KITCHENS AND DINING ROOMS AT POMPEII ... - Get a Free Blog

thereby eventual access to a patron. 236 One parasite, Charopinus, is depicted as potentially
violent, even murderous, when he is denied invitation:
As many times as I dine at home, if I have not invited you, Charopinus,
straightway the hostilities become immense, and you would run me through the
middle with a drawn sword if you perceive that my hearth has been heated up
without you. Will I not even once be allowed to play a trick? Nothing is as
insatiable, Charopinus, as this your gluttony. Now quit watching over my
kitchen, I pray, and let my cook at last give you words [instead of a meal]. 237
The Charopinus character underlines the importance of dining-out to one's social reputation and
worth. Charopinus the client is forced to eat his patron's poem instead of his food. Issues of
patronage were at work in every invitation to dinner from a social superior to a social inferior:
"In Roman satire some people invite important guests to dinner seeking social
advancement (Nasidienus in Hor. S. 2.8). Others eat well or entertain those lower
in the social hierarchy to assert or confirm their own superiority (Virro in Juv. 5)
or attend dinners in the hope of social advancement (Trebius in Juv. 5)." 238
There was considerable tension for all parties involved in the staging of a banquet. Prospective
invitees risked being uninvited. Potential hosts risked both rejection of their invitations, and the
chance that their social occasion might be a failure. 239 Refusal to dine on the part of a guest was
a sign of that guest's advancement in society, and of the host's reduced clout. Martial complains
of one Dento, who has four times refused his dinner invitation:
So it is: you have been captured by a richer dinner, and a bigger kitchen has
carried off the dog! Presently -- and that soon -- when you are known and
discarded, and the wealthy eating-house (popina) is sick of you, to the bones of
the old dinner you will return. 240
Calling the house where Dento now dines a popina is a particularly malicious insult; it implies
that Dento has no real status whatsoever. Gowers characterizes dining in Horace's first book of
236 The banquet-hunter Selius is actually depicted as a man 'fishing' for food and social opportunity (Mart.
2.27; see also 2.14; 7.20 [above, p. 23]). The usage of patronus, cliens, and amicus follows the definitions of
Saller 1982, 8-15.
237 Mart. 5.50: Ceno domi quotiens, nisi te, Charopine, vocavi, protinus ingentes sunt inimicitiae, meque potes stricto
medium transfigure ferro, si nostrum sine te scis caluisse focum. Nec semel ergo mihi furtum fecisse licebit? Inprobus
nihil est hac, Charopine, gula. Desine iam nostram, precor, observare culinam, atque aliquando meus det tibi verba
cocus (OCT text, author's translation).
238 Hudson 1989, 83. D'Arms 1990, 311 further stresses the importance at banquets of the ties of clientela,
"which linked together and integrated the disparate elements of the Roman social fabric". See Gowers 1993,
220-279 for an analysis of the symbolism of food in invitation poems.
239 A failed banquet as that described in Hor. S. 2.8, where the host is mocked and the guests flee.
240 Mart. 5.44.7-11: Sic est, captus es unctiore mensa et maior rapuit canem culina. Iam te, sed cito, cognitum et
relictum cum fastidierit popina dives, antiquae venies ad ossa cenae (Loeb text and translation). See also Juv. 11
and Plin. Ep. 1.15.
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