The reader will remember his wild announcement of his intended orgie to
the Prefect Pompeianus during the earlier periods of the siege; that
announcement was now to be fulfilled. Vetranio had bidden his guests to
the Banquet of Famine. A chosen number of the senators of the great
city were to vindicate their daring by dying the revellers that they had
lived; by resigning in contempt all prospect of starving, like the
common herd, on a lessening daily pittance of loathsome food; by making
their triumphant exit from a fettered and ungrateful life, drowned in
floods of wine, and lighted by the fires of the wealthiest palace of
Rome!
It had been intended to keep this frantic determination a profound
secret, to let the mighty catastrophe burst upon the remaining
inhabitants of the city like a prodigy from heaven; but the slaves
intrusted with the organisation of the suicide banquet had been bribed
to their tasks with wine, and in the carelessness of intoxication had
revealed to others whatever they heard within the palace walls.
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