| Pliny the Elder, Natural History (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Plin. Nat.]. | ||
| <<Plin. Nat. 33.48 | Plin. Nat. 33.49 (Latin) | >>Plin. Nat. 33.50 |
The caprice of the human mind is marvellously exemplified in the varying fashions of silver plate; the work of no individual manufactory being for any long time in vogue. At one period, the Furnian plate, at another the Clodian, and at another the Gratian, [Note] is all the rage—for we borrow the shop even at our tables. [Note]—Now again, it is embossed plate [Note] that
we are in search of, and silver deeply chiselled around the marginal lines of the figures painted [Note] upon it; and now we are building up on our sideboards fresh tiers [Note] of tables for supporting the various dishes. Other articles of plate we nicely pare away, [Note] it being an object that the file may remove as much of the metal as possible.
We find the orator Calvus complaining that the saucepans are made of silver; but it has been left for us to invent a plan of covering our very carriages [Note] with chased silver, and it was in our own age that Poppæa, the wife of the Emperor Nero, ordered her favourite mules to be shod even with gold!
| Pliny the Elder, Natural History (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Plin. Nat.]. | ||
| <<Plin. Nat. 33.48 | Plin. Nat. 33.49 (Latin) | >>Plin. Nat. 33.50 |
