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Indiana University Studies 



beard of youth is beginning to bloom, wait in relays. Shortly before 

 they were the playthings of their lovers, and are carefully prepared 

 with too exceeding daintiness for any more serious service. These are, 

 as it were, just an exhibition of the wealth of the entertainer, as those 

 who are experienced know, and they rather, in truth, show their 

 vulgar extravagance. 



Besides this there are all the different varieties of pastry and 

 dainties and sweetmeats, over which bakers and cooks have labored, 

 considering not how to please the taste, which is a necessary thing, 

 but also to satisfy the sight by their delicacy. Seven tables^^ and even 

 more are brought in filled with all kinds of products which the land 

 and sea and rivers and air produce, all carefully selected and in 

 prime condition; things of earth and water and air, of w^hich each 

 one excels both in its preparation and in its garnishing so that no 

 form of product may be lacking of all those found in nature. Finally, 

 dishes are brought in loaded with nuts and apples, not to mention 

 those things which are kept for the revels, and such as we call dessert. 



Then some of the tables are carried out empty because of the 

 insatiate appetites of those present, who, gorging themselves like 

 sea-gulls, gobble up everything even to gnawing the very bones, 

 while other courses they leave half eaten after spoiling them by 

 picking them over. And then, when they are utterly tired out, with 

 bellies filled even to their throats, tho their lust for food is still 

 unsatisfied, weary of eating any more, they crane their necks this 



Suetonius, Augustus 74, gives three or at most six tables, or course?, 

 for the different courses were served from small tables brought in and placed 

 before the couches. Athenaeus Bk. Xll. ch. 69 (574) has the following inter- 

 esting passage. He says that Lycon the Peripatetic "used to entertain his 

 friends at banquets with excessive arrogance and extravagance. For besides 

 the music which was provided at his entertainments, and the silver plate and 

 coverlets which were exhibited, all the rest of the preparation and the superb 

 character of the dishes was such, and the multitude of tables and cooks was 

 so great, that many people were actually alarmed, and, tho they wished 

 to be admitted into his school, shrunk back, fearing to enter, as into a badly 

 governed state, which was always burdening her citizens with liturgies and 

 other expensive offices " (C. D. Yonge's translation). In contrast to this, 

 Athenaeus then goes on to tell of monthly banquets in honor of the Muses 

 instituted by Plato and Speusippus in the Academy; "not in order that people 

 might dwell upon the pleasures of the table from daybreak, or for the sake of 

 getting drunk, but in order that men might appear to honor the Deity and to 

 associate with one another in a natural manner, and chiefly with a view to 

 natural relaxation and conversation" (C. D. Yonge's translation). After a meal 

 of this kind with Plato, it is reported that a certain general, Timotheus 

 remarked, "With such company one need fear no headaches tomorrow." 

 (See Zeller Plato and the Older Academy, p. 28, n. 59.) 



