate the prodigy, had the general dinner lingered beyond four. But, meantime, what has our friend been about since perhaps six or seven in the morning? After paying his little homage to his patronus, in what way has he fought with the great enemy Time since then? Why, reader, this illustrates one of the most interesting features in the Roman character. The Roman was the idlest of men. "Man and boy," he was 66 66 66 an idler in the land." He called himself and his pals rerum dominos, gentemque togatam "—" the gentry that wore the toga." Yes, a pretty set of gentry they were, and a pretty affair that "toga was. Just figure to yourself, reader, the picture of a hard-working man, with horny hands, like our hedgers, ditchers, porters, &c., setting to work on the highroad in that vast sweeping toga, filling with a strong gale like the mainsail of a frigate. Conceive the roars with which this magnificent figure would be received into the bosom of a modern poorhouse detachment sent out to attack the stones on some line of road, or a fatigue party of dustmen sent upon secret service. Had there been nothing left as a memorial of the Romans but that one relic—their immeasurable toga 1 1 "Immeasurable toga" :-It is very true that in the time of Augustus the toga had disappeared amongst the lowest plebs; and greatly Augustus was shocked at that spectacle. It is a very curious fact in itself, especially as expounding the main cause of the Civil Wars. Mere poverty, and the absence of bribery from Rome whilst all popular competition for offices drooped, can alone explain this remarkable revolution of dress. -I should have known that they were born and bred to idleness. In fact, except in war, the Roman never did anything at all but sun himself. Ut se apricaret was the final cause of peace in his opinion; in literal truth, that he might make an apricot of himself. The public rations at all times supported the poorest inhabitant of Rome, if he were a citizen. Hence it was that Hadrian was so astonished with the spectacle of Alexandria, "civitas opulenta, fœcunda, in qua nemo vivat otiosus." Here first he saw the spectacle of a vast city, second only to Rome, where every man had something to do; "podagrosi quod agant habent; habent cæci quod faciant; ne chiragrici" (those with gout in the fingers) "apud eos otiosi vivunt." No poor rates levied upon the rest of the world for the benefit of their own paupers were there distributed gratis. The prodigious spectacle (such it seemed to Hadrian) was exhibited in Alexandria, of all men earning their bread in the sweat of their brow. In Rome only (and at one time in some of the Grecian states) it was the very meaning of citizen that he should vote and be idle. Precisely those were the two things which the Roman, the fœx Romuli, had to do— viz. sometimes to vote, and always to be idle. In these circumstances, where the whole sum of life's duties amounted to voting, all the business a man could have was to attend the public assemblies, electioneering or factious. These, and any judicial trial (public or private) that might happen to interest him, for the persons concerned or for the questions at stake, amused him through the morning; that is, from eight till one. He might also extract some diversion from the columnæ, or pillars of certain porticoes to which they pasted advertisements. These affiches must have been numerous; for all the girls in Rome who lost a trinket, or a pet bird, or a lap-dog, took this mode of angling in the great ocean of the public for the missing articles. But all this time I take for granted that there were no shows in a course of exhibition, either the dreadful ones of the amphitheatre, or the bloodless ones of the circus. If there were, then that became the business of all Romans; and it was a business which would have occupied him from daylight until the light began to fail. Here we see another effect from the scarcity of artificial light amongst the ancients. But how These magnificent shows went on by day-light. incomparably more gorgeous would have been the splendour by lamp-light! What a gigantic conception! Two hundred and fifty thousand human faces all revealed under one blaze of lamp-light! Lord Bacon saw the mighty advantage of candle-light for the pomps and glories of this world. But the poverty of the earth was the original cause that the Pagan shows proceeded by day. Not that the masters of the world, who rained Arabian odours and perfumed waters of the most costly description from a thousand fountains, simply to cool the summer heats, would, in the latter centuries of Roman civilisation, have regarded the expense of light. Cedar and other odorous woods burning upon vast altars, together with every variety of fragrant torch, would have created light enough to shed a new day stretching over to the distant Adriatic. But precedents derived from early ages of poverty, ancient traditions, overruled the practical usage. However, as there may happen to be no public spectacles, and the courts of political meetings (if not closed altogether by superstition) would at any rate be closed in the ordinary course by twelve or one o'clock, nothing remains for him to do, before returning home, except perhaps to attend the palæstra, or some public recitation of a poem written by a friend, but in any case to attend the public baths. For these the time varied; and many people have thought it tyrannical in some of the Caesars that they imposed restraints on the time open for the baths. Some, for instance, would not suffer them to open at all before two; and in any case, if you were later than four or five in summer, you would have to pay a fine which most effectually cleaned out the baths of all raff, since it was a sum that John Quires could not have produced to save his life. But it should be considered that the Emperor was the steward of the public resources for maintaining the baths in fuel, oil, attendance, repairs. And certain it is that during the long peace of the first Cæsars, and after the annonaria provisio (that great pledge of popularity to a Roman prince) had been increased by the corn tribute from the Nile, the Roman population took a vast expansion ahead. The subsequent increase of baths, whilst no old ones were neglected, proves that decisively. And, as VOL. VII D |