OPSOPHAdY. 519 



muscle of the neck, face, or shoulders, but what appears 

 tumid and hard at work. 



Gluttony and drunkenness, being both social vices, are 

 in their nature necessarily contagious : of the two, 

 however, the latter is decidedly the more dangerous and 

 catching; for while ia surfeiting, whether alone or in 

 company, a man generally goes no further than his own 

 individual greediness prompts; in drunkenness he is 

 led on and solicited by others to keep them in coun- 

 tenance-^every member of a board of topers being in 

 league against sobriety, and each man putting the bottle 

 before his neighbour, to encourage him in the abuse of 

 strong drink. Opsophagy again was necessarily confined 

 to the rich ;* but the means of drunkenness have in all 

 times been comparatively cheap and within the compass of 

 every man's purse; and there has ever been this additional 



* Few men enjoyed the privilege of going ' tick' with, the fish- 

 monger, who, secure of a ready sale, did not encourage long 

 biUs ; and even had they been oomplaisantly disposed, the opso- 

 nomoi, or comptrollers of the fish-market, would have interfered 

 to prevent it. At Corinth, where the supervision was particularly 

 strict, the law enacted that none should ' opsophagize' but such 

 as could prove their income sufficient to support the extravagance ; 

 a poor offender was first cautioned, then mxdoted, and, if stUl in- 

 corrigible, handed over to the ' camifex.' ' Do you know this 

 excellent law of ours,' asks an overreached, disappointed Corin- 

 thian purveyor, of one these sharp-witted gentlemen whom he 

 meets in the market ; ' and have you weighed well the end of 

 such pretenders P When abandoned by honest men and the state 

 at large, they become the boon companions of sycophants, thieves, 

 cut-throats, and other outcasts ; from aU of whom,' adds the ex- 

 cited man, ' may our city be quickly purged !' ' Amen !' says the 

 party addressed, ' but why all this to me ?' ' To you P' retorts 

 the other, ' because you are the man ! It is you who eat up all 

 the supplies of our Agora; you who raise foreign wines to tiieir 

 present exorbitant price ; you whose greediness suffers not one 

 httle fish to escape, oi/c earlv lx6vrjphv vno a-ov fieToXa^eiv ; you 

 who make us fight for every cabbage at the greengrocer's, and 



