On the Contemplative Life, or on the Virtues of Suppliants (51-55)

for they have very long hair, being either completely unshorn, or else having only the hair on their foreheads cut at the end so as to make them of an equal

Others, again, are young men just beginning to show a beard on their youthful chins, having been, for a short time, the sport of the profligate debauchees, and being prepared with exceeding care and diligence for more painful services; being a kind of exhibition of the excessive opulence of the giver of the feast, or rather, to say the truth, of their thorough ignorance of all propriety, as those who are acquainted with them well know.

Besides all these things, there is an infinite variety of sweet-meats, and delicacies, and confections, about which bakers and cooks and confectioners labour, considering not the taste, which is the point of real importance, so as to make the food palatable to that, but also the sight, so as to allure that by the delicacy of the look of their viands, they

Accordingly, seven tables, and often more, are brought in, full of every kind of delicacy which earth, and sea, and rivers, and air produce, all procured with great pains, and in high condition, composed of terrestrial, and acquatic, and flying creatures, every one of which is different both in its mode of dressing and in its seasoning. And that no description of thing existing in nature may be omitted, at the last dishes are brought in full of fruits, besides those which are kept back for the more luxurious portion of the entertainment, and for what is called the dessert;

and afterwards some of the dishes are carried away empty from the insatiable greediness of those at table, who, gorging themselves like cormorants, devour all the delicacies so completely that they gnaw even the bones, which some left half devoured after all that they contained has been torn to pieces and spoiled. And when they are completely tired with eating, having their bellies filled up to their very throats, but their desires still unsatisfied, being fatigued with eating they turn their heads round in every direction, scanning everything with their eyes and with their nostrils, examining the richness and the number

Then, when they are thoroughly sated both with the sight and with the scent, these senses again prompt their owners to eat, praising in no moderate terms both the entertainment itself and the giver of it, for its costliness and magnificence.