as she joined the wife of Pansa, and left Glaucus to seek Ione.
The widow Fulvia and the spouse of the aedile were engaged in high and
grave discussion.
'O Fulvia! I assure you that the last account from Rome declares that
the frizzling mode of dressing the hair is growing antiquated; they only
now wear it built up in a tower, like Julia's, or arranged as a
helmet--the Galerian fashion, like mine, you see: it has a fine effect,
I think. I assure you, Vespius (Vespius was the name of the Herculaneum
hero) admires it greatly.'
'And nobody wears the hair like yon Neapolitan, in the Greek way.'
'What, parted in front, with the knot behind? Oh, no; how ridiculous it
is! it reminds one of the statue of Diana! Yet this Ione is handsome,
eh?'
'So the men say; but then she is rich: she is to marry the Athenian--I
wish her joy. He will not be long faithful, I suspect; those foreigners
are very faithless.'
'Oh, Julia!' said Fulvia, as the merchant's daughter joined them; 'have
you seen the tiger yet?'
'No!'
'Why, all the ladies have been to see him. He is so handsome!'
'I hope we shall find some criminal or other for him and the lion,'
replied Julia. 'Your husband (turning to Pansa's wife) is not so active
as he should be in this matter.'
'Why, really, the laws are too mild,' replied the dame of the helmet.
'There are so few offences to which the punishment of the arena can be
awarded; and then, too, the gladiators are growing effeminate! The
stoutest bestiarii declare they are willing enough to fight a boar or a
bull; but as for a lion or a tiger, they think the game too much in
earnest.'
'They are worthy of a mitre,' replied Julia, in disdain.
'Oh! have you seen the new house of Fulvius, the dear poet?' said
Pansa's wife.
'No: is it handsome?'
'Very!--such good taste. But they say, my dear, that he has such
improper pictures! He won't show them to the women: how ill-bred!'
'Those poets are always odd,' said the widow. 'But he is an interesting
man; what pretty verses he writes! We improve very much in poetry: it
is impossible to read the old stuff now.'
'I declare I am of your opinion, returned the lady of the helmet.
'There is so much more force and energy in the modern school.'
The warrior sauntered up to the ladies.
'It reconciles me to peace,' said he, 'when I see such faces.'
'Oh! you heroes are ever flatterers,' returned Fulvia, hastening to
appropriate the compliment specially to herself.
'By this chain, which I received from the emperor's own hand,' replied
the warrior, playing with a short chain which hung round the neck like a
collar, instead of descending to the breast, according to the fashion of
the peaceful--'By this chain, you wrong me! I am a blunt man--a soldier
should be so.'
'How do you find the ladies of Pompeii generally?' said Julia.
'By Venus, most beautiful! They favor me a little, it is true, and that
inclines my eyes to double their charms.'
'We love a warrior,' said the wife of Pansa.
'I see it: by Hercules! it is even disagreeable to be too celebrated in
these cities. At Herculaneum they climb the roof of my atrium to catch
a glimpse of me through the compluvium; the admiration of one's citizens
is pleasant at first, but burthensome afterwards.'
'True, true, O Vespius!' cried the poet, joining the group: 'I find it
so myself.'
'You!' said the stately warrior, scanning the small form of the poet
with ineffable disdain. 'In what legion have you served?'
'You may see my spoils, my exuviae, in the forum itself,' returned the
poet, with a significant glance at the women. 'I have been among the
tent-companions, the contubernales, of the great Mantuan himself.'
'I know no general from Mantua, said the warrior, gravely. 'What
campaign have you served?'
'That of Helicon.'
'I never heard of it.'
'Nay, Vespius, he does but joke,' said Julia, laughing.
'Joke! By Mars, am I a man to be joked!'
'Yes; Mars himself was in love with the mother of jokes,' said the poet,
a little alarmed. 'Know, then, O Vespius! that I am the poet Fulvius.
It is I who make warriors immortal!'
