"This is a deserved honor," shouted Apollonius, "for the man who fired the gates of the Jews' Temple."
"Aye, it was a valiant deed, for there wasn't so much as a lame Jew to stop him," said Sotades to Dion, who reclined next to him.
"If Apollonius is scattering heroic honors to-night, he should send for the High Priest, Menelaos, for he stole the golden candlesticks from the Holy Place before we could get hold of them," said another.
"Menelaos! The Jew turned Greek! Dion says he once frightened an Ethiopian into a white man. So Menelaos became a Greek. That Jew's lips would poison the wine. Let him get ready for his feast with the worms of Gehenna," grunted the Governor.
Kallisthenes at once assumed the prerogative of Ruler of the Feast. He put on a chaplet of ivy, and proclaimed the laws for the hour.
"Hear ye, my subjects, the rules of the feast, which all shall obey under penalty of the wrath of the gods. May Bacchus and Aphrodite both desert the wretch who fails in his duty."
"Law the first—The wine shall not be mixed with more than half water."
"What goblets shall we use?" asked one. "If the larger ones, I vote for one part wine to three parts water, as Hesiod recommends."
"A frog's drink, as Pharecrates called it," replied the Ruler. "Half and half it shall be, and he who shirks the large goblet shall drink from the crater itself. Are we not all philosophers? And did not Socrates drink from the wine cooler?"