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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: occasionally garnish the feast with wheaten loaves. So that from
beginning to end, till the mess breaks up, the common board is never
stinted for viands, nor yet extravagantly furnished.
[3] See Plut. "Lycurg." 12 (Clough, i. 97).
[4] {paraloga}, i.e. unexpected dishes, technically named {epaikla}
(hors d'oeuvres), as we learn from Athenaeus, iv. 140, 141.
So also in the matter of drink. Whilst putting a stop to all
unnecessary potations, detrimental alike to a firm brain and a steady
gait,[5] he left them free to quench thirst when nature dictated[6]; a
method which would at once add to the pleasure whilst it diminished
the danger of drinking. And indeed one may fairly ask how, on such a
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