Besides, Homer introduces guests differing in ages and tastes, such as Nestor, Ulysses, and Ajax, who are all invited together. And speaking in general terms he represents all who lay claim to any sort of eminence as invited, and individually those who arrive at it by different roads. But Epicurus has represented all his guests as believers in the atonic theory, and this, too, though he had models both in the variety of the banquets of the great poet, and also in the elegant accounts of Plato and Xenophon; of whom Plato has introduced Eryximachus the physician, and Aristophanes the poet, and other professors of different branches of science, discussing matters of weight: and Xenophon has mingled with them some private individuals. Homer therefore has done much the best of all, and has given us by far the best banquets; and that again is best seen by comparing him with others. For the banquet of the suitors in Homer is just such as might be expected from young men devoted to drinking and love; and that of the Phæacians is more orderly, but still luxurious. And he has made a wide distinction between these entertainments and those which may be called military banquets, and those which have reference to political affairs and are conducted in a well-regulated manner; and again he has distinguished between public and family banquets. But Epicurus has described a banquet consisting of philosophers alone. 4. Homer, too, has pointed out whom one ought not to invite, but who ought to consider that they have a right to come uninvited, showing by the presence of one of the relations that those in similar circumstances had a right to be present-- Unbidden there the brave Atrides came.[290:1] For it is plain that one ought not to send a formal invitation to one's brother, or to one's parents, or to one's wife, or to any one else whom one can possibly regard in the same light as these relations, for that would be a cold and unfriendly proceeding. And some one has written an additional line, adding the reason why Menelaus had no invitation sent him, and yet came-- For well he knew how busy was his brother: as if there had been any need of alleging a reason why his brother should come of his own accord to a banquet without any invitation,--a very sufficient reason having been already given. "For," said the interpolater of this line, "did he not know that his brother was giving a banquet? And how can it be otherwise than absurd to pretend that he did not know it, when his sacrifice of oxen was notorious and visible to every one? And how could he have come if he had not known it? Or, by Jove, when he saw him," he continues, "occupied with business, was it not quite right of him to excuse his not having sent him an invitation, and to come of his own accord?" As if he were to say that he came uninvited in order that the next day they might not look at one another, the one with feelings of mortification, and the other of annoyance.