~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From Inns of Greece & Rome, and a history of Hospitality from the Dawn of Time to the Middle Ages, by W. C. Firebaugh, with an Introduction by Wallace Rice and Illustrations by Norman Lindsay, Chicago: Pascal Covici; 1928; pp. 172-184.
THE INNS OF GREECE AND ROME
172Cato and the Sumptuary Laws — Contempt for the Law enforcers — Orgiastic dances — Prices of foods and wines controlled — More of Nero’s slumming escapades — Julius Capitolinus, Commodus, and Heliogabalus, the most dissolute of all, patrons of the low taverns — Aurelian cleans the Augean stables — Virgil pays court to the divinities of hospitality — Horace the man about town.
We have already had occasion to speak of the gynecomus at Athens and the power invested in the office, a power that prevented gatherings and picnics which comprised more than thirty individuals; we now find the Roman law favoring a regulation almost the same, but applying it to the entertainments in the nympheae. With the individual guests invited, the law did not concern itself further than to limit the maximum number that could be in attendance. But an ancient proverb, a joyous and spirited double entendre, took a sprightly revenge upon the rule limiting the number of guests to seven:
Septem convivium . . . novem convicium
a play on sound and sense, signifying a convivial party of seven, may result in anything from a new meeting to a recognition of hostility, or nine critics. Varro was a trifle more indulgent in his estimate, for Aulus Gellius quotes a passage from the Menippean Satires in which the following passage occurs: That though the number of guests should not be smaller than the number of Graces, yet should it not exceed the number of the Muses.
However, there was still another reason for the surveillance maintained by the authorities, an inspection that often invaded the home and the tavern. Among the Romans some of the more austere citizens, such as 173 Cato, saw in the increase of luxurious appetites the seeds of ruin, and for this reason, they passed certain sumptuary laws designed to curtail the expenses which could be incurred in private dinners. As prodigality would increase the prices of commodities and place a hardship upon the shoulders of the common people, such laws, though opposed during their passage through the senate, were generally passed, but, like many of our own, soon fell into neglect, and were invoked and revitalized from time to time. Such powers were placed in the hands of the censors, who were better prepared to enforce them because of the nature of the office they held. One of the first regulations promulgated after the passage of the earlier sumptuary laws was to the effect that the citizen must eat his meals in the first room of the house, and leave his gates and doors wide open to make inspection easier and more rapid. “And this,” says Pancirollus, whom we shall have frequent cause to cite in dealing with the bypaths of antiquity, “was to enable the censors passing by to ascertain whether the citizen living there was complying with all the provisions of the law and keeping within the limits prescribed. According to these laws, it was not legal to serve more than one hen; no poultry should be specially fattened for the table; on wedding days not more than two hundred asses could be expended on the entertainment, on certain festival days named in the Fannian Law, one hundred asses could be expended, on ten other days in each month not more than thirty asses could be lavished, and on all other days not more than ten asses could be spent. There were several of these laws, passed at different times, but all of them fell eventually into neglect.”
The Licinian Law also provided that on ordinary days not more than three pounds of fresh meat should be served, and not more than one pound of salt meat. 174
Extravagance in funerals had been prohibited by the Twelve Tables, and a law of the dictator Sulla revitalized this ancient regulation and limited also the amounts that could be expended upon monuments: precepts which we today might imitate and follow to advantage.
Needless to say, the sumptuary laws were the occasion of some dissatisfaction, and the pride of the individual who successfully evaded them was commensurate with that of our own citizens in dealing with certain of the amendments to the American Constitution. In order that they might have finer and more caustic sport at the expense of the censor and his assistants, his living effigy was present at entertainments during the saturnalia, the seasons of the greatest licence and drunkenness, and filled the role of master of the feast, a toastmaster charged with the authority of regulating the drinks and prescribing the rules to be followed under a satiric and mocking exterior, the very personification of Folly in a merry mood. The regulations prescribed by him were a parody of the laws and mannerisms of the censor in office. He was chosen by lot after a throw of the dice. The so-called Cast of Venus (do not our own dusky experts at African golf continually call upon Little Joe from Kokomo or Little Dick from Boston?) decided his election and crowned him king of the revels. Once named, he threw himself heart and soul into his task, he impersonated the censor to admiration, and if the latter happened to be a martinet his vagaries and mannerisms were imitated and the mirth ran high. With all the gravity with which a little responsibility always invests a light weight, this pseudo-censor would take from the hands of the obsonator and the vinerius the lists setting forth the dishes and the vintages, and should they prove too numerous and extravagant, it boded ill for the host! This little satire on manners and customs 175 must have been highly diverting to the other guests and might even be said to approach in subtle delicacy our own “ain’t prohibition grand,” heard so frequently when the juniper and the coriander begin to get in their insidious work. The principal charge, however, a thing that occupied the serious attention of our toastmaster, was fixing the number of bumpers to be tossed off by each guest: the bigger the bumper the oftener it came around, and they were good drinkers in those days. This mock-heroic monarch, personification of contempt for law, this index to a state of mind that considered nothing but its own amusement and convenience, carried matters to the very heights of sardonic banter by promulgating outlandish orders among the guests, who were duty bound to obey them with a smile even as the serious orders of constituted authority provoked sorrow and tragedy more frequently than joy. He could command a guest to vilify himself, as being the best possible authority upon the subject; another would be ordered to dance in a state of nature and to sing a song, a third would take the nude flute girl upon his shoulders and lead the orgiastic procession through the whole establishment, the customary number of tours being three:
Thy praises shall be sung
By youths who thrice shall dance around thy shrine,
Happy in youth and full of this year’s wine.
