Behold I here
A banquet, or a nuptial feast? for these
Meet not by contribution to regale;
With such brutality and din they hold
Their riotous banquet.
Cowper, Odyss. l.
Potter, Archæologia Græca.
[134] The feast of gods.] A sacrifice was followed by a general banquet, and the tables were spread in the temple itself. The gods were supposed invisibly to be present. Thus we are to explain their visit to the Æthiopians in Homer, Il. i:
For to the banks of the Oceanus
Where Æthiopia holds a feast to Jove