But they called him τραπεζοποιὸς who took care of the tables, and of everything else which required order and good management. Philemon says, in his "The Uninvited Guest"—

There is no need of long deliberation
About the kitchen, for the table-setter
Is bound to look to that; that is his office.

They also used the word ἐπιτραπεζώματα, meaning by this the food which was placed upon the table. Plato says, in the Menelaus—

How little now is left of the ἐπιτραπεζώματα.

[[274]] They also called the man who bought the meat, the Ἀγοραστὴς, but now they call him ὀψωνάτωρ, an officer whom Xenophon mentions, in the second[274:1] book of the Memorabilia, speaking thus:—"Could we expect to get a steward and buyer of such a character for nothing?" But the same word is used in a more general sense by Menander, in his Phanius—

He was a thrifty and a moderate buyer (ἀγοραστής):

And Aristophanes calls him ὀψώνης, in his Tagenistæ, saying—

How the purveyor (ὀψώνης) seems to delay our supper.

Cratinus, too, uses the verb παροψωνέω, in his Cleobulinæ, where he says

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