And he gave himself other and even stranger gratifications.  Outside the city walls, between the baths and the amphitheatre, was a tavern, a place where wonderful people met to drink wonderful wine.  There he saw priests of Mithras and Isis and of more occult rites from the East, men who wore robes of bright colours, and grotesque ornaments, symbolizing secret things.  They spoke amongst themselves in a rich jargon of colored words, full of hidden meanings and the sense of matters unintelligible to the uninitiated, alluding to what was concealed beneath roses, and calling each other by strange names.  And there were actors who gave the shows in the amphitheatre, officers of the legion who had served in wild places, singers, and dancing girls, and heroes of strange adventure.

The walls of the tavern were covered with pictures painted in violent hues; blues and reds and greens jarring against one another and lighting up the gloom of the place.  The stone benches were always crowded, the sunlight came in through the door in a long bright beam, casting a dancing shadow of vine leaves on the further wall.  There a painter had made a joyous figure of the young Bacchus driving the leopards before him with his ivy-staff, and the quivering shadow seemed a part of the picture.  The room was cool and dark and cavernous, but the scent and heat of the summer gushed in through the open door.  There was ever a full sound, with noise and vehemence, there, and the rolling music of the Latin tongue never ceased.

“The wine of the siege, the wine that we saved,” cried one.

“Look for the jar marked Faunus; you will be glad.”

“Bring me the wine of the Owl’s Face.”

“Let us have the wine of Saturn’s Bridge.”

The boys who served brought the wine in dull red jars that struck a charming note against their white robes.  They poured out the violet and purple and golden wine with calm sweet faces as if they were assisting in the mysteries, without any sign that they heard the strange words that flashed from side to side.  The cups were all of glass; some were of deep green, of the color of the sea near the land, flawed and specked with the bubbles of the furnace.  Others were of brilliant scarlet, streaked with irregular bands of white, and having the appearance of white globules in the molded stem.  There were cups of dark glowing blue, deeper and more shining than the blue of the sky, and running through the substance of the glass were veins of rich gamboge yellow, twining from the brim to the foot.  Some cups were of a troubled and clotted red, with alternating blotches of dark and light, some were variegated with white and yellow stains, some wore a film of rainbow colours, some glittered, shot with gold threads through the clear crystal, some were as if sapphires hung suspended in running water, some sparkled with the glint of stars, some were black and golden like tortoiseshell.