A Place at the Patron’s Table

Marcus Valerius

Do you remember the Esquiline this morning? The cold, the mud, six sesterces in my fist? Well, my friend, the patron has finally paid me the rest. A slave boy knocked at my door around midday with the words I've waited half a year to hear. I am to dine tonight. At his table. My wife shook the dust out of my good tunic and told me not to look so pleased. I told her I'd look however I liked.

Marcus Valerius

A cena starts late in the afternoon, around the ninth or tenth hour, so first I go to the baths, because you do not recline at a great man's table smelling of the street. Scraped, soaked, and oiled, I come out feeling almost like a senator. Now listen, this is the part visitors never learn. No host in Rome hands you a napkin. You bring your own. A mappa, a big square of linen, folded over my arm. The little sudarium I carry for sweat is no use here. We eat with our fingers, you see. A spoon for eggs and shellfish, the slim ligula, the little pointed cochleare, but meat, bread, sauce, all fingers. A guest who arrives without a mappa looks like he's never been invited anywhere.

Marcus Valerius

And you guard it. Catullus wrote a whole poem about napkin thieves, and the poet Martial laughed at a fellow named Santra who stuffed his cloth with hare, oysters, figs, and grapes until it nearly burst. Taking scraps home in your mappa is ordinary manners. Everyone does it. The joke is only in how much.

Marcus Valerius

At the patron's door, a slave kneels and takes my street boots. Cool water over my feet, a rag, and then I'm handed indoor sandals, soleae, soft as butter. I stand there in my dining tunic with my toes washed by someone else, and I think, this is what the dawn was for. This is the payment in full. I'll tell you, when I step through that door I believe it.

Marcus Valerius

The triclinium glows with lamps. Three broad couches make a U around the low table, the mensa. We lie on our left sides, weight on the left elbow, right hand free for the food. The top couch, the middle couch, the bottom couch. And here, friend, is the whole secret of Rome in one room. The place of honor is the lowest end of the middle couch, right beside the host. The host himself lies at the head of the bottom couch, so the best guest sits at his elbow. The further you lie from him, the less you matter.

Marcus Valerius

I am shown to the bottom couch. The far end. Beside me lies a freedman who owns three warehouses and is richer than I will ever be, and on my other side, a thin man in a borrowed tunic. One of those the patron calls his shadows, an umbra, brought along by somebody else and tolerated like a stray dog. We lie packed together, elbow against elbow, and every time one of us reaches, all three of us shift.

Marcus Valerius

Then the slaves bring the wine. The patron's wine comes in a clear glass flask, old, with a consul's name on it. Ours comes from a different jug. I take a sip. Sharp. Thin. The kind of wine you give to someone you want to go home sooner. I sold wine near the Forum, I know what I'm tasting. And the bread. His loaves are white, made of the finest flour, the siligo. Ours are dark, coarse, and stale at the edges. The slave who passes ours does not meet my eyes.

Marcus Valerius

I look up the table. The patron is laughing with the men beside him, the cheerful, easy laughter of a man who doesn't notice. And here is what troubles me. I don't think he's cruel. I think he truly believes he has done me a great honor, and in his mind he has. There's a story going around that a gentleman of Rome, a writer named Pliny, once sat at such a table, where wine came in three grades, one for the host and a few, one for lesser friends, one for freedmen. Pliny told his neighbor he thought it was shameful, and that at his own table everyone drinks the same. Good for Pliny. But Pliny does not need anything from his host. I do.

Marcus Valerius

Because I do need something. There's a dispute over my stall's place near the Forum, and a word from the patron to the right magistrate could save me a year of trouble. All evening I've held that request in my mouth like a pebble. The freedman beside me sees me staring at the good wine and gives me a small, tired smile. He knows. He's been on this couch before, I think, and perhaps on a better one, and it did not change much.

Marcus Valerius

So here is my choice, friend, and I make it quickly. I do not shout. I do not push the bad wine away. I lift my cup toward the head of the table, and the patron lifts his, and he calls down the length of the room, "Valerius, my good friend, you're well?" And I say, "Very well, patron. Honored." That one word, honored, costs me more than six sesterces ever did. But he nods, and I know he'll hear me tomorrow.

Marcus Valerius

When the sweets arrive, I do what any Roman does. I take the honey cakes the slaves bring, the few figs, and wrap them in my mappa for my daughter. Nobody blinks. That, at least, is allowed for everyone. Then, as the lamps burn low and the laughter at the top couch grows loud, I do the proper thing. I ask for my sandals. Soleas poscere, we say. To call for your sandals. It is how a Roman says goodnight.

Marcus Valerius

The slave brings my boots instead, washed and warm. I walk home along the dark street with the mappa pressed against my chest, heavy with figs, and I decide I'll tell my wife that the dinner was splendid. She'll know I'm lying. She'll let me. And tomorrow, at dawn, I'll be back on the Esquiline, waiting at the door.