There are several types of godawful dinner party host–the drunk and domineering, the
flustered and fastidious, and of course the plain old terrible cooks, to name just a few.
But most guests don?t fear for their lives.
History, on the other hand, is replete with examples of a more deliberately sadistic kind–powerful
rulers or groups abusing their guests with horrifyingly self-indulgent abandon.
Hosts like…
10.
Domitian
In 90 AD, the Roman Emperor Domitian invited a slew of aristocrats to his palace for a
banquet they would never forget.
They arrived, at night, to find the dining room decorated floor-to-ceiling in black–black
marble surfaces, black paint, black velvet drapes, and so on–and lit only by flickering
funeral lamps.
Even more unnervingly, they weren?t allowed to bring their own attendants and were ushered
in alone to places marked with personalized gravestones.
The seats were rock-hard benches and the food itself (made from things commonly offered
as sacrifices to the dead) was dyed black and served on black onyx plates by naked,
black-painted young boys who entered ?like phantoms ? encircling the guests in an awe-inspiring
dance.?
The dinner conversation (or lecture, as it turned out, from Domitian alone) focused on
the inevitability of death and decay.
Only the emperor spoke; his guests remained silent, perhaps stunned in fear, as though
they were already dead.
Given Domitian?s reputation for executing senators, his guests quite reasonably assumed
they had been summoned by the emperor to their doom.
Even at the end of the night, when they were conveyed back to their homes in silence, they
continued to fear for their lives.
So they were likely horrified later on when they each got a knock on the door–and were
perhaps only mildly relieved when it turned out to be the black-painted slaves from earlier
on, bearing gifts: The black onyx plates and gravestones from the dinner party, and their
own mortal bodies as brand new household servants.
Historians believe the event was meant to honor the soldiers who died in the Dacian
War, but Domitian must have been aware of the vibe.
9.
Elagabalus
The Roman emperor Elagabalus (or Heliogabalus) ascended the throne as a teenager and ruled
for just four years before he was killed and dumped in the Tiber.
As it turned out, despite being par for the course, entitlement, hedonism, and cruelty
were frowned upon in such a powerful ruler.
Many of the ?filthy anecdotes? that surround his life may be untrue, but they all agree
on one thing: Elagabalus was an incompetent, pleasure-seeking despot.
He was known for his extravagant banquets and prodigiously experimental appetite–consuming
cockscombs from living birds, flamingo brains, parrot heads, and mullet ?beards,? among other
curious ?delicacies.?
But his guests, whose attendance was mandatory, often went hungry.
In fact, Elagabalus treated them a little like dolls at a make-believe tea party, serving
them waxwork or earthenware replicas of whatever he happened to be eating.
And this wasn?t to cut down on costs; he just wanted them ?tormented by hunger.?
In any case, he was also known for serving up meals cut with gems (peas with gold pieces,
lentils with onyx, beans with amber, and rice with pearls, etc.), perhaps hoping they?d
all chip their teeth–no matter the cost.
Another prank was to seat guests on inflatable pillows, instead of his own fur- or feather-filled
cushions, and have slaves gradually let out the air while they dined.
Later, when they were all passed out drunk, he is said to have unleashed lions, leopards,
and bears to frighten them out of their stupors–and sometimes even to death.
Elagabalus is most famous, however, for allegedly suffocating his dinner guests beneath a mass
of rose petals, violets, and other flowers released through a reversible ceiling.
This incident was depicted in the 1888 painting The Roses of Heliogabalus and, while improbable,
highlights his decadent sadism.
8.
The Vikings
?A bird of Unmindfulness / flutters over ale-feasts, / wiling away men?s wits ??
?dinn, in the H?vam?l (Sayings of the High One)
Viking feasts often lasted days, sometimes involved human sacrifices, and were always
fueled by booze.
But the Vikings still found the time to make trouble in England.
By the 10th century only Wessex (a southern kingdom that encompassed what is now Glastonbury,
Stonehenge, and Bristol) remained unconquered by the Danes.
And King ?thelred was at his wit?s end.
Despite signing boundary agreements and peace treaties, and even paying the Vikings off
(as agreed), the king continued to have trouble with the invaders.
And when he finally received warning of threats to his own life, he ordered all of the Danes
in his kingdom rounded up and killed, culminating in the St. Brice?s Day massacre.
But it only worsened the problem, alienating his few Danish allies and inviting revenge
from the Danish king, Sweyn Forkbeard, who was especially incensed at the murder of his
sister with her husband and child.
