EXCURSUS I 359 



Scrofa to spend the holiday with him, and on their 

 accepting went away to give the necessary orders. 

 Menas, who had a house not far away, invited others of 

 the party to come to him, and he too left. After some 

 general conversation (as in Books I and III) Varro pre- 

 pared to go to Vitulus's, but the rest refused to let him 

 depart (II, i, ii) until he had given the discourse on 

 catth-raising which he had previously begun. And so 

 the dialogue begins and goes on for four chapters, when 

 Lucienus arrives, is scolded by the others for coming 

 late, and goes off to pay his pence to Pales, taking 

 Murrius with him as a witness, for fear they should try 

 to nake him pay his contribution twice over. He is 

 absent for a few minutes, then returns to discourse later 

 on horses. A few chapters further Menas's freedman 

 comes to tell them that the sacrificial cakes are ready, 

 and to ask his friends to go and sacrifice. The Palilia, 

 by the way, was a private as well as a public festival 

 {c(. Scholiast to Persius, i, 72). 



Later still (xi, 12), Vitulus, growing impatient — and 

 no wonder! — sends his freedman to beg Varro and 

 Scrofa to come at once and not to cut short the holiday 

 as they were doing. '*And so, my friend Turranius 

 Niger, we parted, Scrofa and I through Vitulus's 

 grounds to his house, while the rest of the party went 

 some to Menas's, some to their own homes." 



