So elegant were his habits, and so
constant his demand for the luxurious accommodations of polished life,
as it then existed in Rome, that he is said to have carried with him,
as indispensable parts of his personal baggage, the little lozenges
and squares of ivory, and other costly materials, which were wanted
for the tesselated flooring of his tent. Habits such as these will
easily account for his travelling in a carriage rather than on
horseback.
The courtesy and obliging disposition of Caesar were notorious, and
both were illustrated in some anecdotes which survived for generations
in Rome. Dining on one occasion at a table where the servants had
inadvertently, for sallad-oil, furnished some sort of coarse lamp-oil,
Caesar would not allow the rest of the company to point out the
mistake to their host for fear of shocking him too much by exposing
the mistake. At another time, whilst halting at a little _cabaret_,
when one of his retinue was suddenly taken ill, Caesar resigned to his
use the sole bed which the house afforded. Incidents, as trifling as
these, express the urbanity of Caesar's nature; and hence one is the
more surprised to find the alienation of the Senate charged, in no
trifling degree, upon a failure in point of courtesy.
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