There were tables with ivory feet, the top slabs of which were made of maple wood. Cratinus says—
Fair girls await you, and a tableAnd when one of the Cynics used the word τρίπους, meaning a table, Ulpian got indignant and said, "To-day I seem to have trouble coming on me arising out of my actual want of business; for what does this fellow mean by his tripod, unless indeed he counts Diogenes' stick and his two feet, and so makes him out to be a tripod'? At all events every one else calls the thing which is set before us τράπεζα. Hesiod, in his poem on the marriage of Ceyx, (although indeed the sons of the Grammarians deny that that poem is his work, but I myself think that it is an ancient piece,) does call tables τρίποδες. And Xenophon, a most accomplished writer, in the second book of the Anabasis, writes—“τρίποδες were brought in for every one, to the number of about twenty, loaded with ready carved meats.” And he goes on, “And these τράπεζαι were placed for the most part where the strangers sat.” Antiphanes says—
Of highly polish'd dappled maple.
The τρίπους was removed, we wash'd our hands.Eubulus says—
A. Here are five τρίποδες for you; here five more.Epicharmus says—
B. Why I shall be quinquagenarian.
A. And what is this?[p. 81] And Aristophanes says—
B. A τρίπους.
A. How is that?
Has it not four feet? 'tis a τετράπους.
B. It may be strictly; but its name is τριπους.
A. Still I can see four feet.
B. At all events
You are no Œdipus, to be so puzzled.
A. Bring me one τράπεζα more,
With three feet, not one with four.
B. Where can I a τρίπους τράπεζα find?