The raids continued with perhaps even greater ferocity and in 1011 AD the Vikings besieged
the town of Canterbury.
Burning much of it to the ground, including the famous cathedral, they took the Archbishop
Alphege (?lfheah) hostage.
However, they demanded a ransom so high that the archbishop refused to let anyone pay it.
He knew it would impoverish his people.
So, unsure what to do with the cleric, the Vikings simply dragged Alphege around with
them–to their ships, to political meetings, and, most fatefully, to a feast.
By this time, the Vikings had apparently had quite enough of the archbishop?s piety and,
after getting drunk in the usual manner, pelted the man with ox bones and horns from their
meal, leaving him close to death.
Finally, one of them swung an axe into his head and finished the holy man off.
What the archbishop may not have realized was that bone-throwing was something of a
post-prandial pastime for the Norse.
In the 14th-century B?r?ar saga Sn?fells?ss, Vikings follow a hearty meal in a cave full
of monsters with a lively game of hn?tukast.
This involved lobbing huge bones at each other with enough force to cause serious, often
life-threatening injuries.
One man had his eye knocked out and left dangling against his face, for instance, while in another
saga a man is actually killed.
7.
Lucrezia Borgia
The illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI, Lucrezia was a key member of the ruthlessly
influential House of Borgia.
Among other things, the Borgias were known for their dinner parties and decidedly un-Christian
get-togethers–most notably including the infamous ?Banquet of Chestnuts,? an all-night
orgy where prostitutes stripped naked and crawled about on all fours, picking up chestnuts
like pigs while the pope and his children looked on.
Lucrezia herself often played the hostess at such affairs, and was always outwardly
gracious–greeting each of her guests with a smile.
But she?s also thought to have worn a ring with a hidden phial of poison inside, something
she may have used to kill off her family?s enemies or perhaps anyone she didn?t much
like.
The poison (cantarella: cantharidin from blister beetles or arsenic mixed with pig entrails)
was just one of her methods.
In private, she is also said to have stabbed or garrotted those who had dared to cross
her.
The actual facts of Lucrezia Borgia?s life are murky, but she is thought to have been
loyal to her father.
Some consider her a pawn in the (male) Borgias?
power games, but the fact that she was often left in charge in her father?s absence suggests
she was in on it all.
Indeed, her first husband Giovanni Sforza accused her of incest with the pope.
6.
Sun Hao
Sun Hao, the last of the emperors of Wu (one of three ancient Chinese states), ruled between
264-280 AD as ?the number one tyrant of that era.?
He was often drunk and, like many heavy drinkers, liked others to get drunk with him too.
At one banquet, he became so angry at one of his imperial counselors for pretending
to be drunk when he wasn?t that he had him beheaded on the spot.
He then ordered his guards to toss the head from one man to the next, each taking a bite
until the flesh was stripped down to the skull.
Dinner with Sun Hao was generally a tense affair.
In fact, Sun Hao?s insistence on mutual oblivion when it came to drinking with others probably
had more to do with his paranoia than any desire for revelry.
His banquets were carefully observed by a team of imperial ?rectors?–spies, essentially–who
scrutinized his guests for ?treason.?
And often all it took was a disobedient glance or a stray remark for them to have their eyes
gouged out or face peeled off as punishment.
5.
Genghis Khan
As a child, Genghis Khan (or Tem?jin Borjigin as he was known) killed his own brother for
eating a fish by himself without sharing.
He thought it unwise, apparently, to keep such a selfish person alive in his already
impoverished family.
But this was just one of many food-related episodes to come.
During his siege of the Jin capital Zhongdu (in present-day Beijing), for example, he
trapped citizens inside the city in a bid to starve them into submission.
But they turned to cannibalism instead, leaving mountains of bones and fat for the invaders.
Later, having defeated Rus? forces in the Battle of the Kalka River (1223) and accepted
the survivors?
surrender, he ordered the commander Mstislav the Daring and two other Rus?
princes to be stretched out under boards, alive, and for a feast to be arranged on top.
In this way, the Mongols enjoyed a victory banquet while their enemies slowly suffocated
underfoot.
The Sultan of Persia actually met a similar fate at the hands of the Khan, having been
rolled up in a rug with his family and trampled to death by horses.
4.
The Scythians
Cyaxares, the third king of Media (in present-day northwestern Iran), ascended the throne when
his father was killed besieging the city of Nineveh, Mesopotamia.
Right away, he sought to avenge his father and launched another siege on the city–but
he was called away soon after to defend his own kingdom against the Scythians.
