=251. The Emperor Center of High Social Life.=--Into these high political concerns we dare not enter, but the social life of the Palace cannot be so well ignored. Already the imperial freedmen are busy planning the great receptions and state banquets which Hadrian must give soon after his return. In half the atria of Rome men and women are discussing vigorously, “When ‘Cæsar’ returns will he have any new ‘Friends,’ and will he have discontinued any old ones?” Already it is rumored that certain freedmen (supposedly in their lord’s confidence) have received a great bribe to get them to induce the “Dominus” (so loyal etiquette calls the monarch) to summon back to favor a certain Jallius, an indiscreet senator whom, on his last sojourn in Rome, Hadrian had ordered excluded from his personal receptions. Rome is a city of rumors, but nowhere do these abound more than about the Palatine, always centering on the doings, words, and even the health of the Emperor. “Smoke” from the valets, barbers, and table-servitors of the Augustus can often be sold for precious aurei. Self-respecting monarchs punish the tale-bearers pitilessly, but the latter can seldom be caught in the act.[152] Every Emperor knows that he is the constant victim of outrageous tattling. =252. Friends of Cæsar (_Amici Cæsaris_).=--But an Emperor’s company is not confined to menials; neither does he spend all his time at council with his ministers. Being a Roman among Romans he is forced to spend a good deal of his day receiving the social attentions of those who proudly list themselves as his “Friends.” To be an _Amicus Cæsaris_, to be entitled to greet as a kind of social equal the personage who is worshiped as a god in all the Oriental provinces, who is (by adoption in Hadrian’s case) the son of a Divinity, the “Deified Trajan,” and whose own “divine genius” (guardian spirit) receives prayer and incense in every government building--this honor seems almost dazzling. Every Emperor ranks his “Friends” in two classes--“_First Class Friends_,” great secretaries, ministers, and generals who must have constant access to his cabinet, certain very distinguished members of the Senate, certain near relatives, and also a few congenial personal companions--poets, and philosophers, with great Emperors, or jockeys, gamesters, and debauchees with the bad; and “_Second Class Friends_,” which great catalogue includes all the rest of the Senate, many of the more distinguished equites, and a select sprinkling of such plebeians as Cæsar delights to honor.