— Petronius, Hymn to Priapus.
Another might be called upon to blacken his face with soot, another to leap into a pool of water chilled with December’s rigors. Those most successful in executing the letter and spirit of the orders received were awarded as a prize a magnificent sausage or other appropriate trinket no less recondite.
Such is the nature of the “so-called human race,” that so fine an example as that set by the wealthy libertines 176 would never have been lost upon the lower orders, and burlesques of a more revolting character took place in the inns and taverns, especially in those which lay beyond the city walls, although the eating-houses and pot-houses of such districts as the Esquiline, Velabri, Suburra, Trans Tiber, and, on a more elaborate scale, the Peace Ward (Vicus Pacis) must also have celebrated the Saturnalia in a lively and lubricous manner. The more the observer gets down to brass tacks with the commoners, the deeper one descends through the various social strata, the more he will encounter satire, acrid and mordant, merciless to those in power; it is a very natural revenge; they who suffer most and oftenest will always be found ready and eager to pay off their grudges when license and usage counter a temporary immunity. When the Saturnalia had passed, however, the Roman landlords were very chary of permitting the authorities to be complimented in such a manner; freedom of speech was punished severely whenever it became a menace to official peace of mind, and even at that early day, it was a case of the greater the truth the greater the libel. The aedile and his four myrmidons were empowered by the laws to inspect all places where food, wine, beer, and other luxuries and necessities were sold. He could order merchandise thrown into the river and the magistrates would sustain him in all his official acts, though there are instances on record where this official has permitted his zeal for reform to outrun his common sense, and then he has become a trifle lumpy in spots, as when the prostitute Hostilia drove the aedile from her establishment when he had no right of entry. She used bricks and stones with telling effect and the authorities reprimanded the aedile as being in the wrong in going to the place with his lictor.
The taverns were always under the eye of the police 177 and the regulation of such establishments was never a task to be undertaken lightly. Some, which came within the meaning of the term lupanar, he was not supposed to enter because of the sacredness of his office and the example he might thus furnish others. He could enter the taverns and inspect them, however, see that the prices were not too high, and cast the cold eye of official formality upon the weights and measures to see that they were not fraudulent, but conformed to the standards kept in the temple of Ops or in that of Jupiter Capitolinus. Measures found dishonest were summarily broken in pieces on the spot, and the tavern-keeper or retailer was in for a crowded half hour if his case could not be compromised in some manner. This law pertaining to weights and measures was enforced in every party of the empire; it applied in an equal degree to the Roman landlord and to the poor scullion who conducted a pitiful stall amongst the Volscians, as Juvenal informs us, and, according to Persius, to the retailers even at Aratium.
We do not know whether the official authority of the aedile was broad enough to include wine in its scope; thus permitting him to condemn adulterated or diluted products and order them dumped into the river, but we do know that the vintners from Gades to Cappadocia were past masters in adulterating and diluting. In Petronius, Trimalchio classes all the bartenders under the sign of Aquarius, and Martial has something to say of those who diluted and those who did not.
The vineyards are swamped with continual rains,
But my innkeeper, will’ e or nil’ e
Serves wine undiluted and won’t take the pains
To water my draught though it kill me.
Although the vigilance of the aedile had little to reward it in dealing with the subtlety of the Roman 178 landlords and adulterators, it could, nevertheless, take certain indirect measures against the former. Several of the emperors promulgated decrees empowering the aediles to arrest those selling certain commodities mentioned by name in the instrument, such, for instance, as pastry. Some even went so far as to ban the sale of every article of food except peas and pulse and other vegetables, and this may throw a dim and flickering light on the date of the Satyricon, as Encolpius and Ascyltos had only a two as piece with which to purchase pease and pulse when the necessity of redeeming the lost tunic with the gold pieces in the hem suddenly confronted them. Such decrees must have gravelled the tavern-keepers especially when they had ready money in sight if only they could furnish victuals; by feeding their customers they sold them drink, and by selling rum they got the profits. Taverns were the perpetual cockpits where the disorders and breaches of the peace had their origin and frequently their solution. This would not have been so bad, but unfortunately, such brawls were carried out into the streets and resulted sometimes in riots requiring the services of a maniple of praetorian guards to quiet the mob and restore order. Tiberius was the first to issue such an edict and it was extremely severe in the penalties it provided.
