22
“How I feel about dining out, my whole past life can testify; for although every day I am pestered by many men much richer than you are, nevertheless I am never. forward about accepting, as I am familiar with the disturbances and riotous doings at dinnerparties. But in your case and yours only I think I have reason to be angry, because you, to whom I have so long ministered indefatigably, did not think fit to number me among your friends: no, I alone do not count with you, and that too though I live next door. I am indignant, therefore, and more on your account than on my own, because you have shown yourself so thankless, For me, happiness is not a matter of getting a wild boar, a hare or a cake— things which I enjoy ungrudged at the tables of other people who know what is right. Indeed, today I might have had dinner with my pupil Pammenes (and a splendid dinner, too, they say), but I did not accede to his entreaties, saving myself for you, fool that I was.
