ds. And even now it may be as well to point
out that medical treatment by a course of emetics was a perfectly well
known and valued method at this time;[453] that Caesar, whose health
was always delicate, and at this time severely tried, was then under
this treatment, and could therefore eat his dinner comfortably,
without troubling himself about what he ate and drank: and that the
apt quotation from Lucilius, and the literary conversation which (so
Cicero adds) followed the dinner, prove beyond all question that this
was no glutton's meal, but one of that ordinary and rational type, in
which repose and pleasant intercourse counted for more than the mere
eating and drinking.

No more work seems to have been done after the cena was over and the
guests had retired. We found Cicero on one occasion going to bed soon
after the meal; and, as he was up and active so early in the morning,
we may suppose that he retired at a much earlier hour than we do. But
of this last act of the day he tells us nothing.

CHAPTER X

HOLIDAYS AND AMUSEMENTS

The Italian peoples, of all races, have always had a wonderful
capacity for enjoying themselves out of doors. The Italian _festa_
of to-day, usually, as in ancient times, linked to some religious
festival, is a scene of gaiety, bright dresses, music, dancing,
bonfires, races, and improvisation or mummery; and all that we know of
the ancient rural festivals of Italy suggests that they were of much
the same lively and genial character. Tibullus gives us a good idea of
them:

"Agricola assiduo primum satiatus aratro
Cantavit oerto rustica verba pede;
Et satur arenti primum est modulatus avena
Carmen, ut ornatos diceret ante decs;
Agricola et minio suffusus, Bacche, rubenti
Primus inexperta duxit ab arte choros."[454]

It would be easy to multiply examples of such merry-making from the
poets of the Augustan age, nearly all of whom were born and bred in
the country, and shared Virgil's tenderness for a life of honest work
and play among the Italian hills and valleys. But in this chapter we
are to deal with the holidays and enjoyments of the great city, and
the rural festivals are only mentioned here because almost all the
characteristics of the urban holiday-making are to be found in germ
there. The Roman calendar of festivals has its origin in the regularly
recurring rites of the earliest Latin husbandman. As the city grew,
these old agricultural festivities lost o