We don't do other things as we perform
Our duties to the gods. We sacrifice
One sheep scarce worth ten or a dozen drachmæ;
But for our flute-women, our perfumes rich,
Our harpers, Thasian and Mendæan wine,
Eels, cheese, and honey to regale ourselves,
We do not a whole talent think too much.
'Tis very well to spend a dozen drachmæ
When we are sacrificing to the gods,
But if you much curtail that slight expense,
Are you not thus dishonouring the gods?
I, if I were a god, would ne'er allow
A scanty loin of beef to load my altars,
Unless an eel were also sacrificed,
So that Callimedon might die of rage.
THE DOLE-BASKET.
68. And the ancients call some feasts ἐπιδόσιμα, that is to say, given into the bargain,—the same which the Alexandrians call ἐξ ἐπιδομάτων. Alexis, at all events, in his Woman at the Well, says—
A. And now the master here has sent a slave
To bring to me a jar of his own wine.
B. I understand; this is ἐπιδόσιμος,
A gift into the bargain, as a makeweight;
I praise the wise old woman.
And Crobylus, in his Supposititious Son, says—
A. Laches, I come to you; proceed.
B. Which way?
A. How can you ask? Why, to my mistress, who
Has a feast ἐπιδόσιμος prepared;
And in her honour only yesterday
You made the guests drink down twelve glasses each.
The ancients, also, were acquainted with the banquets which are now called dole-basket banquets; and Pherecrates mentions them in his Forgetful Man, or the Sea, saying—
Having prepared a small dole-basket supper
He went away to Ophela.
And this clearly points to the dole-basket supper, when a man prepares a supper for himself, and then puts it in a basket, and goes off to sup with some one. And Lysias has used the word σύνδειπνον for a banquet, in his speech against Micinus, on his trial for murder; for he says that he had been invited to a σύνδειπνον: and Plato says—"Those who had made a σύνδειπνον:" and Aristophanes, in his Gerytades, says—
Praising great Æschylus in his σύνδειπνα,