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The tables were turned, then, and the unlettered folk were manifestly dining i in great decorum, without either getting maudlin or behaving disreputably; they simply laughed and passed judgement, perhaps, on the others, whom they used to admire, thinking them men of importance because of the garb they wore. The learned men, on the contrary, were playing the rake and abusing each other and gorging themselves and bawling and coming to blows; and “marvellous” Alcidamas even made water right there in the room, without showing any respect for the women. It seemed to me that, to use the best possible simile, the events of the dinner were very like what the poets tell of Discord. They say, you know, that, not having been asked to the wedding of Peleus, she threw the apple into the company, and that from it arose the great war at Troy. The golden apple, for the fairest of the goddesses, was awarded to Aphrodite by Paris, who was paid for his decision by being given the love of Helen. Well, to my thinking ‘Hetoemocles by throwing his. letter into the midst of us like an Apple of Discord had brought on woes quite as great as those of the Iliad.
