The population of Rome in the century after Augustus, was far greater than during that era; and this, still acting as a vortex to the rest of the world, may have been one great motive with Constantine for “transferring” the capital eastwards; in reality, for breaking up one monster capital into two of more manageable dimensions.  Two o’clock was often the earliest hour at which the public baths were opened.  But in Martial’s time a man could go without blushing (salva fronte) at eleven, though even then two o’clock was the meridian hour for the great uproar of splashing, and swimming, and “larking” in the endless baths of endless Rome.

And now, at last, bathing finished, and the exercises of the palaestra, at half-past two, or three, our friend finds his way home—­not again to leave it for that day.  He is now a new man; refreshed, oiled with perfumes, his dust washed off by hot water, and ready for enjoyment.  These were the things that determined the time for dinner.  Had there been no other proof that coena was the Roman dinner, this is an ample one.  Now first the Roman was fit for dinner, in a condition of luxurious ease; business ever—­that day’s load of anxiety laid aside—­his cuticle, as he delighted to talk, cleansed and polished—­nothing more to do or to think of until the next morning, he might now go and dine, and get drunk with a safe conscience.  Besides, if he does not get dinner now, when will he get it?  For most demonstrably he has taken nothing yet which comes near in value to that basin of soup which many of ourselves take at the Roman hour of bathing.  No; we have kept our man fasting as yet.  It is to be hoped that something is coming at last.

It does come,—­dinner, the great meal of “coena;” the meal sacred to hospitality and genial pleasure, comes now to fill up the rest of the day, until light fails altogether.

Many people are of opinion that the Romans only understood what the capabilities of dinner were.  It is certain that they were the first great people that discovered the true secret and meaning of dinner, the great office which it fulfils, and which we in England are now so generally acting on.  Barbarous nations,—­and none were, in that respect, more barbarous than our own ancestors,—­made this capital blunder; the brutes, if you asked them what was the use of dinner, what it was meant for, stared at you and replied—­as a horse would reply if you put the same question about his provender—­that it was to give him strength for finishing his work!  Therefore, if you point your telescope back to antiquity about twelve or one o’clock in the daytime, you will descry our most worthy ancestors all eating for their very lives, eating as dogs eat, viz. in bodily fear that some other dog will come and take their dinner away.  What swelling of the veins in the temples! (see Boswell’s natural history of Dr. Johnson at dinner;) what intense and rapid deglutition! what odious clatter of knives and plates! what silence of the human voice! what gravity! what fury in the libidinous eyes with which they contemplate the dishes!  Positively it was an indecent spectacle to see Dr. Johnson at dinner.  But, above all, what maniacal haste and hurry, as if the fiend were waiting with red-hot pincers to lay hold of the hindermost!