approve or rejec fuch regulations as the magiftrates caused to be posted up at the Capitol and at the Forum, three days fucceffively before they prefented them to be confirmed*. The Romans were near four hundred and fixty years without know who make fo confiderable a figure in hiftory as the Romans do. The various forms of government thro' which they paffed, the great men who appeared upon the ftage during each of thefe forms, the caules which produced their greatnefs and their ruin, are an inexhauftible funding any other divifion of the day of inftruction to the general and the than morning, noon, and night. fiatefman; and poffibly the work The laws of the twelve tables even before us will not there fore pleafe mention only fun-rife and fun-fet; us the lefs, as it is a kind of leffer it was not till fome years afterhiftory, which does not fhew us the wards that an officer of the confuls warrior or the ftatefman, or, if we proclaimed mid-day aloud, which do meet them, it is not in the af- the Romans then diftinguished only funed character of great men, but in fine weather, and by the height in their private capacity, as men of the fun. with their robes of ftate thrown off, in their domeftic enjoyments and private, occupations. The author himfelf has not always condefcended to fupport what he advances by any citation, but the tranflator has taken pains to juftify him by many ufeful quotations, which make amends for fome inaccuracies in the tranflation. It will not perhaps be lefs pleafing in the fmaller than in the greater hiftory, to obferve the progress these people made from the loweft fimplicity to fuch an extravagant profufion of magnificence, as far, very far, exceeds all the attempts made by the richeft and moft oftentatious of modern princes. Speaking of the early times, he says, "The Romans, in the firft and happy ages of the republic (I fpeak of thofe in the eafieft circumftances) were all labourers, and all the labourers were foldiers. In time of peace, the greatest part faw the city only every nine days. They came thither only to provide themfelves with neceffaries, and to examine whether they fhould It was during the first Punic war that the first dial was expofed to public view at Rome, and placed upon a column of the tribunal of harangues. Marcus Valerius Mef fala brought it from Sicily after the taking of Catana, thirty years after Papirius, the year of Rome four hundred and feventy-feven. Although this dial, drawn for the meridian of Catara, which was different from that of Rome, could not fhew the hours juftly; yet, as imperfect as it was, the Romans conformed to it for the space of ninety-nine years. Thefe forts of clocks were of ufe only in the day, and in clear weather. Scipio Nafica, five years after, in the year of Rome five hundred and ninety-five, first brought into ufe, and placed under cover, a water-clock, which fhewed the hours equally by day and night. There were twelve in the day, and as many in the night, without diftinétion of feafons. So that in fummer the hours of the day were longer, and in winter *This is what is called promulgare per triaun nundinum. fhorter fhorter than thofe of the night. The firft began at fun-rife; the fixth at mid-day; and the twelfth at fun-fet: from thence began the first hour of the night, of which the fixth was at midnight, and the twelfth at fun-rife. Under the emperors, they began to perceive that this diftribution was not convenient. By little and little, they introduced the manner of counting the twenty-four hours, from midnight to midnight. It appears that this cuftom had already obtained in the reign of Adrian. All the world knows, that it is generally received in Europe, except in Italy, where they reckon the day from fun-fet to fun-fet, and the whole twenty-four hours fucceffively. They employed the first hour of the day in the most effential duties of religion. The temples were open to all the world, and even often lighted before day, for the moft early. The worship they there paid the gods, confifted in adoring and invoking them by public and private prayers; in offering facrifices, incenfe, and pertumes, and in hymns, which the youth of both fexes, and of the first families, fung morning and evening to their praife, to the found of inftruments. Yet they gave not to the gods alone the first hours of the morning; they alfo employed them in paying thofe reciprocal duties, received and authorized in the world. At Rome, as elfewhere, the little paid their court to the great, the people to the magiftrates, and the magiftrates to the rich. To conder only the ordinary life of a citizen, it appears that the greatest number employed the morning in the temples, the palaces of the great, in the forum, at the bar, and in foliciting their affairs; and that they deftined the reft of the day to vifits and affemblies, to the walks and baths, to feafting and pleafures, to the care of health and exercifes; amongst others, to that of the hand-ball and tennis. The whole concluded about the eighth or ninth hour, that is, about three in the afternoon; and then every one repaired in hafte to the public or private baths. It was natural that there fhould be more liberty in the