_Apicius_.--Why, the establishment of Lucullus for his suppers in the Apollo--I mean for every supper he sat down to in the room which he called by that name--was 5,000 drachms, which is in your money 1,614 pounds 11s. 8d. _Darteneuf_.--Would I had supped with him there! But are you sure there is no blunder in these calculations? _Apicius_.--Ask your learned men that. I reckon as they tell me. But you may think that these feasts were made only by great men, by triumphant generals, like Lucullus, who had plundered all Asia to help him in his housekeeping. What will you say when I tell you that the player AEsopus had one dish that cost him 6,000 sestertia--that is, 4,843 pounds 10s. English? _Darteneuf_.--What will I say? Why, that I pity my worthy friend Mr. Gibber, and that, if I had known this when alive, I should have hanged myself for vexation that I did not live in those days. _Apicius_.--Well you might, well you might. You don't know what eating is. You never could know it. Nothing less than the wealth of the Roman Empire is sufficient to enable a man of taste to keep a good table. Our players were infinitely richer than your princes. _Darteneuf_.--Oh that I had but lived in the blessed reign of Caligula, or of Vitellius, or of Heliogabalus, and had been admitted to the honour of dining with their slaves! _Apicius_.--Ay, there you touch me. I am miserable that I died before their good times. They carried the glories of their table much farther than the best eaters of the age in which I lived. Vitellius spent in feasting, within the compass of one year, what would amount in your money to above 7,200,000 pounds. He told me so himself in a conversation I had with him not long ago. And the two others you mentioned did not fall very short of his royal magnificence. _Darteneuf_.--These, indeed, were great princes. But what most affects me is the luxury of that upstart fellow AEsopus. Pray, of what ingredients might the dish he paid so much for consist? _Apicius_.--Chiefly of singing birds. It was that which so greatly enhanced the price.