MENSA

( τράπεζα ), a table. The simplest kind of table was a round one with three legs, called in Greek τρίπους . Tables, however, must usually have had four legs, as the etymology of τράπεζα , the common word for table, indicates. For the houses of the opulent, tables were made of the most valuable and beautiful kinds of wood, especially of maple, or of the citrus of Africa, which was a species of cypre or juniper. As the table was not large, it was usual to place the dishes and the various kinds of meat upon it, and then to bring it thus furnished to the place where the guests were reclining. On many occasions, indeed, each guest either had a small table to himself, or the company was divided into parties of two or three, with a separate table for each party, as is distinctly represented in the cut under Symposium . Hence we have such phrases as mens am apponere or opponere , and mens am auferre or removere . The two principal courses of a deipnon and coena , or a Greek and Roman dinner, were called respectively πρώτη τράπεζα , δεύτερα τράπεζα , and mensa prima , mensa secund a . [ Coena ; Deipnon . ]