[775] The ancients placed statues of Hecaté at the cross-roads ([Greek: triodoi], places where three roads meet), because of the three names, Artemis, Phoebé and Hecaté, under which the same goddess was worshipped. On the first day of the month the rich had meals served before these statues and invited the poor to them. [776] A verse from Euripides' lost play of 'Telephus.' The same line occurs in 'The Knights.' [777] And not the citizens of Argos, whom agriculture and trade rendered wealthy.--Pauson was an Athenian painter, whose poverty had become a proverb. "Poorer than Pauson" was a common saying. [778] There is here a long interval of time, during which Plutus is taken to the Temple of Aesculapius and cured of his blindness. In the first edition probably the Parabasis came in here; at all events a long choral ode must have intervened. [779] The Athenians had erected a temple to Theseus and instituted feasts in his honour, which were still kept up in the days of Plutarch and Pausanias. Barley broth and other coarse foods were distributed among the poor. [780] He was an orator, who was accused of theft and extortion, and who, moreover, was said not to be a genuine Athenian citizen. [781] The serpent was sacred to Aesculapius; several of these reptiles lived in the temple of the god. [782] Iaso (from [Greek: iasthai], to heal) and Panacea (from [Greek: pan], everything, and [Greek: akeisthai], to cure) were daughters of Aesculapius. [783] He has to see, examine, and taste pill, potion, urine ... and worse. [784] An apothecary's outfit. [785] Tenos is one of the Cyclades, near Andros. [786] A deme of Attica, where the strongest vinegar came from. [787] The Scholiast says that this was an individual as poor as he was greedy, and on the watch for every opportunity to satisfy his voracity.--The comic poets often had nuts, figs and other petty dainties thrown to the audience. It was a fairly good way to secure the favour of a certain section of the public. [788] The ancients used oil in large quantities, whether for rubbing themselves down after bathing or before their exercises in the palaestra, or for the different uses of domestic life. It was kept in a kind of tank, hollowed in the ground and covered with tiles or stones. The wine-sellers had similar tanks, but of larger size, for keeping their wine. [789] This was what was styled the triple or complete sacrifice. [790] As evidence of the sorry condition from which he had been raised. [791] The clothes a man wore on the day that he was initiated into the Mysteries of Eleusis had, according to custom, to be dedicated to the gods, but only after they had been worn. Most people only decided to do this when they were full of holes and torn; it is because his visitor's cloak is in such a sorry condition that Chremylus takes it to be the cloak of an Initiate.