[8] The state meal of the Romans, usually taken at the ninth hour--_i.e._, three P.M. SENECA reproves the extravagance and self-indulgence of his countrymen in a memorable letter (his eighty-sixth), which is as follows:-- "I write from the very villa of Scipio Africanus, having first invoked his manes, and that altar which I take to be the sepulchre of so great a man. "I behold a villa built of squared stone; the wall encloses a wood, and has towers after the style of a fortification; the reservoir lies below the buildings and the walks, large enough for the use of an army; the bath is close and confined, dark, after the old fashion, for our forefathers united heat with obscurity. "I was struck with an inward pleasure when I compared these times of Scipio with our own. In this nook did that dread of Carthage--to whom our city owes her having been but once taken--wash his limbs, wearied with labour; for, according to the ancient custom, he tilled his fields himself. Under this mean roof did he live--him did this rude pavement sustain. "But who at this time would submit to bathe thus? A person is held to be poor and sordid, whose house does not shine with a profusion of the most precious materials, the marbles of Egypt being inlaid with those of Numidia; unless the walls are ornamented with an elaborate and variegated stucco, after the fashion of painting; unless the chambers are covered with glass; unless the Thasian stone, formerly a curiosity worthy of being placed in our temples, surrounds the pools into which we cast our bodies weakened with immoderate sweating; unless the water is conveyed through silver pipes. "As yet, I have confined my remarks to private baths only. What shall I say when I come to our public baths? What a profusion of statues. What a number of columns do I see supporting nothing; but placed as an ornament, merely on account of their expense. What quantities of water murmuring down steps. We are come to that pitch of luxury, that we disdain to tread upon anything but precious stones. "In this Bath of Scipio are small holes rather than windows, cut through the wall, so as to admit the light without interfering with its resemblance to a fortification. "But now we reckon a bath fit only for moths and vermin, whose windows are not so disposed as to receive the rays of the sun during his whole career; unless we are washed and sunburnt at the same time; unless from the bathing-vessel we have a prospect of the sea and land. In fact, that which excited the admiration of mankind, when first built, is now rejected as old and useless. Thus it is that luxury finds out something new in which to obliterate her own works.