- circular table,[1] on the convex side of which they recline at
meals, still adhering to the custom of the earlier Greeks and Romans.[2] By this table is set a ponderous gold vase with goblets of the same metal for mixing and serving out the wine. Rich carpets are strewn over the mosaic pavement; and troops of servants, either eunuchs or of barbarian origin, permeate the mansion.[3] These domestics are costumed and adorned as expensively as are their masters, and in the largest establishments are retained to the number of one or two thousand.[4] Like animals they are bought and sold; and, male and female alike, are as much the property of their owner as his ordinary goods and chattels; their life is virtually in his hands, but the growth of humanity under the Empire, and the tenets of Stoicism,[5] have considerably ameliorated their condition since the time of the old Republic.[6] In this, as in every other age, the artificial forms of*
- ↑ Chrysostom, In Epist. ad Coloss., i, Hom. 4 (in Migne, xi, 304).
- ↑ As late as the tenth century, according to Luitprand, Antapodosis, vi, 8. In the Vienna Genesis (c. 400) a miniature shows banqueters reclining at a table of this sort. I will not attempt to enlarge on the courses at table and the multifarious viands that were consumed, as there are but few hints on this subject. We may opine, however, that gastronomics indulged themselves very similarly to what is represented in the pages of Petronius and Athenaeus, etc., cf. Ammianus, xvi, 5; xxviii, 4.
- ↑ Chrysostom, In Psalm xlviii, 8 (in Migne, v, 510). Most of the eunuchs were of the nation of the Abasgi, who dwelt between the Caspian and Euxine; Procopius, De Bel. Goth., iv, 3.
- ↑ Chrysostom, In Epist. ad Corinth. Hom. xl, 5 (in Migne, x, 353); In Matth. Hom. lxiii, 4 (in Migne, vii, 608).
- ↑ See below.
- ↑ Constantine enacted that families—husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters—should not be separated; Cod. Theod., II, xxv, 1; cf. XVI, v, 40, etc. But there was little practical philanthropy in the world until the Middle Ages had long been left behind. Thus by the Assize of Jerusalem, promulgated by Crusaders in the twelfth century, a war-horse was valued at three slaves! Tolerance, the