'The gods forbid!' whispered Sallust to Julia. 'If Vespius were made
immortal, what a specimen of tiresome braggadocio would be transmitted
to posterity!'
The soldier looked puzzled; when, to the infinite relief of himself and
his companions, the signal for the feast was given.
As we have already witnessed at the house of Glaucus the ordinary
routine of a Pompeian entertainment, the reader is spared any second
detail of the courses, and the manner in which they were introduced.
Diomed, who was rather ceremonious, had appointed a nomenclator, or
appointer of places to each guest.
The reader understands that the festive board was composed of three
tables; one at the centre, and one at each wing. It was only at the
outer side of these tables that the guests reclined; the inner space was
left untenanted, for the greater convenience of the waiters or ministri.
The extreme corner of one of the wings was appropriated to Julia as the
lady of the feast; that next her, to Diomed. At one corner of the
centre table was placed the aedile; at the opposite corner, the Roman
senator--these were the posts of honour. The other guests were
arranged, so that the young (gentleman or lady) should sit next each
other, and the more advanced in years be similarly matched. An
agreeable provision enough, but one which must often have offended those
who wished to be thought still young.
The chair of Ione was next to the couch of Glaucus. The seats were
veneered with tortoiseshell, and covered with quilts stuffed with
feathers, and ornamented with costly embroideries. The modern ornaments
of epergne or plateau were supplied by images of the gods, wrought in
bronze, ivory, and silver. The sacred salt-cellar and the familiar
Lares were not forgotten. Over the table and the seats a rich canopy was
suspended from the ceiling. At each corner of the table were lofty
candelabra--for though it was early noon, the room was darkened--while
from tripods, placed in different parts of the room, distilled the odor
of myrrh and frankincense; and upon the abacus, or sideboard, large
vases and various ornaments of silver were ranged, much with the same
ostentation (but with more than the same taste) that we find displayed
at a modern feast.
The custom of grace was invariably supplied by that of libations to the
gods; and Vesta, as queen of the household gods, usually received first
that graceful homage.
This ceremony being performed, the slaves showered flowers upon the
couches and the floor, and crowned each guest with rosy garlands,
intricately woven with ribands, tied by the rind of the linden-tree, and
each intermingled with the ivy and the amethyst--supposed preventives
against the effect of wine; the wreaths of the women only were exempted
from these leaves, for it was not the fashion for them to drink wine in
public. It was then that the president Diomed thought it advisable to
institute a basileus, or director of the feast--an important office,
sometimes chosen by lot; sometimes, as now, by the master of the
entertainment.
Diomed was not a little puzzled as to his election. The invalid senator
was too grave and too infirm for the proper fulfilment of his duty; the
aedile Pansa was adequate enough to the task: but then, to choose the
next in official rank to the senator, was an affront to the senator
himself. While deliberating between the merits of the others, he caught
the mirthful glance of Sallust, and, by a sudden inspiration, named the
jovial epicure to the rank of director, or arbiter bibendi.
Sallust received the appointment with becoming humility.
'I shall be a merciful king,' said he, 'to those who drink deep; to a
recusant, Minos himself shall be less inexorable. Beware!'
The slaves handed round basins of perfumed water, by which lavation the
feast commenced: and now the table groaned under the initiatory course.
The conversation, at first desultory and scattered, allowed Ione and
Glaucus to carry on those sweet whispers, which are worth all the
eloquence in the world. Julia watched them with flashing eyes.
'How soon shall her place be mine!' thought she.
But Clodius, who sat in the centre table, so as to observe well the
countenance of Julia, guessed her pique, and resolved to profit by it.
He addressed her across the table in set phrases of gallantry; and as he
was of high birth and of a showy person, the vain Julia was not so much
in love as to be insensible to his attentions.
