Excursus III - The Table Utensils

Summary

AS the triclinium, with the company reclining, presented a very different appearance from our tables, surrounded by chairs, so the equipment of the table very little resembled ours. Table-cloths do not appear to have been introduced till very late, the best proof of which is, that the language had no word to express them. Mantele, mantelibus sternere, mantelia mittere, which were used for this purpose, had originally a totally different signification. Lamprid. Heliog. 27; Ib. Alex. Sev. 37; Isid. Orig. xix. 26, 6. Originally mantele, or mantelium, was equivalent to χειρόμακτρον. Varro, L. L. vi. 8, Mantelium ubi manus tergentur. At the period, then, treated of by the Scriptores historiœ Augustœ, the habit prevailed; and as early as the time of Hadrian, too, if what Lamprid. says be correct: Quum hœc Heliogabalus jam recepisset, et ante, ut quidam prœdicant, Adrianus habuisset. Even Mart. (xiv. 138) may be referred to this, although it must not necessarily be understood of the cœna; the same applies to xii. 29. But this custom did not prevail at the time of Augustus, as we learn from Hor. Sat. ii. 8, 10. Had the table been covered, it would neither have been perceived that it was of maple, nor could it have been rubbed with gausape, which operation appears to have been generally performed between the divisions of the meal.