Nil tumulti. Terence here compares guests, called together in a hurry, to soldiers raised on any sudden emergency of great importance. As no marriage had been thought of till that day, _if_ Chremes _had_ invited any guests, they could have had scarcely an hour’s notice; Davus, therefore, aptly calls such a hasty assemblage tumultus, which word was used to signify a very quick muster of soldiers on any pressing occasion, when all that took arms were called tumultuarii. (_Vide_ Liv. I. 37, 35.) Numerous allusions of this kind, which abound in the writings of Terence, cannot be happily preserved in a translation. NOTE 120. _Besides all this, as I was returning, I met Chremes’ servant, who was carrying home some herbs, and as many little fishes for the old man’s supper, as might have cost an obolus._ What a supper for a man of fortune! as we must suppose Chremes to have been, since he could give Glycera and Philumena each a dowry of ten talents. The Athenians were remarkable, _even to a proverb_, for their extreme frugality. To tell a person that he lived ἀττικηρῶς or like an Athenian, was to tell him in other words that he lived penuriously. The food of the common people was very coarse; being such as they could procure at a slight expense. Mάζα, a very common food among them, was a mixture of meal, salt, water, and oil: and another, called μυττωτὸν, was a composition of garlick, eggs, and milk. Many of those who drank water, drank it warm; as the water of the hot fountains, (of which there are many in Greece,) was reckoned highly restorative. This simple diet, however, soon gave place to greater delicacies, and, in Greece, as in all other countries, refinement and luxury kept pace with each other. For the value of an obolus, see the table of money in Note 208. An obolus worth of food was, probably, as much as would furnish a coarse meal for one person. Plutarch tells us, that the Athenian women were forbidden, by law, to travel with more food than could be purchased with an obolus: this harsh law must have been formed with a view to prevent them from making any long stay abroad. _Vide_ Notes 71, 103. NOTE 121. _If you do not use all your endeavours to gain the support of the old man’s friends, you will be no nearer your wishes than ever._