Chapter 17
II. We have to offer another fact, ruinous to our dictionaries on another ground. Various circumstances have disguised the truth, but a truth it is, that "prandium", in its very origin and _incunabula_, never was a meal known to the Roman _culina_. In that court it was never recognized except as an alien. It had no original domicile in the city of Rome. It was a _vot casfren-sis_, a word and an idea purely martial, and pointing to martial necessities. Amongst the new ideas proclaimed to the recruit, this was one--"Look for no '_coenu_', no regular dinner, with us. Resign these unwarlike notions. It is true that even war has its respites; in these it would be possible to have our Roman _coena_ with all its equipage of ministrations. Such luxury untunes the mind for doing and suffering. Let us voluntarily renounce it; that when a necessity of renouncing it arrives, we may not feel it among the hardships of war. From the day when you enter the gates of the camp, reconcile yourself, tyro, to a new fashion of meal, to what in camp dialect we call _prandium_." This "prandium," this essentially military meal, was taken standing, by way of symbolizing the necessity of being always ready for the enemy. Hence the posture in which it was taken at Rome, the very counter-pole to the luxurious posture of dinner. A writer of the third century, a period from which the Romans naturally looked back upon everything connected with their own early habits, and with the same kind of interest as we extend to our Alfred, (separated from us as Romulus from them by just a thousand years,) in speaking of _prandium_, says, "Quod dictum est _parandium_, ab eo quod milites ad bellum _paret_." Isidorus again says, "Proprie apud veteres prandium vocatum fuisse oinnem militum cibum ante pugnam;" i.e. "that, properly speaking, amongst our ancestors every military meal taken before battle was termed _prandium_." According to Isidore, the proposition is reciprocating, viz., that, as every _prandium_ was a military meal, so every military meal was called _prandium_. But, in fact, the reason of that is apparent. Whether in the camp or the city, the early Romans had probably but one meal in a day. That is true of many a man amongst ourselves by choice; it is true also, to our knowledge, of some horse regiments in our service, and may be of all. This meal was called _coena_, or dinner in the city--_prandium_ in camps. In the city it would always be tending to one fixed hour. In the camp innumerable accidents of war would make it very uncertain. On this account it would be an established rule to celebrate the daily meal at noon, if nothing hindered; not that a later hour would not have been preferred had the 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 his 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 honorable pedantry of old centurions, &c., delighting (like the _Trunnions_, &c., 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 grossly 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 we have said as to the military nature of _prandium_, we shall detach from the series of our illustrations, by placing it in a separate paragraph.
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, by the proper officers of the palace, that the banquet was not a "coena," but a "prandium." What followed, in consequence? Why, that all the guests sate down in full military accoutrement; whereas, observes the historian, had it been a coena, the officers would have unbelted their swords; for, he adds, even in Cæsar's presence the officers 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 senatûs_, 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 poets speak 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 satire--
----"Credimus altos Desiccasse amnes, epotaque ftumina, Medo _Prandente_."
Not _coenante_, observe: you might as well talk of an army taking tea and toast. 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, (_coenabat_,) 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 Perseus--"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 _coenia_, since none were displayed at a time of day when anybody in Rome would have attended. Just as, in alluding to a parliamentary speech notoriously delivered at midnight, an English satirist must 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 the 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 and military character of the meal.
Thus we have brought down our Roman friend to noonday, 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 _jentâsse_ beside; yet it is evident, (we hope,) that neither one nor the other means more than what it was often called, viz. [Greek: Bouchismos], 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 in Rome, which in summer would be past five; but for a far greater proportion of days would be near four in Rome, except for one or two of the emperors, whom the mere business attached to their unhappy station kept sometimes dinnerless till six. And so entirely was a Roman the creature of ceremony, 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 "an idler in the land." He called himself and his pals "rerum dominos, gentemque togatam;" _the gentry that wore the toga_. Yes, and a pretty affair that "toga" was. Just figure to yourself, reader, the picture of a hardworking man, with horny hands like our hedgers, ditchers, weavers, 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 poor-house detachment sent out to attack the stones on some new 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,[9]--we 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, fæcunda, 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 (so 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 could vote and 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, 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 we 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. These magnificent shows went on by daylight. But how incomparably greater would have been the splendor by lamp-light! What a gigantic conception! Eighty 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 ultimate cause that the Pagan shows proceeded by day. Not that the masters of the world, who rained Arabian odors and perfumed waters of the most costly description from a thousand fountains, simply to cool the summer heats, would 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 over the distant Adriatic.
However, as there are no public spectacles, we will suppose, and the courts or 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 Cæsars 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. We are prepared to show, on a fitting occasion, that every fourth person[10] amongst the citizens bathed daily, and non-citizens, of course, paid an _extra_ sum. Now the population of Rome was far larger than has ever been hinted at except by Lipsius. But certain it is, that during the long peace of the first Cæsars, and after the _annonaria prorisio_, (that great pledge of popularity to a Roman prince,) had been increased by the corn tribute from the Nile, the Roman population took an immense lurch ahead. The subsequent increase of baths, whilst no old ones were neglected, proves _that_ decisively. And as citizenship expanded by means of the easy terms on which it could be had, so did the bathers multiply. The population of Rome in the century after Augustus, was far greater than during that era; and this, still acting as a vortex to the rest of the world, may have been one great motive with Constantine for "transferring" the capital eastwards; in reality, for breaking up one monster capital into two of more manageable dimensions. Two o'clock was often the earliest hour at which the public baths were opened. But in Martial's time a man could go without blushing (_salvâ fronte_) at eleven, though even then two o'clock was the meridian hour for the great uproar of splashing, and swimming, and "larking" in the endless baths of endless Rome.
