At no
other meal do we hear of entertainment, unless the guests were on
a journey, as was the case at the lunch at Arcanum when Pomponia's
temper got the better of her (see above, p. 52). Even dinner-parties
seem to have come into fashion only since the Punic wars, with later
hours and a larger staff of slaves to cook and wait at table. In the
old days of household simplicity the meals were taken in the atrium,
the husband reclining on a _lectus_,[442] the wife sitting by his
side, and the children sitting on stools in front of them. The slaves
too in the olden time took their meal sitting on benches in the
atrium, so that the whole familia was present. This means that the
dinner was in those days only a necessary break in the intervals of
work, and the sitting posture was always retained for slaves, i.e.
those who would go about their work as soon as the meal was over.
Columella, writing under the early Empire, urges that the vilicus or
overseer should sit at his dinner except on festivals; and Cato the
younger would not recline after the battle of Pharsalia for the
rest of his life, apparently as a sign that life was no longer
enjoyable.
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