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[49] πίνακες, lit. ‘boards’ or ‘panels,’ here wooden ‘platters,’ ‘trenchers.’ The meaning ‘slices of meat’ (so Ameis on 1. 141) is evidently less natural. The platters of meat are mentioned, as are also the baskets in which the bread was brought, and the “κισσύβιον” in which the wine was mixed (ll. 51, 52). According to Athenaeus (vi. 228 d) Aristophanes the grammarian said that the practice of serving meat on “πίνακες” was later than Homer. Whether he rejected Od.1. 141-142 (=4.57-58), where the word occurs in a similar passage, or took it there in the sense of ‘slices,’ does not appear.

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