And in the same manner Gellias of Agrigentum, being a very hospitable man, and very attentive to all his guests, gave a tunic and cloak to every one of five hundred horsemen who once came to him from Gela in the winter season. 6. The sophist uses the word Dinnerchaser, on which Clearchus says that Charmus the Syracusan adopted some little versicles and proverbs very neatly to whatever was put on the table. As on seeing a fish, he says:-- I come from the salt depths of Ægeus' sea. And when he saw some ceryces he said-- Hail holy heralds (κήρυκες), messengers of Jove. And on seeing tripe, Crooked ways, and nothing sound. When a well-stuffed cuttlefish is served up, Good morrow, fool. When he saw some pickled char, O charming sight; hence with the vulgar crowd. And on beholding a skinned eel, Beauty when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most. Many such men then as these, he says, were present at Laurentius's supper; bringing books out of their bags, as their contribution to the picnic. And he says also that Charmus, having something ready for everything that was served up, as has been already said, appeared to the Massenians to be a most accomplished man; as also did Calliphanes, who was called the son of Parabrycon, who having copied out the beginnings of many poems and other writings, recollected three or four stanzas of each, aiming at a reputation for extensive learning. And many other men had in their mouths turbots caught in the Sicilian sea, and swimming eels, and the trail of the tunny-fish of Pachynum, and kids from Melos, and mullets from Symæthus. And, of dishes of less repute, there were cockles from Pelorum, anchovies from Lipara, turnips from Mantinea, rape from Thebes, and beet-root from the Ascræans. And Cleanthes the Tarentine, as Clearchus says, said everything while the drinking lasted, in metres. And so did Pamphilus the Sicilian, in this way:-- Give me a cup of sack, that partridge leg, Likewise a pot, or else at least a cheesecake. Being, says he, men with fair means, and not forced to earn their dinner with their hands,-- Bringing baskets full of votes. 7. Archestratus the Syracusan or Geloan, in his work to which Chrysippus gives the title of Gastronomy, but Lynceus and Callimachus of Hedypathy, that is Pleasure, and which Clearchus calls Deipnology, and others Cookery, (but it is an epic poem, beginning, Here to all Greece I open wisdom's store;) says, A numerous party may sit round a table, But not more than three, four, or five on one sofa; For else it would be a disorderly Babel, Like the hireling piratical band of a rover. But he does not know that at the feast recorded by Plato there were eight and twenty guests present. How keenly they watch for a feast in the town, And, asked or not, they are sure to go down; says Antiphanes; and he adds-- Such are the men the state at public cost Should gladly feed;