respect, and
to please Ajax, from whom this tribe received its name; for we know
he could not endure to be outdone, but was easily hurried on to the
greatest enormities by his contentious and passionate humor; and
therefore to comply with him and afford him some comfort in his
disasters, they secured him from the most vexing grievance that follows
the misfortune of the conquered, by ordering that his tribe should never
be determined to be last.

BOOK II.

Of the several things that are provided for an entertainment,
some, my Sossius Senecio, are absolutely necessary; such are wine,
bread, meat, lounges, and tables. Others are brought in, not for
necessity, but pleasure; such are songs, shows, mimics, and buffoons;
which, when present, delight indeed, but when absent, are not eagerly
desired; nor is the entertainment looked upon as mean because such
things are wanting. Just so of discourses; some the sober men admit as
necessary to a banquet, and others for their pretty nice speculations,
as more profitable and agreeable than the fiddle and the pipe. My former
book gives you examples of both sorts. Of the first are these, Whether
we should philosophize at table?--Whether the entertainer should appoint
proper seats, or leave the guests to agree upon there own? Of the
second, Why lovers are inclined to poetry? And the question about the
tribe of Aeantis. The former I call properly [Greek omitted] but both
together I comprehend under the general name of Symposiacs. They are
promiscuously set down, not in the exact method, but as each singly
occurred to memory. And let not my readers wonder that I dedicate these
collections to you, which I have received from others or your own
mouth; for if all learning is not bare remembrance, yet to learn and to
remember are very commonly one and the same.

QUESTION I

WHAT, AS XENOPHON INTIMATES, ARE THE MOST AGREEABLE QUESTIONS AND MOST
PLEASANT RAILLERY AT AN ENTERTAINMENT?

SOSSIUS, SENECIO, AND PLUTARCH.

Now each book being divided into ten questions, that shall make the
first in this, which Socratial Xenophon hath as it were proposed; for he
tells that, Gobryas banqueting with Cyrus, amongst other things he found
admirable in the Persians, was surprised to hear them ask one another
such questions that it was more pleasant to be interrogated than to be
let alone, and pass such jests on one another that it was more pleasant
to be jested on than not. For if some, eve