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[46]
14. For my own part, because of my love of
conversation, I enjoy even “afternoon banquets,”1
not with my contemporaries only, very few of whom
now remain, but also with you and with those of
your age; and I am profoundly grateful to old age,
which has increased my eagerness for conversation
and taken away that for food and drink. But if there
are any who find delight in such things (that I may by
no means seem to have declared war on every kind
of pleasure, when, perhaps, a certain amount of it
is justified by nature), then I may say that I am
not aware that old age is altogether wanting in
appreciation even of these very pleasures. Indeed
I find delight in the custom established by our
forefathers of appointing presidents2 at such gatherings; and in the talk, which, after that ancestral
custom, begins at the head of the table when the
wine comes in; and I enjoy cups, like those described
in Xenophon's Symposium,3 that are small in size, filled
with dew-like drops, cooled in summer, and, again, in
winter, warmed by the heat of sun or fire. Even
when among the Sabines 4 I keep up the practice of
frequenting such gatherings, and every day I join my
neighbours in a social meal which we protract as late
as we can into the night with talk on varying themes.
[p. 59]
1 i.e. banquets which began early and shortened the business day; the phrase usually suggests something of a debauch.
2 Referring to the arbiter bibendi, or rex-also called magister-convivi. The word “toast-masters” as used in the United States is the exact equivalent of the Latin. They were appointed with due ceremony even at public banquets.
3 Cf. Xen. Symp. 2. 26.
4 Noted for their simple habits.
Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.
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