The attitude of Claudius is more difficult to gauge. At one time we find him confirming the severity of Tiberius, as Dion Cassius reports, and at another he speaks in the house in defense of these establishments, and removes them from the surveillance of the aedile.
Nor was Nero less inconsistent than Claudius in his persecutions of the innkeepers. He was one of the principal actors, in fact he played the stellar role, in the orgies of the ganea at Baiae and along the coastline of that lovely gulf; he spent his days in diversions such as 179 these, and at night he covered his head with a freedman’s cap or a mantle and made the rounds of the free-and-easies in the city, insulting those whom he met returning from supper, striking them and laughing the while as they were stripped of their cloaks; entering the smaller cabarets by force, pillaging wherever he went and sharing his booty with his confederates. Yet this same emperor who had roistered it merrily in every low dive and cabaret in the city did everything in his power to control the traffic of the innkeepers and keep them within bounds. Nor were his marauding expeditions the worst services he did the tavern-keepers; the decree of which we had spoken above as from Petronius, was of Nero’s sanction and was signed by him; it prevented the sale of any cooked foods in the taverns and restaurants, save only vegetables, notwithstanding the fact that usage had long compelled them to serve delicacies of every sort before his time.
Vespasian’s attitude toward public houses was no less severe, but he was parsimonious and austere by nature and when he levied war against these middlemen there were none who could accuse him of double dealing.
Many of the emperors followed the examples set by Claudius and Nero in their social habits and debaucheries, but none exceeded these two odious tyrants in the harshness and injustice meted out to the innkeeping classes. These must have resulted from their orgies. For example, we know that Verus was given to the frequenting of public houses, and spent his time there day or night, but we know nothing of any decrees promulgated by him against them or their owners; those who had amused his love of excess were safe from whatever spleen he might feel as the result of a big head, and his repentance, if he manifested any, did not take the form of proscriptive edicts and cruel and unusual punishments.
180Julius Capitolinus does not leave us in ignorance of Verus’s predilection for taverns and restaurants, nor does the malignity of the chronicler gloss over the excesses committed there.
“Emulating the examples set by Caligula, Nero, and Vitellius,” says mine author, “he frequented the taverns and haunts of vice at night, his head enveloped in a cowl such as is worn by vagrant wayfarers; disguised in this manner, he mixed with the brawling roisterers and bullys, took part in their battles, and came home with his face and body a mass of bruises and contusions. In spite of his disguise, he was well known in these taverns. Sometimes he amused his ennui by throwing heavy pieces of money at the vases and porcelains, to break them.”
By instinct, this emperor was devoted to low amusements. The achievements of a Caligula seemed common and ordinary to him, and he would have fallen asleep over them. Caligula established a lupanar in his palace; Verus set up a tavern in his. Caligula served his familiars as bogau and water-boy; Verus beguiled his in his capacity of tavern-keeper and entertainer: a sort of chaperone to predaciousness, as it were: in other words, he exercised all three callings at the same time.
“His manners.” to quote again from Capitolinus, “his manners were so dissolute that on his return from Syria he set up a tavern in his palace, whither he betook himself as soon as he could leave the table of Marcus Aurelius; here he rendered services and extended a hospitality which out-rivalled all the infamies of Rome.”
According to Trebellius Pollio, the habits and inclinations of Gallienus were closely akin to those of Commodus, of whom we have just spoken. Of him also it was said that “he passed all his nights in the taverns, and lived and amused himself with all the go-betweens, mimes, actors, and actresses and witty rascals,” whom 181 he could meet. And as for Heliogabalus, we need not stay our progress to relate his exploits when Saltus in his Imperial Purple has done us that favor. Had there been no English translation of the Augustan History, we might still have gone into his career, but the need, if it exists, has been nobly met. Suffice it to say that Heliogabalus was probably the most dissolute androgyne that every dishonored the throne of any nation. Compared to him, Sardanapalus was an immaculate conception. This emperor was a constant frequenter of cafés and all they stood for in an age whose unbridled viciousness has never been approached in public. Commodus was the incarnation of evil, a brutish and uninstructed evil, his influence could scarcely have corrupted the minds of those about him, on the contrary, he filled them all with the most raging contempt, as is shown in the manner in which his body was dragged with the hook: Heliogabalus, however, more abandoned than the son of Marcus Aurelius, had, withal, a certain refined charm; he could appeal to the better feelings of strangers upon first meeting them; he was physically very handsome, and, on occasion he had the capacity for wit without cruelty. Such a character may be a frightful menace to an entire city, especially if its owner is invested with absolute power and inviolability. This is especially the case when the individual is disposed to use his power to minister to the self interest of others. Under Heliogabalus every order of society was affected by the festering contagion induced by an utter lack of all moral values, and it is left to the melancholy historian who wishes his race well and to the malignant chronicler who perhaps has suffered under a tyranny no less bitter in that its mandates were couched in gentle terms and soothing phrases, to comment upon conditions which surround them.
