Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists
C. D. Yonge, B.A., Ed.

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But Lynceus, in his Centaur, ridiculing the Attic ban- quets, says—

A. Yon cook, the man who makes the sacrifice
And seeks now to receive me as my host,
Is one of Rhodes. And I, the guest invited,
Am call'd a citizen of fair Perinthus.
And neither of us likes the Attic suppers;
For melancholy is an Attic humour;
May it be always foreign unto me.
They place upon the table a large platter
Holding five smaller plates within its space,
One full of garlic, while another holds
Two boil'd sea-urchins; in the third, a cake;
The fourth displays ten cockles to the guest,
The last has caviar.—While I eat this,
He falls on that: or while he dines on this,
I make that other dish to disappear.
But I would rather eat up both myself,
Only I cannot go beyond my powers;
For I have not five mouths, nor twice five lips.
True, these detain the eyes with various sights,
[p. 217] But looking at them is not eating them:
I but appease my eyes and not my belly.
What shall I do then? Have you oysters? Give me
A plate of them, I beg; and that a large one;
Have you some urchins.
B. Here's a dish of them
To which you're welcome; this I bought myself;
And paid eight obols for it in the market.
A. Put then this dish on table by itself,
That all may eat the same at once. and not
One half the guests eat one thing, half another.

But Dromeas the parasite, when some one once asked him, as Hegesander the Delphian relates, whether the banquets in the city or at Chalcis were the best, said that the prelude to the banquets at Chalcis was superior to the whole entertainment in the city, calling the multitudes of oysters served up, and the great variety of fish, the prelude to the banquet.