there. But, after all, even the Socratic Aristippus himself did not blush when he was taunted with having Lais as his mistress: "Yes," quoth he, "Lais is my mistress, but not my master." It is better in Greek;[1] you must make a translation yourself, if you want one. As for myself, the fact is that that sort of thing never had any attraction for me when I was a young man, much less now I am an old one. I like a dinner party. I talk freely there, whatever comes upon the tapis, as the phrase is, and convert sighs into loud bursts of laughter. Did you behave better in jeering at a philosopher and saying, when he invited anyone to put any question he chose, that the question you asked the first thing in the morning was: "Where shall I dine?" The blockhead thought that you were going to inquire whether there was one heaven or an infinite number! What did you care about that? "Well, but, in heaven's name"—you will say to me—"was a dinner a great matter to you, and there of all places?"[2]
Well then, my course of life is this. Every day something read or written: then, not to be quite churlish to my friends, I dine with them, not only without exceeding the law, but even within it, and that by a good deal.[3] So you have no reason to be terrified at the idea of my arrival. You will receive a guest of moderate appetite, but of infinite jest.(Diogen. Laert. Vita Aristippi, 74). Anecdotes of the famous Corinthian meretrix will be found in the 13th book of Athenæus.]
- ↑ [Greek: echo ouk echomai
- ↑ I have translated this as a retort which Cicero expects Pætus to make: "You chaff me about my neglecting philosophy for dinner: but why do you care for a dinner so much as to dine in such company?" It is not a very obvious or certain explanation, but neither are any of those given by others, which all differ. At naturally introduces a supposed objection. But the text is very doubtful.
- ↑ Cæsar's sumptuary law. Suetonius says that he carried it out so strictly, that he set inspectors in the provision market to seize forbidden dainties, and even sent lictors to remove them from the table if they had been procured. Of course, however, it failed (Suet. Iul. 43; cp. Dio, 43, 25).
