5. Another made a difficulty of undertaking a journey to Olympia. "What is the reason," said Socrates to him, "that you are so much afraid of walking, you, who walk up and down about your house almost all day long? You ought to look upon this journey to be only a walk, and to think that you will walk away the morning till dinner-time, and the afternoon till supper, and thus you will insensibly find yourself at your journey's end. For it is certain that in five or six days' time you go more ground in walking up and down than you need to do in going from Athens to Olympia. I will tell you one thing more: it is much better to set out a day too soon than a day too late; for it is troublesome to be forced to go long journeys; and on the contrary, it is a great ease to have the advantage of a day beforehand. You were better therefore to hasten your departure than be obliged to make haste upon the road." 6. Another telling him that he had been a great journey, and was extremely weary, Socrates asked whether he had carried anything. The other answered that he had carried nothing but his cloak. "Were you alone?" said Socrates. "No; I had a slave with me." "Was not he loaded?" continued Socrates. "Yes, for he carried all my things." "And how did he find himself upon the road?" "Much better than I." "And if you had been to carry what he did, what would have become of you?" "Alas!" said he, "I should never have been able to have done it." "Is it not a shame," added Socrates, "in a man like you, who have gone through all the exercises, not to be able to undergo as much fatigue as his slave?" CHAPTER XIV. SOCRATES PROPOSETH SOME REGULATIONS FOR THE BETTER MANAGEMENT OF THEIR PUBLIC FEASTS. Socrates having observed that in public suppers every one brought his own dish of meat, and that sometimes some brought more and others less, was wont, when this happened, to bid a servant set the least dish in the middle of the table, and to give some of it to all the company. No man could, in civility, refuse it, nor exempt himself from doing the like with his own dish, insomuch that every man had a taste of the whole, and all fared alike. This in some measure banished luxury and expensiveness from these feasts. For they who would have laid out a great deal of money in delicacies cared no longer to do so, because they would have been as much for others as for themselves.