ting at each dinner a 'master of the feast', _arbiter bibendi_ or
[Greek: symposiarches]. This explanation is not quite correct. Mommsen
shows in his work '_de collegiis_' that each one of the _collegia_ or
_sodalicia_ annually appointed a _magister cenarum_ whose duty it was to
attend to the club-dinners during his year of office and no doubt to
preside at them. That some office is meant more important than that of the
_arbiter bibendi_ appointed for a particular feast is shown by the words _a
maioribus instituta_. It is scarcely likely that Cicero was ignorant of the
Greek origin of the custom of appointing an _arbiter bibendi_. -- ET IS
SERMO etc.: 'and the kind of talk in which following the fashion of our
fathers we engage, beginning at the upper table, as the cup goes round'.
The cup circulated from left to right, not, as with us, from right to left.
The guests at a Roman dinner reclined on three couches, placed at three
tables; two of the couches (_lecti_) were parallel, and the third was at
right angles to the other two. The _lectus_ at which the cup began to
circulate was _summus_, the next _medius_, the last _imus_. For a _summo_
cf. _da (sc. bibere) a summo_ in Plaut. Asin. 5, 2, 41. See Becker's
Gallus, p. 471 _et seq_. -- SICUT ... EST: 'as we find'; so Off. 1, 32 _ut
in fabulis est_, and often. -- IN SYMPOSIO: 2, 26. -- MINUTA: see n. on 52.
-- RORANTIA: here with an active sense, 'besprinkling', representing
[Greek: epipsekazein] in Xenophon; often however not different in sense
from _'roscida'_. -- REFRIGERATIO ... HIBERNUS: cf. closely 57 _ubi et
seq_. Note the changes of expression in passing from _refrigeratio_ to
_sol_ (_apricatio_ would have more exactly corresponded with
_refrigeratio_) and from _aestate_ to _hibernus_ (for _hieme_). -- IN
SABINIS: 'when with the Sabines', who were celebrated for their simplicity
of life. Cato had an estate in the Sabine district. -- CONVIVIUM VICINORUM
COMPLEO: 'I make up (_i.e._ to the proper number) a company of my
neighbors'. -- QUOD ... PRODUCIMUS: 'and we continue our companionship to
as late an hour as we can, with changing talk'. The phrases _multa nocte_
or _de nocte_ 'late in the night', _multo die_ 'late in the day', are
common; cf. also Att. 13, 9, 1 _multus sermo ad multum diem_; Rep. 6, 10
_sermonem in multam noctem produximus_.

47. AT: so in 21, where see n. -- QUASI TITILLATIO: the _quasi_, as often
in Cicero's writings, marks a translation from the