Dear Cicero,
I'm still reading
your letters. Each night as I settle into bed, I look at the
towering collection of books on my night stand and select something
for the evening. It all seems very serious most of the time, but
when I found your letter to M. Fadius Gallus, I laughed out loud and
read it to my partner beside me.
TO M. FADIUS
GALLUS (AT ROME)
Tusculum, 57 BCE,
December
“Having been
suffering for nine days past from a severe disorder of the bowels,
and being unable to convince those who desired my services that I was
ill because I had no fever, I fled to my Tusculan villa, after
having, in fact, observed for two days so strict a fast as not even
to drink a drop of water.”
“I had been
really much afraid of dysentery. But either the change of residence,
or the mere relaxation of anxiety, or perhaps the natural abatement
of the complaint from lapse of time, seems to me to have done me
good. However, to prevent your wondering how this came about, or in
what manner I let myself in for it, I must tell you that the
sumptuary law, supposed to have introduced plain living, was the
origin of my misfortune. For whilst your epicures wish to bring into
fashion the products of the earth, which are not forbidden by the
law, they flavour mushrooms, petits choux, and every kind of pot-herb
so as to make them the most tempting dishes possible. Having fallen
a victim to these in the augural banquet at the house of Lentulus, I
was seized with a violent diarrhœa, which, I think, has been checked
to-day for the first time. And so I, who abstain from oysters and
lampreys without any difficulty, have been beguiled by beet and
mallows. Henceforth, therefore, I shall be more cautious.”
When
people discuss ancient history and the lives of the great figures of
antiquity, we rarely imagine them on the toilet. I am glad that Tiro
kept a copy of this letter, it helps to bring to life the ordinary
nature of humanity at all times. It doesn't matter that you were
Consul. It doesn't matter that you were declared “Saviour of
Rome”, when you had a stomach bug and spent days on the toilet, you
were humble enough to write to your friend about it.
I
am fascinated by two things, the Sumptuary Law, and your relationship
to Epicurean philosophy. It seems plain from your philosophical
books that you favour Stoic, over Epicurean ideas, and I am pleased
to discover that you do not hold this position with ignorance, but
that you studied with well known philosophers of both schools. I
read that when you were eighteen and nineteen years old you studied
with Phaedrus and Zeno, two Epicureans, and also with Philo and
Antiochus from the Academic school, as well as Posidonius the Stoic.
I will write something about this philosophical debate in another
letter, I have a lot more to read before I begin anything on that
topic.
I
have been gradually making my way through your works On the nature
of the Gods, and On the nature of Good and Evil, and I
have been re-reading On Duties, as well as your letters to
your brother Quintus which contain a sort of distillation of some of
your philosophical ideals. I have also been reading (although very
slowly), The Discourses of Epictetus, as recorded by Flavius
Arrian, and I must say that I like it very much. I am amazed by the
scepticism and incredible acuity of his thinking, particularly in
relation to the existence of the Gods and the meta-language of
philosophy. I will have to come back to that in another
letter....today I wanted to talk about the Sumptuary laws.
The Lex
Sumptuaria outlawed the flagrant public display of personal or
institutional wealth in the form of clothing. Included among this
designation is the wearing of custom capes or other apparel if the
owner is not of the Imperial family or otherwise allowed by the
Emperor. Also, wearing any item that contains the colour purple,
unless of Plebeian Council rank, or above Senatorial rank, and
wearing any item that contains silk.
Then
there was the Lex Aemeliana Sumptuaria, enacted by M. Aemilius
Scaurus, consul of 115 BCE. As with the Lex Licinius Sumptuaria,
rather than limit the number of guests at a dinner party, or the cost
one could spend on a feast, it sought to prohibit which foods and
food preparations could be used. Thus the Lex Aemilia Sumptuaria
prohibited meals that served mice, rats, stuffed (or force-fed)
dormice, mussels, and those birds that came from foreign lands.
Similar prohibitions were decreed by censors of an earlier date and
the prohibitions applied also to what foods were not acceptable to
serve to the Gods.
(Source: C.
Plinius Secundus, Historia Naturalis 8.57 (223))
Some other
articles I found made reference to the fact that these laws were
generally unenforceable, and so were more symbolic than legal, and
also that they were a way of favouring the local food industries,
rather than the imported exotic goods trade. The restrictions on
clothing are interesting too, since such laws can be found in many
regions of world history, especially regarding the colour purple,
which has always been rare and difficult to produce, coming as it
does from an uncommon Sea Snail. I had to laugh at the ban on custom
capes, since I own two such items, and the ban on wearing any kind of
silk. I feel like the silk ban must have something to do with
international trade. I wonder who was producing silk at that time,
and how it was transported to Rome? I know that the Scythians were
sometimes involved in the silk trade from China to Greece, but that
was hundreds of years before you Cicero.
But, that aside,
since you wrote to your friend Gallus about diarrhoea, I will write
to you about a stomach ailment of my own, from many years ago, and
which has a weird story attached regarding the way in which I cured
myself.
I had a dream
that I was at a circus, a large pavilion filled with tents and
entertainments of every sort. I saw a large crowd gathering to hear a
man speak. He wore a dramatic cape and top hat, had a sinister
moustache, and spoke with a hypnotic voice, entrancing the crowd to
believe that he possessed the mystical powers of foresight. I
instinctively knew that he was a charlatan, and that he was actually
an evil sorcerer who used his powers of persuasion and charm to steal
from people. So, I snuck into his tent while he was speaking to the
crowd and I stole his Tarot cards, throwing them in a nearby bin.
Dusting my hands
off and congratulating myself on this little crime, I was suddenly
attacked from behind and pinned to the ground by the very man whose
cards I had just stolen. I was flat on my back as he he reached into
me and stole my stomach, laughing cruelly as he did so.
He then handed me
a small piece of paper with an arcane symbol drawn on it, telling me
that my stolen stomach would only be returned to me on one condition;
that I deliver this cursed paper to a lady in a distant city, a hat
maker who had crossed him. If I failed to do this, he would destroy
my stomach entirely, and I would die.
I agreed to do as
he said, and he let me go, but inwardly I knew that I would never do
his dirty work, but that I would find some other way to break his
evil magic curse.
I woke up from
the dream with a dreadful stomach ache, unlike any stomach complaint
I had ever felt before. The feeling persisted all day, getting
gradually worse. I forced myself to leave the house to buy some food
for dinner that night, as I was having guests over, and I found
myself drawn to the local fish market, where I suddenly had the urge
to buy myself a whole smoked eel, knowing instinctively that this
would be the cure for my stomach ache. I got home, sliced the eel,
fried it lightly and ate the whole thing (none of my friends were
interested in eating it), and my stomach ache immediately disappeared
– the curse had been broken.
Now, I've never
eaten a lamprey, though I do love to eat oysters. I've never eaten
rat, or force-fed dormice, and while I have eaten a wide variety of
bird meat, I don't think any of them were from foreign lands. Last
night I ate seaweed and Chinese green vegetables and chicken served
with buckwheat noodles and this morning I feel fabulous.
I'm not trying to
make a point, I'm just telling you a story.
Thank you Cicero,
you life story is of continuous interest, and always a springboard
for further learning.
With gratitude
and respect.
Morgan.
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