athering and conversation of friends. For it was
a good idea of our ancestors to style the presence of guests at a
dinner-table--seeing that it implied a community of enjoyment--a
_convivium_, "a living together." It is a better term than the Greek
words which mean "a drinking together," or, "an eating together." For
they would seem to give the preference to what is really the least
important part of it.

14. For myself, owing to the pleasure I take in conversation, I enjoy
even banquets that begin early in the afternoon, and not only in company
with my contemporaries--of whom very few survive--but also with men
of your age and with yourselves. I am thankful to old age, which has
increased my avidity for conversation, while it has removed that for
eating and drinking. But if anyone does enjoy these--not to seem to have
proclaimed war against all pleasure without exception, which is perhaps
a feeling inspired by nature--I fail to perceive even in these very
pleasures that old age is entirely without the power of appreciation.
For myself, I take delight even in the old-fashioned appointment of
master of the feast; and in the arrangement of the conversation, which
according to ancestral custom is begun from the last place on the
left-hand couch when the wine is brought in; as also in the cups which,
as in Xenophon's banquet, are small and filled by driblets; and in the
contrivance for cooling in summer, and for warming by the winter sun or
winter fire. These things I keep up even among my Sabine countrymen, and
every day have a full dinner-party of neighbours, which we prolong as
far into the night as we can with varied conversation.

But you may urge--there is not the same tingling sensation of pleasure
in old men. No doubt; but neither do they miss it so much. For nothing
gives you uneasiness which you do not miss. That was a fine answer of
Sophocles to a man who asked him, when in extreme old age, whether he
was still a lover. "Heaven forbid!" he replied; "I was only too glad to
escape from that, as though from a boorish and insane master." To
men indeed who are keen after such things it may possibly appear
disagreeable and uncomfortable to be without them; but to jaded
appetites it is pleasanter to lack than to enjoy. However, he cannot be
said to lack who does not want: my contention is that not to want is the
pleasanter thing.

But even granting that youth enjoys these pleasures with more zest; in
the first place,