We reclined, and course after course of rich and spicy dishes were brought. We began with sturgeon and fried eels, followed by roast sucking-pig, wild boar, calf, wild peacock, turkey, and various kinds of game. The Emperor helped himself copiously and partook twice of every course. The Empress toyed with her food and sipped a little boiling water out of a cup. The Emperor did not speak at all, but the Empress kept up a running conversation on the topics of the day--the games, the new port of Ostia, the Emperor’s new improved alphabet, and the progress of the History of Etruria, which he is writing in Greek. “You will be a great help to him,” she said, talking as if he were not present. “There is nobody at all literary at Court just now, and he loves talking about literature. I am so anxious he should go on with his writing--you must encourage him. I do what I can, but I am not up to his scholarship and science; I am only an ignorant woman.” Towards the end of dinner, Britain having been mentioned, the Emperor discoursed at length on the native religion of that insignificant island. The people there, he said, held the oak tree in great reverence and sacrificed to a god who had certain affinities with the Etrurian Moon-god; he intended to devote a chapter of his Etrurian history to a comparison between the two religions; and he explained at enormous length, and with a wealth of illustration which revealed untold erudition, their likenesses and differences. The Empress sat in rapt attention, drinking in every word, and when he had finished she said: “Isn’t he wonderful?” He looked at her and blushed, as pleased as a child at the praise. When at last the long meal came to an end the Emperor took us to his private study and showed me his books, almost all of which, dealt with history and philosophy. He pulled down many of them from their shelves, and discoursed learnedly about them, but the Empress always brought the conversation back to his own writings, and insisted on his reading out passages of the History of Carthage. (This I had to fetch from the library.) “You must read us my favourite bit about the death of Hannibal,” she said.