riage feast. The last, so far as it had any peculiar features, has been described among the circumstances attending matrimony. We have, therefore, for the present, to do with two only; and, as the Greek contrived to throw much of his ingenuity into all matters connected with feasting and merrymaking, the discussion of this part of our subject should savour strongly of mirth and jollity.

The grand dinner,' which they called eilapinè, was generally given at the expense of an individual, and its sumptuousness knew no limit but the means of the host. Other kinds of feasts there were at which all the members of a tribe, a borough, or a fraternity, were entertained, not to speak for the present of the common tables of the Cretans, Spartans, or Prytanes of Athens. We now confine ourselves to those jovial assemblages of private citizens whose object in meeting was not so much the dinner, though that was not overlooked, as the elevation of animal spirits and flow of soul produced by the union of a thousand different circumstances.

When a rich man desired to see his friends around him at his board, he delivered to his deipnocletor, a domestic kept for this purpose, a tablet, or as we should say, a card, whereon the names of the persons to be invited, with the day and hour fixed upon for the banquet, were inscribed. With brothers and other very near relations this ceremony was thought unnecessary.3 They came without invitation. So likewise did another class of men, who, living at large upon the public and lighting unbidden upon any sport to which they were attracted by the savour of a good dinner, were denominated Flies,

1 On the subject of dining see Pollux, vi. 9, seq. with the notes of Jungermann, Kuhn, Hemsterhuis. &c.

2 Athen. iv. 70. Aristoph. Concion. 648, et Schol.

3 For a further account of the

persons usually invited, see Athen.

V. 4.

Plut. Sympos. vii. 6. Each guest was also followed by a footman who stood behind his master's chair and waited on him. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 219.

and occasionally SHADES or PARASITES. There was at one time a law at Athens, which a good deal nonplussed these gentlemen. It was decreed, that not more than thirty persons should meet at a marriage feast, and a wealthy citizen, desirous of "going the whole hog," had invited the full complement. An honest Fly, however, who respected no law that interfered with his stomach, contrived to introduce himself, and took his station at the lower end of the table. Presently the magistrate appointed for the purpose, entered, and espying his man at a glance, began counting the guests, commencing on the other side and ending with the parasite. "Friend," said he, "you must retire. I find there is one person "more than the law allows." "It is quite a mis"take, sir," replied the Fly, "as you will find if you "will have the goodness to count again, beginning on this side." Among the Egyptians, who shrouded all their poetry in hieroglyphics, a fly was the emblem of impudence, which necessarily formed the principal qualification of a Parasite, and in Hume's opinion is no bad possession to any man who would make his way in the world.

66

"on

1

2

Archbishop Potter,3 in his account of Grecian entertainments, observes, upon the authority of Cicero

To persons of this description the guests delivered the presents that were made them, or if they happened to be bad characters, what they stole. Athen. iv. 2. Plut. Anton. § 28. Lucian. Conviv. seu Lapith. § 46. Rich men then as now were usually haunted by flatterers who would pluck off the burrs from their cloaks or the chaff which the wind wafted into their beards, and try to screw a joke out of the circumstance by saying, they were grown grey! Theoph. Char. c. ii. p. 7. If the patron joked, they would stuff their chlamys into their

mouths as if they were dying of laughter. In the street they would say to the person they met, "Stand aside, friend, and allow "this gentleman to pass!" They would bring apples and pears in their pocket for his little ones and be sure to give them in his sight, with great praise both of father and children.

1 Athen. vi. 45, seq.

2 Nothing, says this philosopher, carries a man through the world like a true genuine natural impudence. Essays, p. 9, quarto. 3 Antiq. iv. 19.

2

and Cornelius Nepos, that women were never invited with the men.' But in this, as has been shown in the proper place, he was misled by those learned Romans; for, in many cities and colonies of Greece, no banquet was given at which they were not present. Even at Athens, where women of character thought it unbecoming to mingle in the convivial revelries of the men, in which wine constantly overleaps the boundaries of decorum, their place was supplied by hetairæ, whose polished manners, ready wit, and enlarged and enlightened understandings, recommended them to their companions, and caused the laxity of their morals to be forgotten.3 To proceed, however, with our feast: it will readily be supposed, that gentlemen invited out to dinner were careful to apparel themselves elegantly, to shave clean, and arrange their beards and moustachios after the most approved fashion of the day. Even Socrates, who cared as little as most people for external appearances, bathed, put on a pair of new shoes, brushed his chlamys, and otherwise spruced himself up when going to sup at Agathon's with Phædros, Aristophanes, Eryximachos, and other exquisites. Even in Homeric times the bath was

1 Plato giving directions for a marriage feast, observes, that five male and five female friends should be invited; along with these, five male and five female relations, who with the bride and bridegroom, with their parents, grandfathers, &c., would amount to 28. De Legg. vi. t. vii. Schweigh. ad Athen. t. vi. p. 60. Among the ancient Etruscans, who, if not Greeks, had many Greek customs, the women reclined at table with the men, under the same cover. Athen. i. 42.

