13
Aristaenetus told him he was quite right to come; would he take a chair and sit behind Histiaeus and Dionysodorus? ‘Stuff!' he said; ‘a soft womanish trick, to sit on a chair or a stool! one might as well loll at one’s food half on one’s back, like all of you on this soft couch with purple cushions under you. As for me, I will take my dinner standing and walking about the room. If I get tired, I will lay my old cloak on the ground and prop myself on my elbow like Heracles in the pictures.’ ‘Just as you please,’ said Aristaenetus; and after that Alcidamas fed walking round, shifting his quarters like the Scythians according to where pasturage was richest, and following the servants up as they carried the dishes.
14
However, he did not let feeding interrupt his energetic expositions of virtue and vice, and his scoffs at gold and silver. What was the good of this multitude of wonderful cups, he wanted to know, when earthenware would serve the purpose? Aristaenetus got rid of his obtrusiveness for the moment by signing to his servant to hand the cynic a huge goblet of potent liquor. It seemed a happy thought; but he little knew the woes that were to flow from that goblet. When Alcidamas got it, he was quiet for a while, throwing himself on the ground in dishabille as he had threatened, with his elbow planted vertically, just in the attitude of the painters’ Heracles with Pholus.
