Note 883 — Chapter LXXXI · SICILIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ATHENIAN ARMAMENT BEFORE SYRACUSE.
Reading edition
Aristotel Politic. iii, 5, 6.
These banquets must have been settled, daily proceedings,—as well as multitudinous, in order to furnish even apparent warrant for the comparison which Aristotle makes with the Spartan public mess. But even granting the analogy on these external points,—the intrinsic difference of character and purpose between the two must have been so great, that the comparison seems not happy.
Livy (xxxiv, 61) talks of the circuli et convivia at Carthage; but this is probably a general expression, without particular reference to the public banquets mentioned by Aristotle.