he feet of guests with perfumes. At the walls cithara
players and Athenian choristers were waiting for the signal of their
leader.

The table service gleamed with splendor, but that splendor did not
offend or oppress; it seemed a natural development. Joyousness and
freedom spread through the hall with the odor of violets. The guests as
they entered felt that neither threat nor constraint was hanging over
them, as in Caesar's house, where a man might forfeit his life for
praises not sufficiently great or sufficiently apposite. At sight of the
lamps, the goblets entwined with ivy, the wine cooling on banks of
snow, and the exquisite dishes, the hearts of the guests became joyous.
Conversation of various kinds began to buzz, as bees buzz on an apple
tree in blossom. At moments it was interrupted by an outburst of glad
laughter, at moments by murmurs of applause, at moments by a kiss placed
too loudly on some white shoulder.

The guests, while drinking wine, spilled from their goblets a few drops
to the immortal gods, to gain their protection, and their favor for
the host. It mattered not that many of them had no belief in the gods.
Custom and superstition prescribed it. Petronius, inclining near Eunice,
talked of Rome, of the latest divorces, of love affairs, of the races,
of Spiculus, who had become famous recently in the arena, and of the
latest books in the shops of Atractus and the Sozii. When he spilled
wine, he said that he spilled it only in honor of the Lady of Cyprus,
the most ancient divinity and the greatest, the only immortal, enduring,
and ruling one.

His conversation was like sunlight which lights up some new object every
instant, or like the summer breeze which stirs flowers in a garden. At
last he gave a signal to the leader of the music, and at that signal the
citharae began to sound lightly, and youthful voices accompanied. Then
maidens from Kos, the birthplace of Eunice, danced, and showed their
rosy forms through robes of gauze. Finally, an Egyptian soothsayer told
the guests their future from the movement of rainbow colors in a vessel
of crystal.

When they had enough of these amusements, Petronius rose somewhat on his
Syrian cushion, and said with hesitation,--

"Pardon me, friends, for asking a favor at a feast. Will each man accept
as a gift that goblet from which he first shook wine in honor of the
gods and to my prosperity?"

The goblets of Petronius were gleaming in gold, precious stones,