The slaves, in the interim, were constantly kept upon the alert by the
vigilant Sallust, who chased one cup by another with a celerity which
seemed as if he were resolved upon exhausting those capacious cellars
which the reader may yet see beneath the house of Diomed. The worthy
merchant began to repent his choice, as amphora after amphora was
pierced and emptied. The slaves, all under the age of manhood (the
youngest being about ten years old--it was they who filled the wine--the
eldest, some five years older, mingled it with water), seemed to share
in the zeal of Sallust; and the face of Diomed began to glow as he
watched the provoking complacency with which they seconded the exertions
of the king of the feast.
'Pardon me, O senator!' said Sallust; 'I see you flinch; your purple hem
cannot save you--drink!'
'By the gods,' said the senator, coughing, 'my lungs are already on
fire; you proceed with so miraculous a swiftness, that Phaeton himself
was nothing to you. I am infirm, O pleasant Sallust: you must exonerate
me.'
'Not I, by Vesta! I am an impartial monarch--drink.'
The poor senator, compelled by the laws of the table, was forced to
comply. Alas! every cup was bringing him nearer and nearer to the
Stygian pool.
'Gently! gently! my king,' groaned Diomed; 'we already begin to...'
'Treason!' interrupted Sallust; 'no stern Brutus here!--no interference
with royalty!'
'But our female guests...'
'Love a toper! Did not Ariadne dote upon Bacchus?'
The feast proceeded; the guests grew more talkative and noisy; the
dessert or last course was already on the table; and the slaves bore
round water with myrrh and hyssop for the finishing lavation. At the
same time, a small circular table that had been placed in the space
opposite the guests suddenly, and as by magic, seemed to open in the
centre, and cast up a fragrant shower, sprinkling the table and the
guests; while as it ceased the awning above them was drawn aside, and
the guests perceived that a rope had been stretched across the ceiling,
and that one of those nimble dancers for which Pompeii was so
celebrated, and whose descendants add so charming a grace to the
festivities of Astley's or Vauxhall, was now treading his airy measures
right over their heads.
This apparition, removed but by a cord from one's pericranium, and
indulging the most vehement leaps, apparently with the intention of
alighting upon that cerebral region, would probably be regarded with
some terror by a party in May Fair; but our Pompeian revellers seemed to
behold the spectacle with delighted curiosity, and applauded in
proportion as the dancer appeared with the most difficulty to miss
falling upon the head of whatever guest he particularly selected to
dance above. He paid the senator, indeed, the peculiar compliment of
literally falling from the rope, and catching it again with his hand,
just as the whole party imagined the skull of the Roman was as much
fractured as ever that of the poet whom the eagle took for a tortoise.
At length, to the great relief of at least Ione, who had not much
accustomed herself to this entertainment, the dancer suddenly paused as
a strain of music was heard from without. He danced again still more
wildly; the air changed, the dancer paused again; no, it could not
dissolve the charm which was supposed to possess him! He represented
one who by a strange disorder is compelled to dance, and whom only a
certain air of music can cure. At length the musician seemed to hit on
the right tune; the dancer gave one leap, swung himself down from the
rope, alighted on the floor, and vanished.
One art now yielded to another; and the musicians who were stationed
without on the terrace struck up a soft and mellow air, to which were
sung the following words, made almost indistinct by the barrier between
and the exceeding lowness of the minstrelsy:--
FESTIVE MUSIC SHOULD BE LOW
I
Hark! through these flowers our music sends its greeting
To your loved halls, where Psilas shuns the day;
When the young god his Cretan nymph was meeting
He taught Pan's rustic pipe this gliding lay:
Soft as the dews of wine
Shed in this banquet hour,
The rich libation of Sound's stream divine,
O reverent harp, to Aphrodite pour!
II
Wild rings the trump o'er ranks to glory marching;
Music's sublimer bursts for war are meet;
But sweet lips murmuring under wreaths o'er-arching,
Find the low whispers like their own most sweet.
Steal, my lull'd music, steal
Like womans's half-heard tone,
So that whoe'er shall hear, shall think to feel
In thee the voice of lips that love his own.
At the end of that song Ione's cheek blushed more deeply than before,