private baths, where each was left to his own fancy : but, for the public baths, they were opened by ringing of a bell always at the fame hour; and those who came too late, ran the risk of bathing in cold water." He comes then to thofe times of magnificence, when the acts of private perfons outshine any thing done by princes in our times. "It was not till the year of Rome 411, that they brought water thither for the first time, by means of an aqueduct, built under the direction of the cenfor Appius Claudius, from whom that water was called Aqua Appia. Its fource was eight miles from Rome, in the territory of Tufculum, now Frefcati. Till that time, the Romans were contented with the water they drew from the Tiber, and from wells, from the fountains in the city, and thofe they found in the neighbourhood. The number of aqueducts increafed afterwards. Agrippa, while he was ædile an der Auguftus, not only re-cftabtifh d the ancient aqueducts, which had fallen to decay, but built alfo a new one, to which he gave the name of Aqui Julia; it was fifteen miles in extent. To facilitate the ufe of the waters which U 3 he he brought to the city, he made feven hundred bafons, an hundred and five fountains, one hundred and thirty refervoirs ; and all thefe works were adorned with columns and ftatues; a destination much more fuitable, fays Pliny, for those mafter-pieces of art, than being inclofed in the gardens and countryhoufes of private people. Thefe aqueduts were built of brick, running under-ground, or raifed upon arches. They brought the water to Rome in pipes of cast metal, or lead, from the diftance of thirty, forty and fixty miles, or more. Thefe waters were collected in refervoirs called castella.” He then gives an account of their baths. The first thing that prefented itfelf in thefe baths, was a great bafon, called natatio and piscina, which took up all the north fide, in which they could not only bathe, but even fwim very commodiouly. Sometimes thefe great bafons were to be met with in the baths of private perfons, as in thofe of Cicero and the younger Pliny. The rich and the great had baths at home, and often very fuperb, commonly, placed near the dining-room; becaufe it was the cuftom to bathe before the repast, and even to offer. it to friends and ftrangers who were • invited. The edifices of the baths in the therma were commonly expofed to the fouth, and had a very extenfive front: the middle part was occupied by the flove-room; or by a great furnace of mafon-work, called hypocaustum, which had to the right and left an apartment of four rooms, uniform on both fides, and difpofed fo as they could eafily pals from one to the other. These rooms, called in general balnearia, were the ftove, the hot bath, the cold bath and the fterm bath. Thefe baths formed fa inany vast and fuperb halls. That of the hot bath was as large again as the others, because of the great concourie of people who frequented it, and the long tay they made in it. The roofs of thefe halls were supported by pillars of marble, the pavement. was mofaic. The walls, lined alfo with marble, were embellished with malter-pieces of painting and fculpture: the galleries, the porticoes, the apartments which ferved for the wardrobe. Thofe for rubbing and perfuming; even the places where they kept the oils and perfumes, were equally adorned. Statues, pictures, and the precious metals, were lavifhed in these famptuous edifices. The veffels and utenfils were anfwerable to that magnificence. The baths were of marble, oriental granite, and porphyry; fore wore fixed, fome moveable. Amongst thefe laft there were fome made on purpose to be fufpended, in which they joined the pleasure of bathing to that of being balanced, ard, as it were, rocked by an eafy motion. If we go back to the firtt ages of Rome, we shall find that the Romans lived moftly upon roots and milk, or upon a very coarse kind of pottage, called pulmentum, which ferved them for bread, and that they eat fleth only upon extra: ordinary occafions. The time of dinner, as regu. lar as that of fupper, was about the fixth hour of the day, or noon, Suetonius relates, hat the emperor Claudius took fo much delight n the combats of the gladiators with wild beasts, that he took his place in the morning, and remained there at noon. The hour of fupper was between the ninth and tenth hour of the day, or, as we fhould fay, between three and four in the afternoon. Sometimes it was followed by a kind of collation, called comessatio. The place where it was ferved up was anciently in airio, that is to fay, in a veftibule, open in fome fort, and expofed to the view of all the world. Befides that the fervice was there eafter, a more private part of the houfe might have encouraged licentioufnefs and debauchery. In the fummer feason, they fometimes fupped under a fycamore, or fome other fhady tree. The tables of the Romans were at firft only of common and ordinary wood, fquare, and with four feet; they afterwards had them round and oval, fupported upon one foot, artfully wrought and fculptured, finered with the roots of the box and citron tree, with ivory and fhells, plates of gold and filver, and precious ftones; they were uncovered, and