For this long time past, however, it has been the fashion to plate the couches of our women, as well as some of our ban- quetting-couches,[1] entirely with silver. Carvilius Pollio,[2] a Roman of equestrian rank, was the first, it is said, to adorn these last with silver; not, I mean, to plate them all over, nor yet to make them after the Delian pattern; the Punic[3] fashion being the one he adopted. It was after this last pattern too, that he had them ornamented with gold as well: and it was not long after his time that silver couches came into fashion, in imitation of the couches of Delos. All this extravagance, however, was fully expiated by the civil wars of Sulla.