Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/315

 small, their sides unadorned; a simple headpiece of bronze would display the head of a be-garlanded ass, beside which would romp in play the children of the village. Thus house and furniture were all in keeping with the fare.

The rude soldier of those days had no taste for, or knowledge of, Greek art; if allotted cups made by great artists as his share in the booty of a captured city, he would break them up to provide gay trappings for his horse, or to chase a helmet that should display to the dying foe an image of the Romulean beast bidden by Rome's destiny to grow tame, with the twin Quirini beneath a rock, and the nude effigy of the God swooping down with spear and shield. Their messes of spelt were then served on platters of earthenware; such silver as there was glittered only on their arms—all which things you may envy if you are at all inclined that way. The majesty of the temples also was more near to help us; it was then that was heard through the entire city that midnight voice telling how the Gauls were advancing from the shores of Ocean, the Gods taking on them the part of prophecy. Such were the warnings of Jupiter, such the care which he bestowed on the concerns of Latium when he was made of clay, and undefiled by gold.

In those days our tables were home-grown, made of our own trees; for such use was kept some aged chestnut blown down perchance by the South-western blast. But nowadays a rich man takes no pleasure in his dinner—his turbot and his venison have no taste, his unguents and his roses no perfume—unless the broad slabs of his dinner-table rest upon a ramping, gaping leopard of solid ivory, made 229