When the guests entered the vast triclinium they were almost dazzled with the display of splendour which greeted them. Beautiful statues of youths stood round the room, holding in their hands lamps of gold, which filled the house with the fragrance of perfumed oil. Other cressets of fantastic workmanship hung by golden chains from the gilded fretwork of the roof, which was so constructed that its aspect and colouring could be altered between each course, and that scented essences and little presents of flowers and ornaments could be showered down upon the guests. The great triclinia and sigma-tables of Mauretanian citron and ivory blazed with gold and silver. The goblets from which the guests drank were enriched with gems. The oldest and richest wines of the Opimiam, Falernian, and Setine vintages stood cooling in vases full of snow, round which were twined wreaths of ivy and of roses. In front of Nero’s seat was a superb candelabrum of solid gold representing a tree with lamps hanging from its boughs like golden fruit. It belonged to the Palatine Temple of Apollo, and had been one of the spoils taken by Alexander the Great at the sack of Thebes.[58] Among the other ornaments of the table were a handled vase of white and purple, for which Nero had paid a million sesterces, and the myrrhine goblet which alone Augustus had reserved for himself from the treasures of Cleopatra. There were also some of the _vasa diatreta_, curious triumphs of art in which a reticulated shell-work of pale blue was fastened by threads of glass to the opalescent vase within. Even the sawdust which was scattered over the polished floor was dyed with minium and breathed of saffron. Underneath the tables had been sprinkled a mixture of vervain and maidenhair, which was believed to promote hilarity in the guests.[59] Vitellius, as he gloated on the veins of the thyine table at which he sat, and the glories with which it was laden, exclaimed, ‘If Jupiter and Nero were both to invite me to dinner, I should accept the invitation of Nero.’[60] Even the ancients had a custom closely analogous to our ‘saying grace.’ Before the guests sat down, a number of boys, in white robes of byssus, placed upon the table figures of the lares, and carrying round a jar of wine, exclaimed, ‘May the gods be favourable!’