50 On the Luxury of the Romans. 



which several had no other recommendation but rarity, and be- 

 ing excessively dear. 



The luxury of dress also is interesting, with respect to pre^ 

 cious stones and dyes. That of buildings, on account of the 

 marbles brought from different parts of Italy, from Greece, and 

 even from Gaul. And the luxury of furniture is interesting, 

 from the valuable woods employed. 



Of the Luxury of the Table, 



Quadrupeds. — During the second Punic War, Fulvius Hir* 

 pinus devised the mode of retaining quadrupeds in parks. These 

 parks were named Lepo?'aria, because three sorts of hares were 

 reared in them, the common hare, the original Spanish rabbit, 

 and the variegated or alpine hare, a species now almost entirely 

 destroyed. In like manner, nearly all the native animals of our 

 forests were bred in these parks, besides the wild sheep and the 

 mouflon. These animals were almost domesticated, and were 

 taught to unite at a signal. One day, when Hortensius was 

 entertaining his friends at dinner in one of his parks, at the 

 sound of a trumpet, stags, goats, and wild boars were seen run- 

 ning up, and gathered round his tent, to the no small dismay of 

 some of the guests. Servius Rullus was the first who had a 

 whole boar served on his table. Anthony, during his triumvi- 

 rate, displayed eight at one feast. The Romans considered as 

 a great dehcacy the grey dormouse, a little animal that dwells 

 in the woods, and in the holes of oak trees. They reared them 

 in enclosures, and lodged them in jars of earthen-ware, of a par- 

 ticular form, fattening them with worms and chesnuts. 



Birds. — Lenius Strabo of Brundusium invented aviaries for 

 confining such birds, destined for the table, as could not be kept 

 within the walls of a poultry-yard. It is he, says Pliny, that 

 taught us to imprison animals whose abode is the sky. Alex- 

 ander had introduced peacocks into Greece, where they were re- 

 garded only as objects of curiosity. Hortensius was the first who 

 had one served at a banquet, when he was appointed to the 

 office of augur. 



These birds soon multiplied, and Ptolemy Phocion was asto- 

 nished at the great number of them he found in Rome. Aufi- 

 dius Lucro made about L. 600 a-year by fattening peacocks. 