These warlike horsemen of the Steppes appear to have antagonized everyone in their day
and had decided to take refuge in Media–which for them meant subjecting it to their rule.
Actually, Cyaxares tolerated them quite well, even trusting them with the education of young
Median boys (e.g. in the Scythian language and their formidable bow-shooting skills).
But it didn?t last.
The Scythians had something of an agreement with Cyaxares that whenever they went out
hunting they would bring something back for the court.
And when on one fateful occasion they didn?t, the Median king was so enraged that he hurled
insults at the occupying force.
The Scythians were indignant.
Never ones to stand for such treatment without revenge, they took one of the Median boys
entrusted to their care (sometimes said to be Cyaxares?
son), killed him and chopped him to pieces, then dressed the meat as they would any other
game taken in hunting.
Then they served it up to the king in one of history?s earliest ?Thyestean banquets.?
In response, Cyaxares invited the majority of the Scythian chiefs to a banquet of his
own and, after getting them all blind drunk, savagely murdered them all.
3.
Nitocris
Nitocris remains a mysterious and possibly even mythical ancient ruler, known only through
the accounts of classical historians.
But, if she lived, she is believed to have ruled Egypt between the end of the Old Kingdom
and the beginning of the First Intermediate Period (around 2200 BC).
According to Herodotus, her husband Metesouphis (or Merenre) II was brutally killed by his
nobles shortly after ascending the throne, which left Nitocris to reign as pharaoh alone.
But she was evidently heartbroken and determined to get revenge on the assassins.
Her method was legendary.
She ordered the construction of a vast underground banquet hall connected by a hidden channel
to the Nile and invited all of the murderous nobles to celebrate her inauguration.
Then, as they dined, she stepped out of the banquet hall into a secret adjoining duct
and arranged for the hidden channel to be opened, flooding the hall with river water
and drowning all of the traitors inside.
Knowing her actions would be unpopular with the rest of her subjects, however, she concluded
the evening by killing herself in another chamber–this one filled with hot ashes and
smoke.
2.
Vlad the Impaler
Vlad III Dracula, the 15th-century prince (or voivode) of Wallachia in present-day Romania,
was known–indeed nicknamed–for being a dinner party host from Hell.
In his twenties, he hosted a feast for hundreds of boyar nobles and had most of them impaled
at the end.
This meant spiking them on wooden stakes (through the backside) and leaving them writhing in
agony until they died, which may have been several days later.
He didn?t just hate the boyar, though; he also hated the poor.
On another occasion, he gathered together the elderly, the sick, and the helpless from
across the realm and plied them with fine wine and meat.
He then sealed the doors to the specially-constructed banquet hall and had his soldiers burn the
place down to the ground.
His reasoning?
Killing off the poor would naturally bring an end to their poverty.
1.
Papua Cannibals
The Melanesian island of New Guinea, or Papua as Indonesians call it, is known for its cannibal
tribes.
There have been numerous cases of Western explorers going missing, presumed (or known)
to have been eaten, including: Michael Rockefeller, the son of New York Governor and US Vice President
Nelson Rockefeller, in 1961; Stan Dole and Phil Masters, two Christian missionaries,
at Christmas 1974; and a priest with 12 companions in 1976.
But cannibalism is often more of a bloodsport than a day-to-day dietary staple–much like
bull-fighting, pheasant-shooting, or fox-hunting in the West, right down to the vicious pomp
and ceremony that goes with it.
One missionary witnessed a cannibal feast firsthand while living among the Dani tribe
of the Baliem Valley and provided notes on the thinking behind it.
Following one of their routine battles with a neighboring group, the victorious Dani kept
the corpse of a man speared through the heart and, after dressing in their finest feathers
and beads, carried it an hour?s walk to where they knew they could be seen by their enemies.
And, sure enough, their enemies were watching from a nearby hill, weeping and pleading for
the body to be returned for an honorable cremation.
But the winners had no such intention, shouting back ?We?re going to eat him!?
After the tribesmen dumped the body on the ground, scores of women rushed over with pointed
?digging sticks? and circled the corpse, stabbing it, stomping on it, and slinging verbal insults
while the men built a fire nearby.
The missionary suggested the women were venting anger at their own losses to the enemy in
battle.
Then came the preparation of the meat–the toes, meat from the calves, and so on.
It?s unclear whether the missionary ?went native? and sampled the flesh himself, but
he apparently went home nauseated and tried desperately to forget
the experience.