Book XIII Argument
The Fragments of this book, as well as of the twelfth, are too few to admit of any opinion being satisfactorily arrived at with respect to its subject. Schoenbeck supposes it was directed against sumptuous extravagance and luxurious banquets. Petermann adopts the same view. Gerlach, though he considers the Fragments so vague that they might support any hypothesis, allows that this conjecture is tenable, as the third, fifth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh appear to “savor of the kitchen.”
1 Or to conquer in war altogether by chance and fortune; if it is entirely by chance and at random, that any one arrives at the highest distinction.1759
2... to whom fortune has assigned an equal position, and chance their destiny.
3 The same thing occurs at supper. You will give oysters bought for a thousand sesterces.
4... sets them to engage with one another in fierce conflict.1760
5 In the first place, let all banquetings and company be done away with.1761
6 Add shoes from Syracuse, a bag of leather....1762
7... one only, out of many, who has intellect....
8... as he is styled skilless in whom there is no skill.1763
9 and not so poor as... a chipped dish of Samian pottery.1764
10... for as soon as we recline at a table munificently heaped up at great expense....
11... the same food at the feast, as the banquet of almighty Jove....1765
Footnotes
1759 Nonius draws this distinction between Fors and Fortuna: fors simply expresses “the accidents of temporal affairs, as opposed to providence or design.” Fortuna is “the personification of these in the form of the goddess.” In the text Gerlach’s conjecture is followed instead of the reading of the MSS., which is quite unintelligible: “Si forte ac temerè omnino quis summum ad honorem perveniat.” Cf. Pacuv. in Hermiona, “Quo impulerit fors eò cadere Fortunam autumant.”
1760 Cernit, i. e., “disponit.” Nonius. Cf. v., Fr. 29, “Postquam præsidium castris educere crevit.”
1761 Dominia. As dominus is put for the “master of the feast,” so dominium is used for the banquet itself (lib. vi., Fr. 7; Sall., Hist., iii., “In imo medius inter Tarquinium et dominum Perpenna;” Cic., Vatin., xiii., “Epuli dominus Q. Arrius”), or for the office of the giver of the banquet. Cicero uses Magisteria in the same sense. Senect., c. 14. It is also put for “the place where a banquet is held.” Cic., Ver., II., iii., 4. Sodalitium is properly a banquet celebrated by “Sodales,” i. e., persons associated in the same religious cultus.
1762 Pasceolum, “a leathern bag or purse,” marsupium, from φάσκωλον. Suid. Plaut, Rud., V., ii., 27, “prætereà centum Denaria Philippea in pasceolo seorsum.” Aluta. Vid. ad Juv., xiv., 282.
1763 Iners. Cf. Cic., de Fin., “Lustremus animo has maximas artes, quibus qui carebant inertes à majoribus nominabantur.”
1764 Cf. ad lib. vii., Fr. 1.
1765 Epulum (i. e., edipulum) and epulæ seem to be interchanged; but epulum is probably the older form of the word.