n what is ready
and at hand; and [Greek omitted] from [Greek omitted], LABORED, because
of the pains used in dressing it.

My brother Lamprias, being of a scoffing, jeering nature, said: Since we
are in a trifling humor, I can show that the Latin names of these meals
are a thousand times more proper than the Greek; [Greek omitted] SUPPER,
they call coena ([Greek omitted]) from community; because they took
their [Greek omitted] by themselves, but their coena with their friends.
[Greek omitted] DINNER, they call prandium, from the time of the dry;
for [Greek omitted] signifies NOON-TIDE, and to rest after dinner is
expressed by [Greek omitted]; or else by prandium they denote a bit
taken in the morning, [Greek omitted], BEFORE THEY HAVE NEED OF ANY.
And not to mention stragula, from [Greek Omitted], vinum from [Greek
omitted], oleum from [Greek omitted], mel from [Greek omitted], gustare
from [Greek omitted], propinare from [Greek omitted], and a great many
more words which they have plainly borrowed from the Greeks,--who can
deny but that they have taken their comessatio, BANQUETING, from our
[Greek omitted] and miscere, TO MINGLE, from the Greeks too? Thus in
Homer,

She in a bowl herself mixt ([Greek omitted]) generous wine.
("Odyssey," x. 356.)

They call a table mensam, from [Greek omitted], PLACING IT IN THE
MIDDLE; bread, panem, from satisfying [Greek omitted], HUNGER; a
garland, coronam, from [Greek omitted], THE HEAD;--and Homer somewhat
likens [Greek omitted], a HEAD-PIECE, to a garland;--caedere, TO BEAT,
from [Greek omitted]; and dentes, TEETH, from [Greek omitted]; lips
they call labra, from [Greek omitted], TAKING OUR VICTUALS WITH THEM.
Therefore we must either listen to such fooleries as these without
laughing, or not give them so ready entrance by means of words....

QUESTION VII. CONCERNING PYTHAGORAS'S SYMBOLS, IN WHICH HE FORBIDS US TO
RECEIVE A SWALLOW INTO OUR HOUSE, AND BIDS US AS SOON AS WE ARE RISEN TO
RUFFLE THE BEDCLOTHES.

SYLLA, LUCIUS, PLUTARCH, PHILINUS.

Sylla the Carthaginian, upon my return to Rome after a long absence,
gave me a welcoming supper, as the Romans call it, and invited some few
other friends, and among the rest, one Lucius an Etrurian, the scholar
of Moderatus the Pythagorean. He seeing my friend Philinus ate no flesh,
began (as the opportunity was fair) to talk of Pythagoras; and affirmed
that he was a Tuscan, not because his father, as others have said,