At that instant the slaves appeared, bearing a tray covered with the first preparative initia of the feast. Amid delicious figs, fresh herbs strewed with snow, anchovies, and eggs, were ranged small cups of diluted wine sparingly mixed with honey. As these were placed on the table, young slaves bore round to each of the five guests (for there were no more) the silver basin of perfumed water and napkins edged with a purple fringe. But the ædile ostentatiously drew forth his own napkin, which was not, indeed, of so fine a linen, but in which the fringe was twice as broad, and wiped his hands with the parade of a man who felt he was calling for admiration. "A splendid _mappa_ that of yours," said Clodius; "why, the fringe is as broad as a girdle." "A trifle, my Clodius, a trifle! They tell me this stripe is the latest fashion at Rome; but Glaucus attends to these things more than I." "Be propitious, O Bacchus!" said Glaucus, inclining reverentially to a beautiful image of the god placed in the centre of the table, at the corners of which stood the Lares and the saltholders. The guests followed the prayer, and then, sprinkling the wine on the table, they performed the wonted libation. This over, the convivalists reclined themselves on the couches, and the business of the hour commenced. "May this cup be my last!" said the young Sallust, as the table, cleared of its first stimulants, was now loaded with the substantial part of the entertainment, and the ministering slave poured forth to him a brimming cyathus--"May this cup be my last, but it is the best wine I have drunk at Pompeii!" "Bring hither the amphora," said Glaucus; "and read its date and its character." The slave hastened to inform the party that the scroll fastened to the cork betokened its birth from Chios, and its age a ripe fifty years. "How deliciously the snow has cooled it!" said Pansa; "it is just enough." "It is like the experience of a man who has cooled his pleasures sufficiently to give them a double zest," exclaimed Sallust. "It is like a woman's 'No,'" added Glaucus; "it cools but to inflame the more." "When is our next wild-beast fight?" said Clodius to Pansa. "It stands fixed for the ninth ide of August," answered Pansa, "on the day after the Vulcanalia; we have a most lovely young lion for the occasion." "Whom shall we get for him to eat?" asked Clodius, "Alas! there is a great scarcity of criminals. You must positively find some innocent or other to condemn to the lion, Pansa!" "Indeed I have thought very seriously about it of late," replied the ædile, gravely. "It was a most infamous law that which forbade us to send our own slaves to the wild beasts. Not to let us do what we like with our own, that's what I call an infringement on property itself." "Not so in the good old days of the republic," sighed Sallust.