"Greeting, lousy one!" the gallant Lachares called to him.
"Away from us!" shouted the other youths.
But Euphobias paid no attention. He smiled at Actæon, seeing him reclining near Sónnica, and his eyes shone with a malicious expression.
"You have arrived where I thought you would. You will master these effeminate creatures who surround Sónnica and who heap insults upon me."
Paying no heed to the mocking retorts of the young gallants he added with a servile smile:
"I trust you will not forget your old friend Euphobias. Now you can set him up to all the wine he wishes in the taverns of the Forum."
The philosopher took the couch at the farther end of the table, and he refused the crown offered him by the slave.
"I have not come for flowers; I have come to eat. I can find plenty of roses merely by taking a stroll in the country; but what I do not find in Saguntum is a crust of bread for a philosopher."
"I am more thirsty than hungry. I have spent the whole day talking in the Forum; they all listened to me, but it never occurred to any one to refresh my throat."
According to the Grecian custom an _arbiter bibendi_ must be chosen, a guest of honor who should propose the toasts, announce the moment for drinking, and direct the conversation.
"Let us choose Euphobias," said Alorcus, with the grave humor of a Celtiberian.
"No!" protested Sónnica. "One night we put him in charge of the banquet for a joke, and we were all drunk before the third course. He proposed a potation at every mouthful."
"Why choose a king?" said the philosopher. "We already have one at Sónnica's side. Let it be the Athenian!"
"Yes, let it be he," said the elegant Lachares, "and may he not allow you to speak during the whole night, insolent parasite!"
In the centre of the table stood a broad bronze crater, over the edges of which peeped a group of nymphs looking at themselves in the oval lake of wine. Each guest had a slave at his back to serve him, and they dipped wine from the crater to fill the glasses of the guests for the first libation. They were murrhine cups, brought from Asia at a great price, of mysterious fabrication, into which entered the dust of certain shells, and myrrh, hardened and tinted. They were white and opaque, like ivory, holding pieces of colored glass embedded, and their mysterious composition gave a voluptuous fragrance to the wine.