To make provision for banquets seems to have been more the province of the master of a Roman house than it was that of the mistress. There is a great contrast between the position of a Roman matron and that of a modern lady in this respect; the responsibility for the entertainment of guests did not so peculiarly rest upon the former as it does upon the latter. We frequently read of banquets given by men in the account of which no mention whatever is made of the wife, and these were ordinary occasions when there can be no doubt as to her presence. The guests were usually invited solely in the master's name. In Petronius's account of Trimalchio's Feast, he represents one guest asking another who is the woman that so often scuttles up and down the room. He is told that she is Fortunata, Trimalchio's wife, that she counts her money by the bushel, but that she has an eye everywhere, and when you least think to meet her she is at your elbow. Her propensity for petty management seems to have been stronger than her love for the entertainment; for another visitor coming in later asks "why Fortunata sits not among us?" The host replies: "Till she has gotten her plate together and has distributed what we leave among the servants, not a sup of anything goes down her throat." But that this was unusual is shown by the inquirer threatening to leave unless the mistress sat down with them. We have elsewhere described the Roman dining hall, or _triclinium_. Doubtless the Golden House had many of these splendid salons. Lucullus, who was famous for the enormous expense at which he lived, called each of his numerous dining halls by the name of some divinity, and every hall had a set rate of expense at which an entertainment in it was given; so that when he ordered his household steward to prepare a banquet in a certain salon, the servant knew exactly what to provide and at how great a cost his master wished to entertain. It is told that Cicero and Pompey once met Lucullus in the Forum and invited themselves to supper with him. They declared that they wished to share the meal of which he himself would partake if he were without company, and they would not allow him to give any directions to the servants, only permitting him to order his steward to prepare the table in the Triclinium Apollo. The man knew exactly what to do, and the supper was a great surprise to the guests, for a banquet in that hall was never served at an expense of less than fifty thousand drachmas [nearly nine thousand dollars]. In order that we may obtain as complete a picture as possible of the Roman woman's life, we must attend in imagination one of those banquets which she attended in reality.