Chap. 53.] THE ENORMOUS PRICE OF SILYER PLATE. 135 



Cornelius Nepos says that before the victory gained^" by 

 Sylla, there,' were but two banquetting couches adorned with 

 silver at Home, and that in his own recollection, silver was 

 first used for adorning sideboards. Fenestella, who died at the 

 end of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, informs us that at that 

 period sideboards, inlaid even with tortoiseshell,^"* had come 

 into fashion ; whereas, a little before his time, they had been 

 made of solid wood, of a round shape, and not much larger 

 than our tables. He says, however, that when he was quite 

 a boy, they had begun to make the sideboards square, and of 

 different^' pieces of wood, or else veneered with maple or 

 citrus :*- and that at a later period the fashion was introduced 

 of overlaying the corners and the seams at the joinings with 

 silver. The name given to them in his youth, he says, was 

 ** tympana ;"^^ and it was at this period, too, that the chargers 

 which had been known as " magides" by the ancients, first 

 received the name of *' lances," from their resemblance^^ to the 

 scales of a balance. 



CHAP. 53. — THE ENORMOUS PRICE OP SILVER PLATE. 



It is not, however, only for vast quantities of plate that there 

 is such a rage among mankind, but even more so, if possible, 

 for the plate of peculiar artists : and this too, to the exculpa- 

 tion of our own age, has long been the case. C. Gracchus 

 possessed some silver dolphins, for which he paid five thou- 

 sand sesterces per pound. Lucius Crassus, the orator, paid 

 for two goblets chased by the hand of the artist Mentor,^^ one 

 hundred thousand sesterces : but he confessed that for very 

 shame he never dared use them, as also that he had other 

 articles of plate in his possession, for which he had paid at 

 the rate of six thousand sesterces per pound. It was the con- 

 quest of Asia^® that first introduced luxury into Italy ; for we 



50 Over the party of Marius. so* gee B. ix. c. 13. 



5^ " Compacta ;" probably meaning inlaid like Mosaic. 

 " See B. xiii. c. 29, B. xv. c. 7, and B. xvi. cc. 26, 27, 84. 

 ^ Meaning, " drum sideboards," or " tambour sideboards," their shape, 

 probably, being like that of our dumb waiters. 



** The name given to which was '* lanx," plural "lances." 



55 His age and country are uncertain. "We learn, however, from Chapter 

 55 of this Book, that he flourished before the burning of the Temple of 

 Diana at Ephesus, e.g. 356. He is frequently mentioned in the classical 

 writers. See also B. vii. c. 39. 



56 He includes, probably, under this name both Asia Minor and Syria. 

 Bee a similar passage in liivy, B. xxxix. 



