But Alexander the Great, whenever he supped with any of his friends, as Ephippus the Olynthian relates in his book on the Deaths of Alexander and Hephæstion, expended each day a hundred minæ, as perhaps sixty or seventy of his friends supped with him. But the king of the Persians, as Ctesias and Dinon relate in the Histories of Persia, supped with fifteen thousand men, and there were expended on the supper four hundred talents; and this amounts in Italian money to twenty four hundred thousand of sesterces. And this sum when divided among fifteen thousand men is a hundred and sixty sesterces of Italian money for each individual; so that it comes to very nearly the same as the expense of Alexander; for he expended a hundred minæ, according to the account of Ephippus. But Menander, in his play called Drunkenness, estimates the expense of the most sumptuous banquet at a talent, saying-- Then we do not in these matters act as we should do When to the gods we sacrifice; for then we go and buy A sheep, an offering for the gods, for scarce ten drachmas' price. And then we send for flute players, and ointments, and perfumes, And harps, and singing women, eels, and cheese, and honey too; And ample jars of Thasian wine; but these can scarcely come, When all together reckon'd up, to a small talent's sum. And it is as the very extravagance of expense that he has named a talent at all. And in his Morose Man he speaks as follows:-- See how these housebreakers do sacrifice! Bearing such beds and couches, not to please The gods, but their own selves. Incense is pious, So is the votive cake; and this the god Receives well-baked in the holy fire. But they when they have offer'd the chump end Of a lean loin, the gall bladder, and bones, Not too agreeable or easy to eat, Unto the gods, consume the rest themselves. 28. And Philoxenus of Cythera, in the play which is entitled The Supper, (for he it is whom Plato the comic writer mentions in his Phaon, and not Philoxenus the Leucadian,) mentions the following as the preparation made for a banquet--