But with respect to the use of silver plate, my good friend Ulpian, you make me stop to consider a little; but I recollect what is said by Alexis in his Exile—
For where an earthen pot is to be letFor down to the times of the supremacy of the Macedonians the attendants used to perform their duties with vessels made of earthenware, as my countryman Juba declares. But when the Romans altered the way of living, giving it a more expensive direction, then Cleopatra, arranging her style of living in imitation of them, she, I mean, who ultimately destroyed the Egyptian monarchy, not being able to alter the name, she called gold and silver plate κέραμον; and then she gave the guests what she called the κέραμα to carry away with them; and this was very costly. And on the Rosic earthenware, which was the most beautiful, Cleopatra spent five mine every day. But Ptolemy the king, in the eighth book of his commentaries, writing of Masinissa the king of the Libyans, speaks as follows—"His entertainments were arranged in the Roman fashion, everything being served up in silver κέραμον. And the second course he arranged in the Italian mode. His dishes were all made of gold; made after the fashion of those which are plaited of bulrushes or ropes. And he employed Greek musicians.
For the cook's use.
