On almost every important street you can find the little shops, usually kept by women, where are sold scented powders, fragrant oils for bathers, and the precious bottles of gold, silver, glass, and alabaster for the unguents, as well as the standard perfumes themselves. Profitless it is to catalogue these last; Pliny the Elder has listed twenty-one standard varieties mostly named after favorite flowers (_e.g._ narcissus) or Oriental spices (cinnamon, etc.).[43] Every funeral demands its supply of myrrh; every sacrifice a quantity of Arabian frankincense. The perfume trade with the East is an important factor in Roman commerce, but very many of the popular unguents are compounded in Italy. The great city of Capua in Campania grows rich by the industry;[44] and the “perfumery interest” is one of the prime business elements in the economic life of the Empire. So much for the garments and ornaments which typical Romans put upon their persons. It is now right to ask concerning a more important matter still--what do they have for dinner? CHAPTER VI FOOD AND DRINK. HOW THE DAY IS SPENT. THE DINNER =81. Romans Fond of the Table. Gourmandizing. The Famous Apicius.=--Seldom can there be another age when the importance of good eating and drinking occupies the place that it does in Rome. Vast numbers of coarse-grained people devoid of the least ability to criticize fine bronzes or to comprehend Homer or Virgil can go into ecstasies over superior oysters. Epicurean philosophers can argue that “the true, the beautiful and the good” are to be as genuinely apprehended by the enjoyment of ravishing tastes as by ravishing music. Gastronomy has become a kind of supreme science and art, and no slaves sell for better prices than truly expert cooks. Repeatedly huge fortunes have been ruined merely because their possessors wished to surpass all rivals with the extravagant refinements of gluttony. Since 69 A.D. and the coming to power of the simpler Flavian Cæsars there has been a fortunate decline in many absurdities, but there are still plenty of people who admire and envy the fame of Apicius, the true example for the gourmand. [Illustration: ROMAN BANQUET SCENE. _After Von Falke._]