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CHAP. 51.—AT WHAT PERIOD SILVER WAS FIRST USED AS AN ORNAMENT FOR COUCHES.

For this long time past, however, it has been the fashion to plate the couches of our women, as well as some of our ban- quetting-couches,1 entirely with silver. Carvilius Pollio,2 a Roman of equestrian rank, was the first, it is said, to adorn these last with silver; not, I mean, to plate them all over, nor yet to make them after the Delian pattern; the Punic3 fashion being the one he adopted. It was after this last pattern too, that he had them ornamented with gold as well: and it was not long after his time that silver couches came into fashion, in imitation of the couches of Delos. All this extravagance, however, was fully expiated by the civil wars of Sulla.

1 "Triclinia." The couches on which they reclined when at table.

2 See B. ix. c. 13.

3 This pattern, whatever it may have been, is also spoken of by Cicero, pro Murenâ, and by Valerius Maximus, B. vii. c. 1.

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