After this, as it had been done of it self, the family gave a shout, and cry’d out, “Health and prosperity to Caius!” The cook also was presented with wine, a silver coronet, and a drinking goblet, on a broad Corinthian plate:  which Agamemnon more narrowly viewing; “I am,” said Trimalchio, ’’the only person that has the true Corinthian vessels.”

I expected, that according to the rest of his haughtiness, he would have told us they had been brought him from Corinth:  But he better:  “And perhaps,” said he, “you’ll ask me why I am the only person that have them.  And why, but the copper-smith from whom I buy them, is called Corinthus?  And what is Corinthian but what is made by Corinthus?  But that ye may not take me for a man of no sence, I understand well enough whence the word first came.  When Troy was taken, Hannibal, a cunning fellow, but withal mischievous, made a pile of all the brazen, gold and silver statues, and burnt them together, and thence came this mixt metal; which workmen afterwards carried off; and of this mass made platters, dishes, and several other things; so that these vessels are neither this nor that metal, but made of all of them.  Pardon me what I say; however others may be of another mind, I had rather have glass ware; and if it:  were not so subject to breaking, I’d reckon it before gold; but now it is of no esteem.

“There was a copper-smith that made glass vessels of that pliant harness, that they were no more to be broken than gold and silver ones:  It so happened, that having made a drinking-pot, with a wide mouth of that kind, but the finest glass, fit for no man, as he thought, less than Caesar himself; he went with his present to Caesar, and had admittance:  The kind of the gift was praised, the hand of the workman commended, and the design of the giver accepted.  He again, that he might turn the admiration of the beholders into astonishment, and work himself the more into the Emperor’s favour, pray’d the glass out of the Emperor’s hand; and having received it, threw it with such a force against the paved floor, that the most solid and firmest metal could not but have received some hurt thereby.  Caesar also was no less amazed at it, than concerned for it; but the other took up the pot from the ground, not broken but bulg’d a little; as if the substance of metal had put on the likeness of a glass; and therewith taking a hammer out of his pocket, he hammer’d it as it had been a brass kettle, and beat out the bruise:  And now the fellow thought himself in Heaven, in having, as he fansied, gotten the acquaintance of Caesar, and the admiration of all:  But it fell out quite contrary:  Caesar asking him if any one knew how to make this malleable glass but himself?  And he answering, there was not, the Emperor commanded his head to be struck off:  ‘For,’ said he, ’if this art were once known, gold and silver will be of no more esteem than dirt.’