How clients are entertained

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Valerie Block

Mosaic of slaves serving at a banquet, from Carthage, 3rd century CE. Louvre, Paris. Photo by Barbara McManus

Ancient Rome was full of dubious hospitality. The complicated system of patronage meant that clients were occasionally invited to a banquet, in gratitude or reciprocity for all their efforts on their patron’s behalf. It was not uncommon for guests at the same party to be treated to different food and wine, served on different plates and glasses, depending on where they stood in the social hierarchy. J.P.V.D. Balsdon notes in Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome, that “(t)his differentiation, it seems, could be made even between guests at the same table.”

In “How Clients Are Entertained,” Juvenal, taking the part of the client/guest, asks, “[i]s a dinner worth all the insults with which you have to pay for it?”

“First of all be sure of this –that when bidden to dinner, you receive payment in full for all your past services. A meal is the return which your grand friendship yields you; the great man scores it against you…

“The page [slave] who has cost so many thousands cannot mix a drink for a poor man: but then his beauty, his youth, justify his disdain! … It is beneath him to attend to an old dependent; he is indignant that you should ask for anything, and that you should be seated while he stands. All your great houses are full of saucy slaves. See with what a grumble another of them has handed you a bit of hard bread that you can scarce break in two, or bits of solid dough that have turned mouldy – stuff that will exercise your grinders and into which no tooth can gain admittance. For [the host] himself a delicate loaf is reserved, white as snow, and kneaded of the finest flour. Be sure to keep your hands off it: take no liberties with the bread-basket! …’What?’ you may ask, ‘was it for this that I would so often leave my wife’s side on a spring morning and hurry up the chilly Esquiline when the spring skies were rattling down the pitiless hail, and the rain was pouring in streams off my cloak?’

Juvenal, Satire V, 20-25; 60-70. Loeb edition, translated by G.G. Ramsay

Seneca on Saturday — basic principles vs. special cases

Posted on April 16, 2016 by Valerie Block

Image of a javelin thrower, among the 3rd century mosaics of athletes found in the Baths of Caracalla, now in the Vatican Museum.

Image of a javelin thrower, among the 3rd century mosaics of athletes found in the Baths of Caracalla, now located in the Vatican Museum.

Epistle XCIV — On the Value of Advice

Just as the the student of javelin-throwing keeps aiming at a fixed target and thus trains the hand to give direction to the missile, and when, by instruction and practice, he has gained the desired ability, he can then employ it against any target he wishes (having learned to strike not at any random object, but precisely the object at which he has aimed), — so he who has equipped himself for the whole of life does not need to be advised concerning each separate item, because he is now trained to meet his problem as a whole; for he knows not merely how he should live with his wife or his son, but how he should live aright. In this knowledge there is also included the proper way of living with wife and children.

Seneca Epistles 93-124, Translation by Richard Gummere. Loeb Classical Library.

What we owe our guests

Posted on April 12, 2016 by Valerie Block

Bronze hospitality tessera, from the 1st century BCE. Found in Castillo de Cedrillas, Teruel, Spain. From the Museo Aqueológico Nacional.

In Latin, the word for guest and host are the same: hospes, reflecting the idea that one should be an excellent host on principle, because one would surely be a guest before long. Reciprocity of this kind played an important role at a time when there were few amenities or services for those in transit, and traveling was a dangerous business. According to A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, a connection of private hospitality to a Roman implied a bond more sacred than that which he owed his own blood relations, and required receiving a traveler in his home, offering him protection, and representing him in court, if need be. Once established, these relationships could go on over centuries. A traveler seeking to activate a mutual aid connection would present a hospitality tessera, like the one above, when arriving at someone’s home. This was something between an identity card and a token, to identify the traveler, who might be several generations removed from the host family’s original friend. Sometimes, the tessera was two pieces of a whole, that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Think of a familiar story about strangers from another part of the ancient world: Lot greeted two angels visiting Sodom, offering them hospitality, including a feast and shelter in his home. When the men of Sodom surrounded Lot’s house and demanded that he hand his guests over to them, Lot pleaded, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Behold, I have two daughters who have not known man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” — GENESIS 19:1-11.

This puts the occasional house visit (from in-laws, college friends and long-lost acquaintances from the Old Country) into perspective, no?

April Word of Mouth

Posted on April 11, 2016 by Valerie Block

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Fiction: The Good Thief — Hannah Tinti

Non-fiction: Jihad Academy: The Rise of Islamic State — Nicolas Hénin

Memoir: All Who Go Do Not Return — Shulem Deen

History: Caligula: the Corruption of Power — Anthony A. Barrett

Movie: Eye in the Sky — Gavin Hood

TV: The Game — Toby Whithouse, BBC

Not-So-Ancient Inspiration: “The enemy is a very good teacher.” — the Dalai Lama

Seneca on Saturday — on what we can control

Posted on April 9, 2016 by Valerie Block

Roman mosaic from Zeugitana, Carthage (now Tunisia): Theseus escaping King Minos’ labyrinth, 3rd century CE. From the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Anthropology and Archeology

EPISTLE XLVII

Each man acquires his character for himself, but accident assigns his duties.

Seneca Epistles 1-65, Translation by Richard Gummere. Loeb Classical Library.

Photo credit: Luke Jones at flickr.

April Deity of the Month: Ceres

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Valerie Block

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Statue of Ceres (2nd century CE) in the museum at Halaesa Arconidea, Sicily.

Ceres was the Roman goddess of agriculture, specifically grain crops. Her parents were Saturn and Ops; she was the mother of Proserpina. Her festival was the Cerialia, held between April 12th and 19th, with games in the Circus Maximus on the final day. One of the rituals associated with these games was the opener: hundreds of foxes with flaming torches tied to their tails ran out onto the track. There was a fast in honor of Ceres on October 4th. She was also given a sacrifice to purify a house after a funeral.

For more concise information on Roman deities and everyday life, consult Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome, by Lesley Adkins and Roy A. Adkins.

Photo: Per-Erik Skramstad / Wonders of Sicily