at every course they took care to wipe them with a fpunge. It was not till the time of the emperors that the Romans began to cover them with cloths : they had fome of them striped with gold and purple. In the first ages they eat, feated upon fimple benches, after the example of Homer's heroes; or, as Varro expreffes it, after the example of the Lacedæmonians and the Cretans. In time, they took up the cuftom of lying upon little beds at their meals; that cuftom they had from Afia. The ladies did not at first think it confiftent with their modefty to adopt that novelty: they long kept up the ancient manner, as more conformable to the modesty of the fex. Valerius Maximus tells us, that in the folemn feafts which they offered to the gods and goddeffes, thofe divinities were plead to fubmit to human cuftoms: that Jupiter was laid upon a bed, Juno and Minerva feated upon chairs *; but from the time of the first Cæfars, till the year 320 of the Chriflian era, the women followed the custom of the men, and like them lay, along at table. As for young people, who had not yet taken the viril robe, they kept them a long time under the ancient difcipline. They feated them at table, on the edge of the bed of their nearest relations. They lay along upon thefe beds, with the upper part of the In great dangers, or after fome happy event, they ordained folemn feafts for the gods, to implore their affifiance, or by way of thanksgiving. They called that ceremony lectisternium, from lectos sternere. Pricfts called Septem viri Epulones, prefided at these feafts, and directed them. They placed a round table in the temples, feats, and heds covered with tapestry, and cushions, on which they put the statues of the gods and goddees who were invited to the feaft; and they were fuppofed to partake of it, though it was the Septemviri Epulones who had all the advantage of it. The beds on which were the ftatues of the gods, were called the pulvinaria, and the feats of the goddeflès sellæ, whence alfo they gave thefe feafts the name of sellisternia, or sollisternia. „A plague which was feyerely felt in Rome the year 356th of the city, gave rife to that ceremony, which in after times was frequently obferved, 1 body a little raifed, and fupported by cushions, and the lower part ftretched at length upon the bed behind the back of the next in order. They leaned upon the left elbow, and made ufe of the right hand. He who was fecond, had his bead oppofite to the breaf of the firft. If he wanted to speak to him, efpecially if the thing was to be fecret, he was obliged to lean upon his bofom; and in converfation, he who fpake fat almost upright, with his back fupported by cushions. A piece of cloth was hung above the table, to prevent the guelts from being incommoded with duft, or other filth. Before they placed themfelves at table, they took off their fhoes, and left them at the bed-feet, that the rich fluffs they were covered with might not be spoiled with duft and mire. Thus, they took their places bare-footed, or with a kind of fippers, and refumed their fhoes when they rofe from table. Plautus fays, in one of his comedies, "Good, I find myfelf better, take "off my fhoes, give me fome "drink." And, fome time after, "Quick, give me my fhoes, and "hafte to remove the table." The gucfts being thus placed, each having his own cover, they diftributed among them bills of fare, then they placed cups before them. Thefe cups were brought from a buffet loaded with other veffels of gold and filver, ftill more valuable for the fineness of the work than for the materials themselves. Gn that of Craffus were feen veffels of filver, which coft him for the fashion at the rate of fix thoufand fefterces the pound weight. Amongst them were two goblets particularly remarkable, the work of Mentor, a celebrated artist, for which he had paid one hundred thoufand fefterces *. When they went to fup with any one, a flave bore the napkin, and took care to carry it back, but not empty; they put into it fome picces of the entertainment. It was not even unufual, in the middle of the meal, to fend fomething to a wife, a relation, a neighbour, or a friend. They always began by libations, which confifted in pouring out a little wine upon the table in honour of the gods, and were accompanied with fome prayers. They placed little images upon the tablet, befide which they put the falt; by that they thought to confecrate the table. They looked upon falt as a facred thing. If it was forgot, or happened to be overturned, the table was profaned, and they thought that fome misfortune was threatened a fuperftition which the Romans derived from the Greeks, and which many people keep up at this day, as well as that other of dreading the number thirteen at table. : *The Roman pound was only twelve ounces, as it is at this day; fix thousand felterces made about 750 livres; and one hundred thousand fefterces 12,500 livres. Befides the Penates and Lares, they placed on the table Hercules and Mercury. They cfteemed thefe gods the native prefidents of the table, Genii mensæ præsides, and called them Epitrapelit, that is to fay, gods of the table. It was for them especially that the libations were made. The |