The Dinner of Trimalchio

The Dinner of Trimalchio was a very interesting story within The Satyricon.  I started reading this with much difficulty due to the way it was written and the vocabulary used throughout the story, however once I got through the first few pages I got the hang of the reading.  I found this story to be very interesting in how it was told and how I could relate the present to it.  
Trimalchio was the host of the dinner and he was a man of great riches and a heavy lack of manners.  He put on a great feast for his noble guests however he did not pay much attention to them for he seemed to think that he was better than everyone.  I am sure this is what he felt.  Trimalchio did not act to please people with anything but to show off what riches he possessed.  He did a very good job of this, for example he served wine that was hundreds of years old and used slaves to serve everything.  
The dinner itself was exquisite beyond belief, there were six courses made up of extravagant dishes.  The first course consisted of a bronze donkey bearing olives flanked by a gridiron of sausages, damsons and dormice coated with poppy seeds and honey.  The second course was peahens' eggs presented underneath a perched wooden hen, they sucked on the eggs.  I found this dish to be odd however the eggs contained garden warblers cooked in spiced egg yolk.  The third course was winged hare surrounded by stuffed capons and sows' bellied in a zodiacal arrangement.  The fourth course was a wild boar accompanied by pastry suckling piglets and filled with live thrushes.  The fifth course was a hog stuffed with sausages and meat puddings.  Finally, the sixth course was a boiled calf wearing a helmet, which was sliced up by a slave dressed as the hero Ajax.  
This short story brought up a few realizations about our present day festivities, I realized as I read this that some of the richest people I know are the ones with the worst manners and the most rude and boastful about what they own.  It seems sad that there are people who only care to show off what they possess rather than actually form relationships with others.