Chap. 5.] 
A DESCRIPTIOTf OF YAEIOTIS USAGES. 
285 
written by Servius Sulpicius, a man of the highest rank, in 
which reasons are given why we should never leave the table 
we are eating at ; for in his day it was not yet^^ the practice to 
reckon more tables than guests at an entertainment. Where a 
person has sneezed, it is considered highly ominous for the 
dish or table to be brought back again, and not a taste thereof 
to be taken, after doing so ; the same, too, where a person at 
table eats nothing at all. 
These usages have been established by persons who enter- 
tained a belief that the gods are ever present, in all our affairs 
and at all hours, and who have therefore found the means of ap- 
peasing them by our vices even. It has been remarked, too, 
that there is never a dead silence on a sudden among the guests 
at table, except when there is an even number present ; when 
this happens, too, it is a sign that the good name and repute of 
every individual present is in peril. In former times, when 
food fell from the hand of a guest, it was the custom to return 
it by placing it on the table, and it was forbidden^^ to blow 
upon it, for the purpose of cleansing it. Auguries, too, have been 
derived from the words or thoughts of a person at the moment 
such an accident befalls him ; and it is looked upon as one of 
the most dreadful of presages, if this should happen to a pontiff, 
while celebrating the feast of Dis.^''' The proper expiation in 
such a case is, to have the morsel replaced on table, and then 
burnt in honour of the Lar.^^ Medicines, it is said, will prove 
ineffectual, if they happen to have been placed on a table before 
they are administered. It is religiously believed by many, 
that it is ominous in a pecuniary point of view, for a person to 
pare his nails without speaking, on the market days^^ at Eome, 
or to begin at the forefinger^^ in doing so : it is thought, too, 
It was not yet the custom to bring in several courses, each served up 
on a separate table. 
Good manners possibly, more than superstition, may have introduced 
this practice. 
Or Pluto. He alludes to the Feralia, o¥ feasts celebrated, in the 
month of February, in honour of the dead. 
Or household god. 
^9 The Nundinae/' held every ninth day ; or rather every eighth day, 
according to our mode of reckoning. 
6^ Gronovius suggests a reading which would make this to mean that it 
is " ominous to touch money with the forefinger." It does not appear to 
be warranted, however. 
