Probably, like most Romans of his day, he had spent a long time over his dinner, talking if he had guests, or reading and thinking if he were alone or with his family only.
The dinner, _cena_, was in fact the principal private event of the day; it came when all business was over, and you could enjoy the privacy of family life or see your friends and unbend with them.

At no other meal do we hear of entertainment, unless the guests were on a journey, as was the case at the lunch at Arcanum when Pomponia's temper got the better of her (see above, p.

52).

Even dinner-parties seem to have come into fashion only since the Punic wars, with later hours and a larger staff of slaves to cook and wait at table.

In the old days of household simplicity the meals were taken in the atrium, the husband reclining on a _lectus_,[442] the wife sitting by his side, and the children sitting on stools in front of them.