[90] The Saturnalia originally took place on the 19th of December; in the time of Augustus, on the 17th, 18th, and 19th: but the merrymaking in reality appears to have lasted seven days. Horace speaks of the licence then permitted to the slaves:— "Age, libertate Decembri, Quando ita majores voluerunt, utere—narra."—Sat. ii. 7. 4. —_Vide_ Smith, Gr. Lat. Ant. [91] Pind. Ol. i. 80. [92] Ar. Vespæ, 1216. [93] Βίος ἀληλεσμένος, a civilised life, in which one uses ground corn, and not raw fruits.—Liddell and Scott in voc. ἀλέω. [94] This was a Thebes in Asia, so called by Homer (Iliad, vi. 397), as being at the foot of a mountain called Placia, or Placos. [95] The ἡμίνα was equal to a κοτύλη, and held about half a pint. [96] These are all names of different kinds of cheesecakes which cannot be distinguished from one another in an English translation. [97] Eur. Cycl. 393. [98] This is the name given to the Peloponnesus by Homer,— ἐξ Ἀπίης γαίης—II. iii. 49,— where Damm says the name is derived from some ancient king named Apis; but he adds that the name Ἀπία is also used merely as meaning distant (γῆν ἀπὸ ἀφεστῶσαν καὶ ἀλλοδάπην), as is plain from what Ulysses says of himself to the Phæacians— καὶ γὰρ ἔγω ξεῖνος ταλαπείριος ἔνθαδ' ἱκάνω τηλόθεν ἐξ ἀπίης γαίης.—Odyss. vii. 25. [99] This fragment is full of corruptions. I have adopted the reading and interpretation of Casaubon. [100] There is probably some corruption here. [101] There is probably some great corruption here; for Posidonius was a contemporary of Cicero. [102] There is a dispute whether this word ought to be written Tromilican or Stromilican. The city of Tromilea is mentioned nowhere else. [103] Eur. Cycl. 136. [104] Homer, Iliad, iii. 292. [105] Homer, Iliad, iii, 116. [106] Homer, Iliad, xix. 250. [107] Who these seven first-class authors were, whether tragedians or comic poets, or both, or whether there was one selection of tragic and another of comic poets, each classed as a sort of "Pleias Ptolemæi Philadelphi ætate nobilitata," is quite uncertain. [108] This passage is abandoned as corrupt by Schweighauser. BOOK XV. 1. E'EN should the Phrygian God enrich my tongue With honey'd eloquence, such as erst did fall From Nestor's or Antenor's lips,[109] as the all-accomplished Euripides says, my good Timocrates— I never should be able to recapitulate to you the numerous things which were said in those most admirable banquets, on account of the varied nature of the topics introduced, and the novel mode in which they were continually treated. For there were frequent discussions about the order in which the dishes were served up, and about the things which are done after the chief part of the supper is over, such as I can hardly recollect; and some one of the guests quoted the following iambics from The Lacedæmonians of Plato— [Sidenote: THE COTTABUS.]