THE DIFFERENT COURSES AT DINNER. And he was quite right. For Euripides says, when one looks on what is served up before one, one may really say—
You see how happily life passes when
A man has always a well-appointed table.
48. And that among the ancients the second course used to have a great deal of expense and pains bestowed on it, we may learn from what Pindar says in his Olympic Odes, where he speaks of the flesh of Pelops being served up for food:—
And in the second course they carved
Your miserable limbs, and feasted on them;
But far from me shall be the thought profane,
That in foul feast celestials could delight.[1]
And the ancients often called this second course simply [Greek: trapezai], as, for instance, Achæus in his Vulcan, which is a satyric drama, who says,—
A. First we will gratify you with a feast;
Lo! here it is.
B. But after that what means
Of pleasure will you offer me?
A. We'll anoint you
All over with a richly-smelling perfume.
B. Will you not give me first a jug of water
To wash my hands with?
A. Surely; the dessert ([Greek: trapeza])
Is now being clear'd away.
And Aristophanes, in his Wasps, says—
Bring water for the hands; clear the dessert.[2]
And Aristotle, in his treatise on Drunkenness, uses the term [Greek: deuterai tpapezai], much as we do now; saying,—"We must therefore bear in mind that there is a difference between [Greek: tragêma] and [Greek: brôma], as there is also between [Greek: edesma] and [Greek: trôgalion]. For this is a national name in use in every part of Greece, since there is food ([Greek: brôma]) in sweetmeats ([Greek: en tragêmasi]), from which consideration the man who first used the expression [Greek: deutera trapeza], appears to have spoken with sufficient correctness. For the eating of sweetmeats ([Greek: tragêmatismos]) is really an eating after supper ([Greek: epidorpismos]); and the sweetmeats are served up as a second supper." But Dicæarchus, in the first book of his Descent to the Cave of Trophonius, speaks thus: "There was also the [Greek: deutera trapeza], which was a very expensive part of a banquet, and there were also garlands, and perfumes, and burnt frankincense, and all the other necessary accompaniments of these things."
