the caprice of the human mind is marvellously exemplified in the varying fashions of silver plate; the work of no individual manufactory being for any long time in vogue. at one period, the furnian[207] plate, at another the clodian, and at another the gratian, is all the rage—for we borrow the shop even at our tables. now again, it is embossed plate that we are in search of, and silver deeply chiselled around the marginal lines of the figures painted upon it; and now we are building up on our sideboards fresh tiers of shelves for supporting the various dishes.
we find the orator calvus complaining that the saucepans are made of silver; but it has been left for us to invent a plan of covering our very carriages with chased silver, and in our own age popp?a, the wife of the emperor nero, ordered her favorite mules to be shod with gold!
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the younger scipio africanus left to his heir thirty-two pounds’ weight of silver: the same person who, on his triumph over the carthaginians, displayed four thousand three hundred and seventy pounds’ weight of that metal. such was the sum total of the silver possessed by the whole of the inhabitants of carthage, that rival of rome for the empire of the world! how many a roman since then has surpassed her in his display of plate for a single table! after the destruction of numantia, the same africanus gave to his soldiers, on the day of his triumph, a largess of seven denarii each—and right worthy were they of such a general, when satisfied with such a sum! his brother, scipio allobrogicus, was the very first who possessed one thousand pounds’ weight of silver, but drusus livius, when he was tribune of the people, possessed ten thousand. that an ancient warrior, rufinus the consul, a man, too, who had enjoyed a triumph, should have incurred the notice of the censor for being in possession of five pounds’ weight of silver, is a thing that would appear quite fabulous at the present day.
for a long time past it has been the fashion to plate the couches of our women, as well as some of our banqueting-couches, entirely with silver. two centuries ago these couches were invented, as well as chargers of silver, one hundred pounds in weight: it is a well-known fact, that there were then upwards of one hundred and fifty of these in rome, and that many persons were proscribed through the devices of others who were desirous to gain possession thereof. well may our annals be put to the blush for having to impute those civil wars to the existence of such vices as these!
our own age, however, has waxed even stronger in this respect. in the reign of claudius, his slave drusillanus, surnamed rotundus, who acted as his steward in nearer spain, possessed a silver charger weighing five hundred pounds, for the manufacture of which a workshop had to be expressly 267 built. this charger was accompanied also by eight other dishes, each two hundred and fifty pounds in weight. how many of his fellow-slaves, pray, would it have taken to introduce these dishes, or who were to be the guests served therefrom? compare this extravagance with the simplicity of the times of fabricius, who would allow no general of an army to have any other plate of silver than a patera and a salt-cellar.—oh that he could see how that the rewards of valor in our day are either composed of these objects of luxury, or are broken up to make them! alas for the morals of our age! fabricius puts us to the blush.
it is a remarkable fact that the art of chasing gold should have conferred no celebrity upon any person, while that of embossing silver has rendered many illustrious. the greatest renown, however, has been acquired by mentor. aside from single pieces only four pairs of vases were ever made by him, and at the present day not one of these, it is said, is any longer in existence, owing to the conflagrations of the temple of diana at ephesus and of that in the capitol. varro informs us in his writings that he also was in possession of a bronze statue, the work of this artist. zopyrus represented the court of the areopagus and the trial of orestes for the murder of his mother clyt?mnestra upon two cups valued at twelve thousand sesterces. there was pytheas also, a work of whose sold at the rate of ten thousand denarii for two ounces: it was a drinking-bowl, the figures on which represented ulysses and diomedes stealing the palladium from troy. the same artist engraved also, upon some small drinking-vessels, kitchen scenes of such remarkably fine workmanship and so liable to injury, that it was quite impossible to take copies of them by moulding. teucer, too, the inlayer, enjoyed a great reputation.
all at once, however, this art became so lost in point of excellence, that at the present day ancient specimens are the 268 only ones at all valued; and only those pieces of plate are held in esteem the designs on which are so much worn that the figures cannot be distinguished.
