Roman Drinking Parties

[Faustus]

(When a Banquet turns into a

[ASCLEPIADES]

(When a Banquet turns into a

[Faustus]

(When a Banquet turns into a

[FLavius Valerius Constantinus]

Trimalchio is from the story the "Millionaire's Banquet" right? That was a booklet they let lower track Latin students translate in my high school. As for this translation "and a reveler, clad in white vestments, entered, followed by a large retinue," it always puzzles me how the translator never translate literally. Coulda just started out Commisator intravit alba veste cum ingenti frequentia amictusque.

[Faustus]

Trimalchio is from the story the "Millionaire's Banquet" right? That was a booklet they let lower track Latin students translate in my high school.

Salve FVC,

 

That title is unknown to me but is apt. The character Trimalchio, in the Satyricon was a freedman of enormous wealth, and today would be called a "millionaire". Cena Trimalchionis (Trimalchio's dinner) occupies chapters 26-78 of Satyricon by Gaius Petronius. The original title is P.A. Satiricon libri. The initials correspond to the author, Petronius Arbiter.

 

The text was copied throughout the Middle Ages, and In 1664 the first critical edition, which included Trimalchio

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve, Amici.

 

A new related Faustus thread

[Klingan]

In this drunken atmosphere to remember the inevitability of death was both a warning and an invitation to enjoyment. One man drank cheerfully from a silver cup skillfully decorated with gesticulating skeletons. These macabre images added flavor to the wine. At Trimalchio's dinner, after the gustatio, a little silver skeleton, articulated so that it could bow and dance while the host expounded his philosophy, was displayed. The mosaic floor of one Roman dining room was decorated with a huge skull with hollow eyes; another showed a skeleton twisting on the hook-like flames of a pyre, 'Know yourself' is written underneath. All this, doubtless, led to deep thoughts without, however, causing any loss of appetite.

 

 

 

Here's an example from Campania, probably Pompeii or Herculaneum. I found it in the Museo Natzionalle.

[Silentium]

In this drunken atmosphere to remember the inevitability of death was both a warning and an invitation to enjoyment. One man drank cheerfully from a silver cup skillfully decorated with gesticulating skeletons. These macabre images added flavor to the wine. At Trimalchio's dinner, after the gustatio, a little silver skeleton, articulated so that it could bow and dance while the host expounded his philosophy, was displayed. The mosaic floor of one Roman dining room was decorated with a huge skull with hollow eyes; another showed a skeleton twisting on the hook-like flames of a pyre, 'Know yourself' is written underneath. All this, doubtless, led to deep thoughts without, however, causing any loss of appetite.

 

 

 

Here's an example from Campania, probably Pompeii or Herculaneum. I found it in the Museo Natzionalle.

Interesting!A sort of memento mori.

[ASCLEPIADES]

In this drunken atmosphere to remember the inevitability of death was both a warning and an invitation to enjoyment. One man drank cheerfully from a silver cup skillfully decorated with gesticulating skeletons. These macabre images added flavor to the wine. At Trimalchio's dinner, after the gustatio, a little silver skeleton, articulated so that it could bow and dance while the host expounded his philosophy, was displayed. The mosaic floor of one Roman dining room was decorated with a huge skull with hollow eyes; another showed a skeleton twisting on the hook-like flames of a pyre, 'Know yourself' is written underneath. All this, doubtless, led to deep thoughts without, however, causing any loss of appetite.

 

 

 

Here's an example from Campania, probably Pompeii or Herculaneum. I found it in the Museo Natzionalle.

Interesting!A sort of memento mori.

Here comes Quintus Septimius Tertullianus' Apologeticum, cp. XXXIII, sec. I, III et IV:

 

Sed quid ego amplius de religione atque pietate Christiana in imperatore<m>? quem necesse est suspiciamus ut eum, quem dominus noster elegit, ut merito dixerim: "Noster est magis Caesar, a nostro deo constitutus." ... Negat illum imperatorem qui deum dicit; nisi homo sit, non est imperator. Hominem se esse etiam triumphans in illo sublimissimo curru admonetur; suggeritur enim ei a tergo: "Respice post te! Hominem te memento!" Et utique hoc magis gaudet tanta se gloria coruscare, ut illi admonitio condicionis suae sit necessaria. Minor erat, si tunc deus diceretur, quia non vere diceretur. Maior est qui revocatur, ne se deum existimet.

 

"But why dwell longer on the reverence and sacred respect of Christians to the emperor, whom we cannot but look up to as called by our Lord to his office? So that on valid grounds I might say C

[Faustus]

In this drunken atmosphere to remember the inevitability of death was both a warning and an invitation to enjoyment. One man drank cheerfully from a silver cup skillfully decorated with gesticulating skeletons. These macabre images added flavor to the wine..... All this, doubtless, led to deep thoughts without, however, causing any loss of appetite.

 

Interesting!A sort of memento mori.

 

It adds to his greatness that he needs such a reminiscence, lest he should think himself divine.

Salve

As morbid as this all is, it still delights. It reminds of the practice of students of Zen contemplating of their own dead body, rotting and being eaten by worms, as a way of realizing their own life and mortality.

Edited August 3, 2008 by Faustus

[Silentium]

In this drunken atmosphere to remember the inevitability of death was both a warning and an invitation to enjoyment. One man drank cheerfully from a silver cup skillfully decorated with gesticulating skeletons. These macabre images added flavor to the wine..... All this, doubtless, led to deep thoughts without, however, causing any loss of appetite.

 

Interesting!A sort of memento mori.

 

It adds to his greatness that he needs such a reminiscence, lest he should think himself divine.

Salve

As morbid as this all is, it still delights.

 

True, although this acknowledgement of men's mortal nature seems to have a different connotation in pagan Rome, it seems to be an incentive to living life to the fullest and at the same time in the best/healthiest way possible (both a warning and an invitation to enjoyment, as Ugo Enrico Paoli poits out in the excerpt posted by Faustus), while the Christian timor mortis seems to be connected with the fear of sin, of not repenting and consequently of punishment in hell. Tertullian's passage made me think of this, sorry for the digression.