Which we may infer from a passage of Aristotle, Hist. Anim. vi. 8. where describing the habits of birds, he says, τῶν δὲ φαβῶν ἡ μὲν θήλεια ἀπὸ δείλης ἀρξαμένη τὴν τε νύχθ᾽ ὅλην ἐπῳάζει καὶ ἕως ἀκρατίσματος ὥρας, ὁ δ᾽ ἄῤῥην τὸ λοιπὸν τοῦ χρόνου.—One of the Homeric scholiasts is more explicit:—καὶ τὴν μὲν πρώτην ἐκάλουν ἄριστον, ἣν ἐλάμβανον πρωΐας σχεδὸν ἔτι σκοτίας οὔσης.—In Iliad β. 381. Cf. Athen. i. 19. Footnote 724: Xenoph. Œcon. xi. 14. Footnote 725: Philemon, ap. Athen. i. 19. Suid. v. δεῖπνον t. i. p. 671. a. b. Footnote 726: Deipnosoph v. 20.—τρισὶ δὲ οὐδέποτε οὔτε μνηστῆρες οὔτε μὴν κύκλωψ ἐχρῶντο τροφαῖς.—Schol. Il. β. 381. Yet Athenæus i. 19. speaks in one place of a fourth repast in Homeric times.—τῆς δὲ τετάρτης τροφῆς οὔτως Ὅμηρος μέμνηται—“σὺ δ᾽ ἔρχεο δειελιήσας.” ὁ καλοῦσι τινες δειλινὸν, ὁ ἐστι μεταξὺ τοῦ ὑφ’ ἡμῶν λεγομένου ἀρίστου καὶ δείπνου. ----- As the greater includes the less, instead of confining ourselves to the ordinary daily dinner of a Greek, we shall in preference describe their grand entertainments, introducing remarks on the former by the way. These repasts were divided into three classes, the public dinner, the pic-nic, and the marriage feast. The last, so far as it had any peculiar features, has been described among the circumstances attending matrimony. We have, therefore, for the present, to do with two only; and, as the Greek contrived to throw much of his ingenuity into all matters connected with feasting and merry-making, the discussion of this part of our subject should savour strongly of mirth and jollity. The grand dinner,[727] which they called _eilapinè_, was generally given at the expense of an individual, and its sumptuousness knew no limit but the means of the host. Other kinds of feasts there were at which all the members of a tribe, a borough, or a fraternity, were entertained, not to speak for the present of the common tables of the Cretans, Spartans, or Prytanes of Athens. We now confine ourselves to those jovial assemblages of private citizens whose object in meeting was not so much the dinner, though that was not overlooked, as the elevation of animal spirits and flow of soul produced by the union of a thousand different circumstances. ----- Footnote 727: On the subject of dining see Pollux, vi. 9, seq. with the notes of Jungermann, Kuhn, Hemsterhuis. &c. -----