And now, at last, bathing finished, and the exercises of the _palæstra_, at half-past two, or three, our friend finds his way home--not again to leave it for that day. He is now a new man; refreshed, oiled with perfumes, his dust washed off by hot water, and ready for enjoyment. These were the things that determined the time for dinner. Had there been no other proof that _coena_ was the Roman dinner, this is an ample one. Now first the Roman was fit for dinner, in a condition of luxurious ease; business ever--that day's load of anxiety laid aside--his _cuticle_, as he delighted to talk, cleansed and polished--nothing more to do or to think of until the next morning, he might now go and dine, and get drunk with a safe conscience. Besides, if he does not get dinner now, when will he get it? For most demonstrably he has taken nothing yet which comes near in value to that basin of soup which many of ourselves take at the Roman hour of bathing. No; we have kept our man fasting as yet. It is to be hoped that something is coming at last.
It _does_ come,--dinner, the great meal of "coena;" the meal sacred to hospitality and genial pleasure, comes now to fill up the rest of the day, until light fails altogether.
Many people are of opinion that the Romans only understood what the capabilities of dinner were. It is certain that they were the first great people that discovered the true secret and meaning of dinner, the great office which it fulfils, and which we in England are now so generally acting on. Barbarous nations,--and none were, in that respect, more barbarous than our own ancestors,--made this capital blunder; the brutes, if you asked them what was the use of dinner, what it was meant for, stared at you and replied--as a horse would reply if you put the same question about his provender--that it was to give him strength for finishing his work! Therefore, if you point your telescope back to antiquity about twelve or one o'clock in the daytime, you will descry our most worthy ancestors all eating for their very lives, eating as dogs eat, viz. in bodily fear that some other dog will come and take their dinner away. What swelling of the veins in the temples! (see Boswell's natural history of Dr. Johnson at dinner;) what intense and rapid deglutition! what odious clatter of knives and plates! what silence of the human voice! what gravity! what fury in the libidinous eyes with which they contemplate the dishes! Positively it was an _indecent_ spectacle to see Dr. Johnson at dinner. But, above all, what maniacal haste and hurry, as if the fiend were waiting with red-hot pincers to lay hold of the hindermost!
Oh, reader, do you recognize in this abominable picture your respected ancestors and ours? Excuse us for saying--"What monsters!" We have a right to call our own ancestors monsters; and, if so, we must have the same right over yours. For Dr. Southey has shown plainly in the "Doctor," that every man having four grand parents in the second stage of ascent, (each of whom having four, therefore,) sixteen in the third, and so on, long before you get to the Conquest, every man and woman then living in England will be wanted to make up the sum of my separate ancestors; consequently, you must take your ancestors out of the very same fund, or (if you are too proud for that) you must go without ancestors. So that, your ancestors being clearly mine, I have a right in law to call the whole "kit" of them monsters. _Quod erat demonstrandum_. Really and upon our honor, it makes one, for the moment, ashamed of one's descent; one would wish to disinherit one's-self backwards, and (as Sheridan says in the _Rivals_) to "cut the connection." Wordsworth has an admirable picture in Peter Bell of "A snug party in a parlor," removed into _limbus patrum_ for their offences in the flesh:--
"Cramming, as they on earth were cramm'd; All sipping wine, all sipping tea; But, as you by their faces see, All silent, and all d--d."
How well does that one word describe those venerable ancestral dinners--"All silent!" Contrast this infernal silence of voice and fury of eye with the "risus amabilis," the festivity, the social kindness, the music, the wine, the "dulcis insania," of a Roman "coena." We mentioned four tests for determining what meal is, and what is not, dinner; we may now add a fifth, viz. the spirit of festal joy and elegant enjoyment, of anxiety laid aside, and of honorable social pleasure put on like a marriage garment.
And what caused the difference between our ancestors and the Romans? Simply this--the error of interposing dinner in the middle of business, thus courting all the breezes of angry feeling that may happen to blow from the business yet to come, instead of finishing, absolutely closing, the account with this world's troubles before you sit down. That unhappy interpolation ruined all. Dinner was an ugly little parenthesis between two still uglier clauses of a tee-totally ugly sentence. Whereas with us, their enlightened posterity, to whom they have the honor to be ancestors, dinner is a great reaction. There lies our conception of the matter. It grew out of the very excess of the evil. When business was moderate, dinner was allowed to divide and bisect it. When it swelled into that vast strife and agony, as one may call it, that boils along the tortured streets of modern London or other capitals, men began to see the necessity of an adequate counterforce to push against this overwhelming torrent, and thus maintain the equilibrium. Were it not for the soft relief of a six o'clock dinner, the gentle manner succeeding to the boisterous hubbub of the day, the soft glowing lights, the wine, the intellectual conversation, life in London is now come to such a pass, that in two years all nerves would sink before it. But for this periodic reaction, the modern business which draws so cruelly on the brain, and so little on the hands, would overthrow that organ in all but those of coarse organization. Dinner it is,--meaning by dinner the whole complexity of attendant circumstances,--which saves the modern brain-working men from going mad.