P. 20. -- MAGISTERIA: generally explained as referring to the practice of appointing at each dinner a 'master of the feast', _arbiter bibendi_ or συμποσιαρχης. This explanation is not quite correct. Mommsen shows in his work '_de collegiis_' that each one of the _collegia_ or _sodalicia_ annually appointed a _magister cenarum_ whose duty it was to attend to the club-dinners during his year of office and no doubt to preside at them. That some office is meant more important than that of the _arbiter bibendi_ appointed for a particular feast is shown by the words _a maioribus instituta_. It is scarcely likely that Cicero was ignorant of the Greek origin of the custom of appointing an _arbiter bibendi_. -- ET IS SERMO etc.: 'and the kind of talk in which following the fashion of our fathers we engage, beginning at the upper table, as the cup goes round'. The cup circulated from left to right, not, as with us, from right to left. The guests at a Roman dinner reclined on three couches, placed at three tables; two of the couches (_lecti_) were parallel, and the third was at right angles to the other two. The _lectus_ at which the cup began to circulate was _summus_, the next _medius_, the last _imus_. For a _summo_ cf. _da (sc. bibere) a summo_ in Plaut. Asin. 5, 2, 41. See Becker's Gallus, p. 471 _et seq_. -- SICUT ... EST: 'as we find'; so Off. 1, 32 _ut in fabulis est_, and often. -- IN SYMPOSIO: 2, 26. -- MINUTA: see n. on 52. -- RORANTIA: here with an active sense, 'besprinkling', representing επιψεκαζειν in Xenophon; often however not different in sense from _'roscida'_. -- REFRIGERATIO ... HIBERNUS: cf. closely 57 _ubi et seq_. Note the changes of expression in passing from _refrigeratio_ to _sol_ (_apricatio_ would have more exactly corresponded with _refrigeratio_) and from _aestate_ to _hibernus_ (for _hieme_). -- IN SABINIS: 'when with the Sabines', who were celebrated for their simplicity of life. Cato had an estate in the Sabine district. -- CONVIVIUM VICINORUM COMPLEO: 'I make up (_i.e._ to the proper number) a company of my neighbors'. -- QUOD ... PRODUCIMUS: 'and we continue our companionship to as late an hour as we can, with changing talk'. The phrases _multa nocte_ or _de nocte_ 'late in the night', _multo die_ 'late in the day', are common; cf. also Att. 13, 9, 1 _multus sermo ad multum diem_; Rep. 6, 10 _sermonem in multam noctem produximus_.