[Sidenote: 158] if all that provision is to be made. I am surprised, Solon, if your guest, on recently making his great purification of Delos, failed to note how they present to the temple—as commemorative samples of the earliest form of food—mallow and asphodel-stalk along with other cheap and self-grown produce. The natural reason for which Hesiod also recommends them to us is that they are simple and frugal.’ ‘Not only so,’ remarked Anacharsis, ‘but both vegetables bear the highest possible character for wholesomeness.’ ‘You are quite right,’ said Cleodorus. ‘That Hesiod possessed medical knowledge is manifest from the careful and well-informed manner in which he speaks about diet, the mixing of wine, good quality in water, [Sidenote: B] bathing, women, and the way to seat infants. But it seems to me that there is more reason for Aesop to declare himself a pupil of Hesiod than there is for Epimenides. It is to the speech of the hawk to the nightingale that our friend owes the first promptings to his admirably subtle wisdom in many tongues. But for my part I should be glad to hear what Solon has to say. We may assume that, in his long association with Epimenides at Athens, he asked him what motive or subtle purpose he had in adopting such a diet.’
‘What need was there to ask him that question?’ replied Solon. ‘It was self-evident that the next best thing to the [Sidenote: C] supreme and greatest good is to require the least possible food. You allow, I suppose, that the greatest good is to require no food at all?’ ‘Not I, by any means,’ answered Cleodorus, ‘if I am to say what I think, especially with a table in front of us. Take away food, and you take away the table—that is to say, the altar of the Gods of Friendship and Hospitality. As Thales tells us that, if you do away with the earth, the whole cosmos will fall into confusion, so the abolition of food means the dissolution of house and home. For with it you do away with the hearth-fire, the hearth, the wine-bowl, all entertainment and hospitality—the most humanizing and essential elements in our mutual relations. Or rather you do away with the whole of life, if life is “_a passing of the time on the part [Sidenote: D] of a human being involving a series of actions_”, most of those actions being evoked by the need, and in the acquirement, of food. Of immense importance, my good friend, is the question [Sidenote: *] of mere agriculture. Let agriculture perish, and the earth that it leaves us becomes unsightly and foul, a corrupt wilderness of barren forest and vagabond streams. The ruin of agriculture means the ruin of all arts and crafts as well; for she takes the lead of them, and provides them with their basis and their [Sidenote: E] material. Do away with her, and they count for nothing. There is an end also to our honouring the gods. Men will thank the Sun but little, and the Moon still less, for mere light and warmth. Where will you find altar or sacrifice to Zeus of the Rain, Demeter of the Plough, or Poseidon the Fosterer of Plants? How can Dionysus be Boon-Giver, if we need nothing that he gives? What sacrifice or libation shall we make? What offering of firstfruits? All this means the overthrow and confounding of our most important interests. Though to cling to every pleasure in every case is to be a madman, to avoid every pleasure in every case is to be a block. By all means let the soul have [Sidenote: F] other pleasures of a superior kind to enjoy; the body can find no pleasure more right and proper than that derived from taking food. All the world recognizes the fact, for this pleasure people take openly, sharing with each other in the table and the banquet, whereas their amorous pleasure is screened by night and all the darkness possible. To share that pleasure with others is considered as shameless and brutelike as it is not to share in the case of the table.’