Kitap 1
30
But in Homer the chiefs banquet in Agamemnon's tent in a very orderly manner; and if in the Odyssey Achilles and Ulysses dispute and Agamemnon exults, still their rivalry with one another is advantageous, since what they are discussing is whether Troy is to be taken by stratagem, or by open-hand fighting. And he does not represent even the suitors as drunk, nor has he ever made his heroes guilty of such disorderly conduct as Aeschylus and Sophocles have, though he does speak of the foot of an ox being thrown at Ulysses.
31
And his heroes sit at their banquets, and do not lie down. And this was sometimes the case at the feasts of Alexander the king, as Dures says. For he once, when giving a feast to his captains to the number of six thousand, made them sit upon silver chairs and couches, having covered them with purple covers. And Hegesander says that it was not the custom in Macedonia for any one to lie down at a banquet, unless he had slain a boar which had escaped beyond the line of nets; but with that exception, every one sat at supper. And so Cassander, when he was thirty-five years of age, supped with his father in a sitting posture, not being able to perform the above-mentioned exploit, though he was of man's estate, and a gallant hunter.
