gence. None of us imagine that debauched men of that sort live pleasantly. You, however, rather mean to speak of refined and elegant bons vivans, men who, by the employment of the most skilful cooks and bakers, and by carefully culling the choicest products of fishermen, fowlers, and hunters, avoid all indigestion—
Men who draw richer wines from foaming casks.
As Lucilius says, men who
So strain, so cool the rosy wine with snow,
That all the flavour still remains uninjured—
and so on—men in the enjoyment of luxuries such that, if they are taken away, Epicurus says that he does not know what there is that can be called good. Let them also have beautiful boys to attend upon them; let their clothes, their plate, their articles of Corinthian vertu, the banqueting-room itself, all correspond, still I should never be induced to say that these men so devoted to luxury were living either well or happily. From which it follows, not indeed that pleasure is not pleasure, but that pleasure is not the chief good. Nor was Lælius, who, when a young man, was a pupil of Diogenes the Stoic, and afterwards of Panætius, called a wise man because he did not understand what was most pleasant to the taste, (for it does not follow that the man who has a discerning heart must necessarily have a palate destitute of discernment,) but because he thought it of but small importance.
O sorrel, how that man may boast himself,
By whom you're known and valued! Proud of you,
That wise man Lælius would loudly shout,
Addressing all our epicures in order.
And it was well said by Lælius, and he may be truly called a wise man,—
You Publius, Gallonius, you whirlpool,
You are a miserable man; you never
In all your life have really feasted well,
Though spending all your substance on those prawns,
And overgrown huge sturgeons.
The man who says this is one who, as he attributes no importance to pleasure himself, denies that the man feasts well who refers everything to pleasure. And yet he does not deny that Gallonius has at times feasted as he wished; for that would
