(To EPIGNOMUS.) Since you, yourself, are not willing to promise to come to me, should you like that I should come to dine with you?EPIGNOMUS If it were possible, I should like it; but here are nine other peopleNine other people: Aulus Gellius and Macrobius tell us that the ancients never admitted to a feast more than nine, the number of the Muses, or less than three, the number of the Graces. The true reason, however, was that the three triclinia, or couches, made three parts of the square around the table; and each containing but three, nine was as great a number as could be accommodated. Epignomus mentions that number here, by way of assuring Gelasimus that there is really no room for him. On this, the Parasite says that he is imi subsellii vir, a man for the lowest stool or bench, which he can very well manage with. Subsellia was the name of the seats of the Tribunes, Triumvirs, and Quaestors, who were not honoured with Curule chairs. coming to dine at my house.GELASIMUS For my part, I don’t ask that I should recline on the couch; you know that I’m a man for the lower seats.EPIGNOMUS But these are deputies of a people, tip-top men they come here as public ambassadors from Ambracia From Ambracia : Ambracia was a city of Epirus, on the Western coast of Greece..GELASIMUS Let then the deputies of a people, your tip-top men, recline at the tip-top place; I, the lowest, in the lowest quarter.EPIGNOMUS It isn’t proper for you to be entertained among deputies.GELASIMUS I ’faith, and I—I’m a deputy, tooI’m a deputy, too: He puns on the word orator, which signifies a pleader or orator, as well as an ambassador or deputy. He says that he is a pleader too (for the cause of his own stomach), but all to no purpose., but little it does avail me.EPIGNOMUS I intend that to-morrow we shall dine upon the scraps. Sincerely, farewell.(Goes into his house.)GELASIMUS By my troth, ’tis clear that I’m undone, and by no fault of my ownBy no fault of my own: Nihil obnoxie,by reason of no fault or offence of my own; thus consoling himself for his rebuff. It has been observed by various Critics, that this passage is very obscure; but the above translation, which is sanctioned by the learned Rost, is most probably the correct one Warner renders it out of doubt, which, out of doubt, is not the meaning.. The number is less than it was before by one Gelasimus. I’m resolved, hereafter, never to believe in a weasel,for I know of no beast more uncertain than her. She who herself is ten times a day shifting her place, from her have I taken my omens in matters of life and death to me! I’m determined to call my friends together, to take counsel how by rule I must starve henceforth.(Exit.)

(Enter ANTIPHO and PAMPHILUS.)ANTIPHO So may the Gods favour me, and preserve for me my daughters, it is a pleasure to me, Pamphilus, that I see you both return home to your native land, your business prosperously managed, yourself and your brother.PAMPHILUS I should have heard enough from you, Antipho, did I not see that you are friendly to me; now, since I’ve found that you are my friend, I’ll give you credence.ANTIPHO I would invite you to my house to dinner, had not your brother told me that you were going to dine at his house to-day, when he invited myself to his house to dinner. And it would have been more proper for me to give you an entertainment on your arrival, than to engage myself to him, were it not that I didn’t wish to disoblige him. Now I don’t wish with words alone to insinuate myself into your favour;to-morrow you shall be at my house, both you and he, with your wives.PAMPHILUS Then, the day after, at my house; for it was yesterday he invited me for to-day. But am I quite reconciled to you, Antipho?ANTIPHO Since you have thus thrived in your affairs, as it behoves yourselves and persons friendly disposed to wish, let there be good-will and intercourse between us. Take you care to think of this; according as wealth is obtained by each man, so does he experience his friends. If his fortunes are flourishing, so are his friends true; if his prospects decline, so, too, do his friends decline. Fortune finds friends.(from his house.)EPIGNOMUS (to himself.)I’m now returned. ’Tis a great delight, if you have been long from home, when you return home again, if no anxieties come in contact with your feelings. But, in my absence, so well has my wife taken care of my private affairs, that she has made me free and unembarrassed by anxieties. But, see, here’s my brother Pamphilus, walking with his father-in-law.PAMPHILUS How fares it, Epignomus? EPIGNOMUS How with you? How long since you came into harbour?PAMPHILUS Not very long ago. EPIGNOMUS (aside.)And is it since then that he has become on smooth terms with you?