All treat the matter in confederacy, just
like the oil-merchants in the Velabrum [8]. Now, I've returned thence,
since I see myself made sport of there. In like manner do other
Parasites walk to and fro, to no purpose, in the Forum. Now, after the
foreign fashion [9], I'm determined to enforce all my rights. Those who
have entered into a confederacy, by which to deprive us of food and
life,--for them I'll name a day. I'll demand, as the damages, that they
shall give me ten dinners at my own option, when provisions are dear:
thus will I do. Now I'll go hence to the harbour. There, is my only hope
of a dinner; if that shall fail me, I'll return here to the old
gentleman, to his unsavoury dinner.
[Footnote 1: _Filled with hunger_)--Ver. 471. This paradoxical
expression is similar to the one used in the Aulularia, 1. 45, "inaniis
oppletae," "filled with emptiness."]
[Footnote 2: _Fasting holidays_)--Ver. 473. He means to say, that
as on feast days and holidays people abstain from work, so at present
his teeth and stomach have no employment.]
[Footnote 3: _These Laconian men_)--Ver. 476. The Parasites, when
there was not room for them on the "triclinia," or "couches" at table,
were forced to sit on "subsellia," or "benches," at the bottom of the
table. This was like the custom of the Spartans, or Laconians, who,
eschewing the luxury of reclining, always persisted in sitting at meals.
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