On this principle we come to understand why it is, that, whenever the Latin poets speak of an army as taking food, the word used is always prandens and pransus; and, when the word used is prandens, then always it is an army that is concerned.  Thus Juvenal in a well-known satire—­

  ——­“Credimus altos
  Desiccasse amnes, epotaque ftumina, Medo Prandente.”

Not coenante, observe:  you might as well talk of an army taking tea and toast.  Nor is that word ever applied to armies.  It is true that the converse is not so rigorously observed:  nor ought it, from the explanations already given.  Though no soldier dined, (coenabat,) yet the citizen sometimes adopted the camp usage and took a prandium.  But generally the poets use the word merely to mark the time of day.  In that most humorous appeal of Perseus—­“Cur quis non prandeat, hoc est?” “Is this a sufficient reason for losing one’s prandium?” He was obliged to say prandium, because no exhibitions ever could cause a man to lose his coenia, since none were displayed at a time of day when anybody in Rome would have attended.  Just as, in alluding to a parliamentary speech notoriously delivered at midnight, an English satirist must have said, Is this a speech to furnish an argument for leaving one’s bed?—­not as what stood foremost in his regard, but as the only thing that could be lost at the time of night.

On this principle, also, viz. by going back to the military origin of prandium, we gain the interpretation of all the peculiarities attached to it; viz.—­1, its early hour—­2, its being taken in a standing posture—­3, in the open air—­4, the humble quality of its materials—­bread and biscuit, (the main articles of military fare.) In all these circumstances of the meal, we read, most legibly written, the exotic and military character of the meal.

Thus we have brought down our Roman friend to noonday, or even one hour later than noon, and to this moment the poor man has had nothing to eat.  For, supposing him to be not impransus, and supposing him jentasse beside; yet it is evident, (we hope,) that neither one nor the other means more than what it was often called, viz. [Greek:  Bouchismos], or, in plain English, a mouthful.  How long do we intend to keep him waiting?  Reader, he will dine at three, or (supposing dinner put off to the latest) at four.  Dinner was never known to be later than the tenth hour in Rome, which in summer would be past five; but for a far greater proportion of days would be near four in Rome, except for one or two of the emperors, whom the mere business attached to their unhappy station kept sometimes dinnerless till six.  And so entirely was a Roman the creature of ceremony, that a national mourning would probably have been celebrated, and the “sad augurs” would have been called in to expiate the prodigy, had the general dinner lingered beyond four.