Many individuals, half guests, half parasites, used to extract considerable matter for merriment out of the dinner materials, that they might render themselves agreeable, and be invited again. Thus Charmos, the Syracusan, used to convert every dish served at table into an occasion for reciting poetical quotations or old proverbs, and sometimes, perhaps, suffered the fish to cool while he was displaying his erudition. He had always civil things to say both to shell-fish and tripe, so that a person fond of flattery might have coveted to be roasted, in order that his shade might be soothed with this kind of incense, which even Socrates allowed was not an illiberal enjoyment. It was, however, a common custom among parasites to make extracts from the poets and carry them in portfolios to the tables of their patrons, where they recited all such as appeared to be _à propos_. In this way the above Charmos obtained among the people of Messina the reputation of a learned man, and Calliphanes,[807] son of Parabrycon,[808] succeeded no less ingeniously by copying out the first verses of various poems, and reciting them, so that it might be supposed he knew the whole. ----- Footnote 807: Suidas in v. t. i. p. 1361. c. Footnote 808: Athen. i. 6. “Sic ut παράσιτος, et παραμασήτης vel παραμασύντης convivam denotat invocatum, qui absque symbola ad convivium venit; sic nomen παραβρύκων (à verbo βρύκω, mordeo, rodo, deglutio) eumdem habet significatum.”—Scheigh. Animadv. t. vi. p. 54. ----- Cleanthes, of Tarentum, always spoke at table in verse, so likewise did the Sicilian Pamphilos; and these parasites, travelling about with wallets of poetry on their backs, were everywhere welcomed and entertained, which might with great propriety have been adduced by Ilgen[809] among his other proofs of the imaginative character of the Greeks. ----- Footnote 809: De Scol. Poes. p. 8. ----- Archestratos, the Syracusan, belonged no doubt to this class. He composed an epic poem on good eating, which commenced with recommending that no company, assembled for convivial enjoyment, should ever exceed four,[810] or at most five, otherwise he said they would rather resemble a troop of banditti than gentlemen. It had probably escaped him, that there were twenty-eight guests at Plato’s banquet. Antiphanes, after observing that the parasites had lynx’s eyes to discover a good dinner though never invited, immediately adds, that the republic ought to get up an entertainment for them, upon the same principle that during the games an ox[811] was slaughtered some distance from the course at Olympia, to feast the flies, and prevent them from devouring the spectators. ----- Footnote 810: Athen. i. 7. Footnote 811: