On the meals of the Dorians.

1. With respect to the food and meals of the Dorians, we will only mention those points which are connected with some historical or moral fact, since we have already considered this subject in connexion with the economy of the state.

In the first place, the adherence of the Dorians to ancient Greek usages is visible in their custom of eating together, or of the syssitia. For these public tables were not only in use among the Dorians, (with whom, besides in Crete and Sparta, they also existed at Megara in the time of Theognis, and at Corinth in the time of Periander), but they had also once been a national custom among the Œnotrians, and their kinsmen the Arcadians, particularly at Phigaleia; and among the Greeks of Homer the princes at least eat together, and at the cost of the community; a custom which was retained by the Prytanes at Athens, Rhodes, and elsewhere. In particular, the public tables of Sparta have in many points a great resemblance to the Homeric banquets (δαῖτες); only that all the Spartans were in a certain manner considered as princes.