The true stain upon
his memory, and one which is open to no doubt whatever, is excessive and
extravagant luxury--excessive in degree, extravagant and even ludicrous in
its forms. For example, he constructed a sort of bed or sofa--protected
from insects by an awning of network composed of lilies, delicately
fabricated into the proper meshes, &c., and the couches composed wholly of
rose-leaves; and even of these, not without an exquisite preparation; for
the white parts of the leaves, as coarser and harsher to the touch,
(possibly, also, as less odorous,) were scrupulously rejected. Here he lay
indolently stretched amongst favorite ladies,
"And like a naked Indian slept himself away."
He had also tables composed of the same delicate material--prepared and
purified in the same elaborate way--and to these were adapted seats in the
fashion of sofas (_accubationes_,) corresponding in their materials,
and in their mode of preparation. He was also an expert performer, and
even an original inventor, in the art of cookery; and one dish of his
discovery, which, from its four component parts, obtained the name of
_tetrapharmacum_, was so far from owing its celebrity to its royal
birth, that it maintained its place on Hadrian's table to the time of his
death.
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