Memento Mori - Remember your mortality!

"Eheu nos miseros, quam totus homuncio nil est Sic erimus cuncti, postquam nos auferet Orcus. Ergo vivamus, dum licet esse bene."

Alas for miserable us, how much indeed is all insignificant man nothing. Thus will we all be, after Orcus carries us off. Therefore, let us live while we can enjoy.

— Petronius, Satyricon

_Amid the festivities of Roman dining - the wine, the food, the flowers, there was often a decidedly macabre note. Diners quaffed from sculpted silver goblets depicting skeletons and it has been suggested that these cups, along with the depiction of a skeleton with wine vessels on a triclinium floor mosaic in Pompeii, that figures of skeletons were associated with the serving of wine.

A serving table from Pompeii depicts a skull on its surface, and two drinking cups from the villa of Boscoreale bear the skeletons of philosophers. In fact, depictions of skeletons often go hand in hand with objects meant for serving wine,

Often, the host would call for the larva convivialis, a small, articulated skeleton made of ivory or wood. This custom, imported from Egypt, according to Herodotus, was both an invitation to enjoy life and a warning of live's brevity.

Sources:
Consuming Bodies in Early Imperial Rome, Alice Christ ,University of Kentucky
A Taste of Ancient Rome, Illaria Gozzini Giacosa