It is with relief that we turn this filthy page and 182 come at length to the age of Aurelian, that stern restorer of character and discipline who only preoccupied himself with inns long enough to instruct one of his lieutenants to see that the soldiers did not lavish upon the eating-houses and taverns the pay from the money belts worn by them. The same thought must have animated Hadrian in the sparkling retort courteous which he sent to Florus. Aside from the fact that he was a poet and a friend of Hadrian, we know nothing of Florus: some authorities have been inclined to attribute the Copa to him. He had written in a bantering style to Hadrian:
No Caesar would I want to be,
Inspecting Britain’s wastes,
Lurking in savage (Germany)
No Scythian frosts would suit my tastes. . . .
And Hadrian answered him:
No Florus would I want to be,
Inspecting bar-maids’ waists,
lurking in a hostelry,
No fat round insects suit my tastes.
The inns play a greater part in public life than ever before, some are sumptuous, but the majority must still have been tawdry and repulsive. Yet Florus did not stand alone in paying his court to the divinities of hospitality. Many of the finest poetical geniuses of all ages were similarly smitten. We have already called attention to Virgil’s Copa, that lithe and sinuous purveyor of sensations; we have seen Lucilius react to the advances of another of the same species; and Horace in his writings speaks of many affairs with innkeepers. The epithets which he bestows upon them are generally sarcastic, auguring unpleasant experiences and dissatisfaction with their customary hardihood at impudent 183 repartee, which was more in the style of the bludgeon than the rapier. “Yon vintner, an exceeding knave,” says our author, in instructing neophytes in the rhetorical art of treating subjects in a manner natural to themselves and to human experience. Elsewhere he speaks of the greasy eating-house, though the passage many mean the reverse as he is remonstrating with his steward who is totally lacking in appreciation for the rustic life on the Sabine farm, and has requested a transfer:
A wench,
The greasy luxury of a tavern bench,
’Tis this I see, that makes you long for town,
And you on that dear nook of mine look down;
Because the spice of Eastern climes you know
As soon or sooner there than wine will grow;
Because too there’s no tippling house hard by
To drop into whenever you feel dry;
Nor piping jade your heavy heels to set
Jigging and jumping to her flageolet.
(Martin’s translation.)
In another passage he uses the term caupona and again it is to express dissatisfaction; he advises his friend Scaeva to go to Ferentinum for rest and relaxation as the noise of Rome is scarcely less nerve wracking than that of an inn:
If what you lack be sweet unbroken rest,
And sleep till after dawn; if you detest
Worry, and dust, and smother, and the din
Of cars and carts, and of a noisy inn. . . .
However, Horace was too much of the man-about-town not to have regaled himself many times in the taverns of a gayer aspect: more than once, as he tells his steward, he had tasted the delights his steward craves, but he was ever a critic denouncing the uproar of the 184 inns and taverns as one of the plagues with which Rome was afflicted.
Martial expresses himself more freely; he delights in taverns and avows it without the least restraint:
“An innkeeper, a butcher, baths, a barber, a well furnished exchequer, a few books of my own choice, a friend not too ignorant, a young lady who is pleasing to my slave, a huge fellow of a slave, not too lively, but of an age which will permit him a long life; give me these, Rufus, and let them even be at Byzantium, but I will cede you the baths of Nero with all my heart.”
Sometimes he wets his youthful muse with wine of Crete, country of Minos, that wine which is the nectar of poverty:
“The vines of Crete, country of Minos, produce that liquor, the ordinary wine of the people.”
Again he may have felt impelled to take a meagre repast from one of the peripatetic stalls which a yelling cook pushed from tavern to tavern. This may not have satisfied the inner man, but, nevertheless, he got some of his finest touches from surroundings and contacts such as these.
Syriscus has run at so rapid a pace
’Tween the benches of tavern and stew
That he’s now neck and neck in a bankruptcy race
And the million he had is run through;
“A million devoured! What a glutton,” you’ll say;
Aye, a gulligut glutton, to do it that way!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~