I prepared all these quotations beforehand, and so came to the dinner, having studied beforehand in order to be able to pay my host a rent, as it were, for my entertainment. For bards make offerings which give no smoke. The ancients had a word, μονοφαγεῖν, applied to those who eat alone. And so Antiphanes says:-- But if you sulk, μονοφαγῶν, Why must I, too, eat alone? And Ameipsias says:-- And if she's a μονοφάγος, plague take her, I'd guard against her as a base housebreaker. 15. Dioscorides, with respect to the laws praised in Homer, says, "The poet, seeing that temperance was the most desirable virtue for young men, and also the first of all virtues, and one which was becoming to every one; and that which, as it were, was the guide to all other virtues, wishing to implant it from the very beginning in every one, in order that men might devote their leisure to and expend their energies on honourable pursuits, and might become inclined to do good to, and to share their good things with others; appointed a simple and independent mode of life to every one; considering that those desires and pleasures which had reference to eating and drinking were those of the greater power, and of the highest estimation, and moreover innate in all men; and that those men who continued orderly and temperate in respect of them, would also be temperate and well regulated in other matters. Accordingly, he laid down a simple mode of life for every one, and enjoined the same system indifferently to kings and private individuals, and young men and old, saying:-- The tables in fair order spread, They heap the glittering canisters with bread, Viands of simple kinds allure the taste, Of wholesome sort, a plentiful repast.[13:1] Their meat being all roasted, and chiefly beef; and he never sets before his heroes anything except such dishes as these, either at a sacred festival, or at a marriage feast, or at any other sort of convivial meeting. And this, too, though he often represents Agamemnon as feasting the chiefs. And Menelaus makes a feast on the occasion of the marriage of his daughter Hermione; and again on the occasion of the marriage of his son; and also when Telemachus comes to him-- The table groan'd beneath a chine of beef, With which the hungry heroes quell'd their grief.[13:2]