By the time evening is at hand Prodicus and his house are in perfect readiness. The bustle is ended; and the master stands by the entrance way, clad in his best and with a fresh myrtle wreath, ready to greet his guests. No ladies will be among these. Had there been any women invited to the banquet, they would surely be creatures of no very honest sort; and hardly fit, under any circumstances, to darken the door of a respectable citizen. The mistress and her maids are “behind the scenes.” There may be a woman among the hired entertainers provided, but for a refined Athenian lady to appear at an ordinary symposium is almost unthinkable.[*]
[*] In marriage parties and other strictly family affairs women were allowed to take part; and we have an amusing fragment of Menander as to how, on such rare occasions, they monopolized the conversation.
162. The Coming of the Guests.—As each guest comes, he is seen to be elegantly dressed, and to wear now, if at no other time, a handsome pair of sandals.[*] He has also taken pains to bathe and to perfume himself. As soon as each person arrives his sandals are removed in the vestibule by the slaves and his feet are bathed. No guest comes alone, however: every one has his own body servant with him, who will look after his footgear and himation during the dinner, and give a certain help with the serving. The house therefore becomes full of people, and will be the scene of remarkable animation during the next few hours.
[*] Socrates, by way of exception to his custom, put on some fine sandals when he was invited to a banquet.
Prodicus is not disappointed in expecting some extra visitors. His guest of honor, Hermogenes, has brought along two, whom the host greets with the polite lie: “Just in time for dinner. Put off your other business. I was looking for you in the Agora and could not find you.”[*] Also there thrusts in a half genteel, half rascally fellow, one Palladas, who spends all his evenings at dinner parties, being willing to be the common butt and jest of the company (having indeed something of the ability of a comic actor about him) in return for a share of the good things on the table. These “Parasites” are regular characters in Athens, and no symposium is really complete without them, although often their fooleries cease to be amusing.[+]
[*] It is with such a white fib that the host Agathon salutes Aristodemus, Socrates’s companion in Plato’s Symposium.
[+] Of these “Parasites” or “Flies” (as owing to their migratory habits they were sometimes called), countless stories were told, whereof the following is a sample: there was once a law in Athens that not over thirty guests were to be admitted to a marriage feast, and an officer was obliged to count all the guests and exclude the superfluous. A “fly” thrust in on one occasion, and the officer said: “Friend, you must retire. I find one more here than the law allows.” “Dear fellow,” quoth the “fly,” “you are utterly mistaken, as you will find, if you kindly count again—only beginning with me.”
163. The Dinner Proper.—The Greeks have not anticipated the Romans in their custom of making the standard dinner party nine persons on three couches,—three guests on each. Prodicus has about a dozen guests, two on a couch. They “lie down” more or less side by side upon the cushioned divans, with their right arms resting on brightly striped pillows and the left arms free for eating. The slaves bring basis of water to wash their hands, and then beside each couch is set a small table, already garnished with the first course, and after the casting of a few bits of food upon the family hearth fire,—the conventional “sacrifice” to the house gods,—the dinner begins.
Despite the elaborate preparations of the Sicilian cook, Prodicus offers his guests only two courses. The first consists of the substantial dishes—the fish, the vegetables, the meat (if there is any). Soups are not unknown, and had they been served might have been eaten with spoons; but Athens like all the world is innocent of forks, and fingers take their place. Each guest has a large piece of soft bread on which he wipes his fingers from time to time and presently casts it upon the floor.[*] When this first course is finished, the tables are all taken out to be reset, water is again poured over the hands of the guests, and garlands of flowers are passed. The use of garlands is universal, and among the guests, old white headed and bearded Sosthenes will find nothing more undignified in putting himself beneath a huge wreath of lilies than an elderly gentleman of a later day will find in donning the “conventional” dress suit. The conversation,—which was very scattering at first,—becomes more animated. A little wine is now passed about. Then back come the tables with the second course—fruits, and various sweetmeats and confectionary with honey as the staple flavoring. Before this disappears a goblet of unmixed wine is passed about, and everybody takes a sip: “To the Good Genius,” they say as the cup goes round.
[*] Napkins were not used in Greece before Roman days.