Arrived at the Forum, if not engaged in a trial, or summoned to a meeting of the senate, or busy in canvassing, he would mingle with the crowd, and spend a social morning in meeting and talking with friends, or in hearing the latest news from the provinces, or in occupying himself with his investments with the aid of his bankers and agents.  This is the way in which such a sociable and agreeable man as Cicero was loved to spend his mornings when not deep in the composition of some speech or book,—­and at Rome it was indeed hardly possible for him to find the time for steady literary work.  It was this social life that he longed for when in Cilicia; “one little walk and talk with you,” he could write to Caelius at Rome, “is worth all the profits of a province."[429] But it was also this crowded and talkative Forum that Lucilius could describe in a passage already quoted, as teeming with men who, with the aid of hypocrisy and blanditia, spent the day from morning till night in trying to get the better of their fellows.[430]

After a morning spent in the Forum, our Roman might return home in time for his lunch (prandium), which had taken the place of the early dinner (cena) of the olden time.  Exactly the same thing affected the hours of these meals as has affected those of our own within the last century or so; the great increase of public business of all kinds has with us pushed the time of the chief meal later and later, and so it was at Rome.  The senate had an immense amount of business to transact in the two last centuries B.C., and the increase in oratorical skill, as well as the growing desire to talk in public, extended its sittings sometimes till nightfall.[431] So too with the law-courts, which had become the scenes of oratorical display, and often of that indulgence in personal abuse which has great attractions for idle people fond of excitement.  Thus the dinner hour had come to be postponed from about noon to the ninth or even the tenth hour,[432] and some kind of a lunch was necessary.  We do not hear much of this meal, which was in fact for most men little more than the “snack” which London men of business will take standing at a bar; nor do we know whether senators and barristers took it as they sat in the curia or in court, or whether there was an adjournment for purposes of refreshment.  Such an adjournment seems to have taken place occasionally at least, during the games under the Empire, for Suetonius (Claud. 34) tells us that Claudius would dismiss the people to take their prandium and yet remain himself in his seat.  A joke of Cicero’s about Caninius Rebilus, who was appointed consul by Caesar on the last day of the year 45 at one o’clock, shows that the usual hour for the prandium was about noon or earlier; “under the consulship of Caninius,” he wrote to Curius, “no one ever took luncheon."[433]