d in the following terms: "I need not go into details as to how I
came to be dining with a person with whom I am by no means intimate.
In his own eyes he combined elegance with economy; in mine he combined
meanness with extravagance. The dishes set before himself and a few
others were of the choicest; those supplied to the rest were poor
scraps. There was the same difference in his wine, which was of three
kinds. The intention was not to offer a choice, but to prevent the
right of refusing. One kind was for himself and us; another for his
less important friends (for his friends are graded); another for his
and our freedmen. My next neighbour noticed this, and asked me if I
approved of it. I said 'No!' 'Well,' said he, 'what is your own
practice?' 'I treat every one alike, for I invite people to a dinner,
not to an insult, and when they share my table I let them share
everything.' 'Your freedmen as well?' 'Yes, at such times I regard
them as guests, not as freedmen.' At this he said, 'It costs you a
good deal?' 'Not at all.' 'How can that be?' 'Because it is not a case
of their drinking the same wine as I do, but of my drinking the same
wine as they do.'" The letter is perhaps nearly half a century later
than our chosen period, but there is no reason to think that manners
had undergone any great change in the interval.

CHAPTER XIV

LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AND LOWER CLASSES

Silius was a noble, with a nobleman's privileges and also his
limitations. The class next in rank below his consisted of the
"knights," of whom something has already been said. It will be
remembered that these men of the "narrow stripe" were the higher
middle class, who conducted most of the greater financial enterprises
of Rome and the provinces. While the senatorial order could govern the
important provinces, command legions, possess large estates, and
derive revenues from them, but could make money in other ways only
through the more or less concealed agency of knights or their own
freedmen, the knights were free to act as bankers, money-lenders,
tax-farmers, and merchants or contractors in a large way, and to take
charge of such third-rate provinces as the Caesar might think fit to
entrust to them. Money-lending at Rome was an extremely profitable
business. Not only was the nobleman often extravagant in his tastes,
but when once elected to a public position he was practically
compelled to spend money lavishly in giving shows and exhibitions