Reflections on an Odd Life

Feasting

So I went to go see both Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra this week at the Shakespeare Theatre, so I was all up in Ancient Rome’s business. That underscored to me that I don’t know my Roman history as well as I’d like, so I spent yesterday reading Tom Holland’s excellent narrative history “Rubicon,” where I came across this great story:

So evidently Lucius Licinius Lucullus, one of the Roman consuls during the era of Sulla, loved solitary excess, which was at the time considered quite gauche. One time, when he was dining alone and his servant supplied a meal he thought too simple, he exclaimed, “But Lucullus is feasting Lucullus today!”