2 Isæus, De Pyrrh. Hered. § 2. That among the more simple and old-fashioned citizens of Athens,

however, men and women, when of the same family or clan, dined together, we have the testimony of Menander to prove. He introduces one of his characters, apparently a fop, observing that it was a bore to be at a family party, where the father, holding the goblet in his hand, first made a speech, abounding with exhortations: the mother followed, and then the grandmother prated a little. Afterwards stood up her father, hoarse with age, and his wife, calling him her dearest ; while he mean time nodded to all present. Athen. ii. 86.

3 Athen. v. 6.

3

among the preliminaries to dinner, and guests arriving from a distance were attended through all the operations of the toilette by female slaves.1 But this general ablution was not considered sufficient. On sitting down to table water was again presented to every guest in silver lavers or ewers of gold. And since they ate with their fingers, as still is the practice in the Levant, it was moreover customary to wash the hands between every course, and wipe them, in remoter ages, with soft bread, which was thrown to the dogs, and in aftertimes with napkins. The Arcadians, however, about whose mountains all the old superstitions of Hellas clung like bats, found a very different use for the cakes with which they wiped their fingers. They supposed them to acquire some mystic powers by the operation, and preserved them as a charm against ghosts.5

But we are proceeding too fast, for the guests are scarcely within doors, and our imagination has jumped to the conclusion. To return then. Immediately on entering, and when the host had welcomed and shaken hands with all, such gentlemen as possessed beards had them perfumed over burning censers of frankincense, as ladies have their tresses on visiting a Turkish harem. The hands, too, after each lavation, were scented. Before sitting down to table,

1 Odyss. d. 48, sqq.

2 Athen. ix. 27. In some luxurious houses wine mingled with spices was presented to the guests in lavers for the purpose of washing their feet. Plut. Phoc. § 20. In the palace of Trimalchio we find Egyptian servants pouring water, cooled with snow, on the hands of the guests. Petron. Satyr. p. 76. 3 Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 412. Rich purple napkins were sometimes used. Sappho in Deipnosoph. ix. 79.

These ar

ticles are still in the Levant elaborately embroidered.

and while the cooks were peppering the soup, frying the fish, or giving the roast-meat another turn, politeness required the guests to take a stroll1 in the picture-gallery and admire the exquisite taste of their entertainer in articles of virtu. Here while the scent of the savoury viands found its way through every apartment, and set the bowels of the hungry parasites croaking, the rogues who had lunched well at home leisurely discussed the merits of Zeuxis or Parrhasios, of Pheidias or Polygnotos, or opened wide their eyes at the microscopic creations of that Spartan artist whose chisel produced a chariot and four that could be hidden under the wing of a fly. At length, however, the connoisseurs were interrupted in their learned disquisitions by the entrance of Xanthos, Davos, or Lydos, with the welcome intelligence that dinner was on the table.

But the appetites of the gourmands had still to encounter another trial.3 The Greeks were above all things a pious people, and regarded every banquet, nay, every meal, in the light of a sacrifice, at which the first and best portion should be offered as an oblation to the gods, with invocations and prayer, after which it was considered lawful to attend to their own appetites. An altar, accordingly, of Zeus stood in the midst of every dining-room, on which these ceremonies were performed, and libations of pure wine poured. This done, the guests

1 Cf. Hom. Odyss. d. 43, sqq. 2 Aristoph. Vesp. 1208. Athen. v. 6, where the splendid roofs and ornaments of the court are mentioned. These ornaments, KрEкddia, whatever they were, must have been worth looking at. See the note of Casaubon, Animadv. in Athen. t. viii. p. 27, seq. Consult likewise the note on Aristophanes in Bekker's edition, t. iii. p. 606.

3 Athen. v. 7. Cf. Plat. Symp. t. iv. p. 376, et Xenoph. Conviv.

ii. 1. Schweigh. Animadv. in Athen. viii. p. 26, seq.

4 Casaubon mentions this as a thing nota eruditis. Ad Theoph. Charact. p. 232; but we must not on that account pass it over. Alexis poetically deplores the miseries of the half-hour before dinner. Athen. i. 42.

5 There was in great houses a person whose duty it was to assign each guest his place at table, ovoμakλýrwp, or nomenclator. Athen. ii. 29.