You'll Have had your Tea?

I am sure that we have all on occasion had house guests who have imposed on us at a bad time, or perhaps outstayed an original welcome? I know that I have.

Of course good manners - not to mention the primeval laws of human hospitality - dictate that one cannot refuse a visitor. Even harder when that visitor be friend, family or a work associate. Perhaps then, we should all spare a thought for that great statesman of the Late Roman Republic, Marcus Tulius Cicero, who in 45 BC was honoured by a rather onerous visit from his then political ally, Julius Caesar. Receiving this most powerful guest, probably at his estate at Pueoli, Cicero was alarmed to note that Caesar travelled with a personal retinue of no less than 2,000 men:

"His entourage moreover were lavishly entertained in three other dining rooms. The humbler freedmen and slaves had all they wanted - the smarter ones I entertained in style. In a word I showed I knew how to live. But my guest was not the kind of person to whom one says 'Do come again when you are next in the neighbourhood.' Once is enough. .... There you are, a visit, or should I call it a billeting, which as I said was troublesome to me but not disagreeable."

[Cicero, Letters to Atticus 110, Penguin, London 1986]

Of course the next time I am imposed upon in my small tenement flat, I shall think of Cicero and count myself lucky.