Book 16
5.1
First, then (and a hard thing to accomplish) he imposed moderation on himself, and kept to it, as if he were living bound by the sumptuary laws which were brought to Rome from the Edicts,The rhetrae (ῥῆτραι) were oracular utterances which Lycurgus professed to have received directly from Apollo at Delphi; later the word was used generally for the laws of Lycurgus. that is, the wooden tablets,The laws of Solon were called ἄξονες because they could be revolved on pivots. Many ancient writers state that the tablets were originally of wood, and they retained this name after they were republished on marble slabs. R. Scholl was probably right in assuming a lacuna after Lycurgi, and Ammianus may have included a reference to Solon’s ἄξονες for ῥῆτραι and ἄξονες were used through. out antiquity of the two lawgivers’ works distinctively. For their history see J. H. Oliver, Hesperia, iv. (1935), pp. 9 ff. of Lycurgus; and when they had long been observed, but were going out of use, the dictator Sulla gradually renewed them,See Gellius, ii. 24, 11; i. 204 f. L.C.L., for details of this and other sumptuary laws. taking account of one of the sayings of Democritus, that a pretentious table is set by Fortune, a frugal one by Virtue.
5.2
Furthermore, Cato of Tusculum, whose austere manner of living conferred upon him the surname Censorius, wisely defined that point, saying: Great care about food implies great neglect of virtue.P. 110, 22, Jordan.
