wn to a
splendid banquet, anxiety probably prevents your sitting down at all; but,
if you do, the same cause prevents your noticing what you eat. So of the
two _pseudo_ meals of Rome, they came in the very midst of the Roman
business; viz. from nine, A.M. to two, P.M. Nobody could give his mind
to them, had they been of better quality. There lay one cause of their
vagueness, viz.--in their position. Another cause was, the common basis of
both. Bread was so notoriously the predominating "feature" in each of these
prelusive banquets, that all foreigners at Rome, who communicated with
Romans through the Greek language, knew both the one and the other by the
name of [Greek: artositos], or the _bread repast_. Originally this name
had been restricted to the earlier meal. But a distinction without a
difference could not sustain itself: and both alike disguised their
emptiness under this pompous quadrisyllable. In the identity of substance,
therefore, lay a second ground of confusion. And, then, thirdly, even as
to the time, which had ever been the sole real distinction, there arose
from accident a tendency to converge. For it happened that while some had
_jentaculum_ but no _prandium_, others had _prandium_ but no _jentaculum_;
a third party had both; a fourth party, by much the largest, had neither.
Out of which varieties (who would think that a nonentity could cut up
into so many somethings?) arose a fifth party of compromisers, who,
because they could not afford a regular _coena_, and yet were
hospitably disposed, fused the two ideas into one; and so, because the
usual time for the idea of a breakfast was nine to ten, and for the idea
of a luncheon twelve to one, compromised the rival pretensions by what
diplomatists call a _mezzo termine_; bisecting the time at eleven, and
melting the two ideas into one. But by thus merging the separate times
of each, they abolished the sole real difference that had ever divided
them. Losing that, they lost all.

Perhaps, as two negatives make one affirmative, it may be thought that two
layers of moonshine might coalesce into one pancake; and two Barmecide
banquets might compose one poached egg. Of that the company were the best
judges. But probably, as a rump and dozen, in our land of wagers, is
construed with a very liberal latitude as to the materials, so Martial's
invitation, "to take bread with him at eleven," might be understood by the
[Greek: sunetoi] as significant of something bett