The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter/Chapter 65
CHAPTER THE SIXTY-FIFTH. The dainties that followed this display of affability were of such a nature that, if any reliance is to be placed in my word, the very mention of them makes me sick at the stomach. Instead of thrushes, fattened chickens were served, one to each of us, and goose eggs with pastry caps on them, which same Trimalchio earnestly entreated us to eat, informing us that the chickens had all been boned. Just at that instant, however, a lictor knocked at the dining-room door, and a reveler, clad in white vestments, entered, followed by a large retinue. Startled at such pomp, I thought that the Praetor had arrived, so I put my bare feet upon the floor and started to get up, but Agamemnon laughed at my anxiety and said, “Keep your seat, you idiot, it’s only Habinnas the sevir; he’s a stone mason, and if report speaks true, he makes the finest tombstones imaginable.” Reassured by this information, I lay back upon my couch and watched Habinnas’ entrance with great curiosity. Already drunk and wearing several wreaths, his forehead smeared with perfume which ran down into his eyes, he advanced with his hands upon his wife’s shoulders, and, seating himself in the Praetor’s place, he called for wine and hot water. Delighted with his good humor, Trimalchio called for a larger goblet for himself, and asked him, at the same time, how he had been entertained. “We had everything except yourself, for my heart and soul were here, but it was fine, it was, by Hercules. Scissa was giving a Novendial feast for her slave, whom she freed on his death-bed, and it’s my opinion she’ll have a large sum to split with the tax gatherers, for the dead man was rated at 50,000, but everything went off well, even if we did have to pour half our wine on the bones of the late lamented.”