Videant consules! Thirty legions are guarding our pax romana!" Here he put his fists to his temples and shouted, in a voice heard throughout the triclinium,--"Thirty legions! thirty legions! from Britain to the Parthian boundaries!" But he stopped on a sudden, and, putting a finger to his forehead, said,--"As I live, I think there are thirty-two." He rolled under the table, and began soon to send forth flamingo tongues, roast and chilled mushrooms, locusts in honey, fish, meat, and everything which he had eaten or drunk.
But the number of the legions guarding Roman peace did not pacify Domitius.
No, no! Rome must perish; for faith in the gods was lost, and so were strict habits! Rome must perish; and it was a pity, for still life was pleasant there.

Caesar was gracious, wine was good! Oh, what a pity! And hiding his head on the arm of a Syrian bacchanal, he burst into tears.

"What is a future life! Achilles was right,--better be a slave in the world beneath the sun than a king in Cimmerian regions.

And still the question whether there are any gods--since it is unbelief--is destroying the youth." Lucan meanwhile had blown all the gold powder from Nigidia's hair, and she being drunk had fallen asleep.

Next he took wreaths of ivy from the vase before him, put them on the sleeping woman, and when he had finished looked at those present with a delighted and inquiring glance.
He arrayed himself in ivy too, repeating, in a voice of deep conviction, "I am not a man at all, but a faun." Petronius was not drunk; but Nero, who drank little at first, out of regard for his "heavenly" voice, emptied goblet after goblet toward the end, and was drunk.