The juvenile mirth of Flaccus shook his sides at this, and dislocated some of the enamel on his face; and ere the amusement had subsided, the heavy purple curtain of the doorway was drawn aside to admit another comer, a man in the prime of his age, of tall commanding presence and handsome countenance. He bestowed one rapid glance upon the occupants of the room, and ere their eyes, in turn, were drawn towards him, his lips were wreathed in a bland smile. ‘The Prefect Sejanus!’ announced the slave at the door. As the name of the most powerful man in Rome fell on the ears of the company, it banished the laughter from their lips. Following the example of their host, they pressed around the new arrival, eager to salute him. Flaccus, the elderly dandy, who was a small man, tried to strain himself, like the frog in the fable, into an individual of imposing appearance. Torquatus posed himself into a caricature of a philosopher of elevated and dignified severity. Even the nerveless Pansa elevated his tremulous eyes, and rose from his chair. But when the first greetings were over, the conversation soon fell back once more into a current of liveliness and jest, under the influence of the imperial minister’s good humour and indiscriminate affability. ‘Come, friends, it is time to get to table,’ said Apicius; ‘and for the laggards who are yet absent, let them abide by what their unpunctuality may bring them. Ha! here comes one. Caius, I cannot enter my dinner as an equal attraction to love; but yet, for once——’ ‘What is the finest feast to a man in love! Heed him not, Martialis,’ said Sejanus, grasping the hand of the newcomer. The latter, a young man of about thirty, smiled in response to a shower of badinage which followed this initiative, until a slave entered and announced the feast in readiness to be served. ‘Come, then!’ cried the host; ‘we lack one, but he is ever behind—’tis part of his religion. Let him take the empty place when he thinks fit.’ So saying, he took Sejanus, as his most distinguished guest, by the hand, and, followed by the others, led the way to the dining apartment, where a table, blazing with an equipage of precious metal, awaited them. It is no purpose of these pages to enter into a detailed description of the extravagance, the innumerable and curious dishes, of a Roman banquet of the first order. Antiquaries have already done so in accounts which are easily to be met with. The recital of the ingenuity, invention, and wealth lavished on a meal is extraordinary to modern measurement of luxury and extravagance. Fish, fowl, and beast were brought from the ends of the earth, in order that jaded appetites might nibble at them, or at some particular part of them, dressed by a _chef_ of the highest art; and, in the present instance, nothing was likely to be lacking from the feast of one who won historic fame as a gourmand.