dissolute society. Cf. pro Arch. 13. The customary dinner hour at Rome was
about three o'clock in the afternoon. The word _tempestivus_, which in 5
means 'at the right time', here means 'before the right time'. So in
English 'in good time' often means 'too early'. See Becker's Gallus, p. 451
_et seq_. -- QUI PAUCI: the substitution of the nominative of the relative
for the partitive genitive (_quorum_) is not uncommon. A. 216, _e_; G. 368,
Rem. 2; H. 397, 2, n. -- PAUCI ADMODUM: Cic. usually says _admodum pauci_
rather than _pauci admodum_. -- VESTRA AETATE: = _eis qui sunt vestra
aetate_. Cf. n. on 26 _senectus_. -- SERMONIS ... SUSTULIT: notice the
indicatives _auxit, sustulit_, the relative clauses being attributive,
though they might fairly have been expected here to be causal. G. 627; H.
517, 2. In this passage Cic. imitates Plato, Rep. 328 D. -- BELLUM
INDICERE: common in the metaphorical sense; _e.g._ De Or. 2, 155 _miror cur
philosophiae prope bellum indixeris_; Hor. Sat. 1, 5, 7 _ventri indico
bellum_. -- CUIUS EST etc.: _i.e._ nature sanctions a certain amount of
pleasure. This is the Peripatetic notion of the _mean_, to which Cicero
often gives expression, as below, 77; also in Acad. 1, 39; 2, 139; and in
De Off.; so Hor. Sat. 1, 1, 106 _sunt certi denique fines quos ultra
citraque nequit consistere rectum_; cf. Od. 2, 10. -- NON INTELLEGO NE: for
the negatives cf. nn. on 24, 27.

P. 20. -- MAGISTERIA: generally explained as referring to the practice of
appointing at each dinner a 'master of the feast', _arbiter bibendi_ or
συμποσιαρχης. This explanation is not quite correct. Mommsen shows in his
work '_de collegiis_' that each one of the _collegia_ or _sodalicia_
annually appointed a _magister cenarum_ whose duty it was to attend to the
club-dinners during his year of office and no doubt to preside at them.
That some office is meant more important than that of the _arbiter bibendi_
appointed for a particular feast is shown by the words _a maioribus
instituta_. It is scarcely likely that Cicero was ignorant of the Greek