in Antiquity, a class of philosophers, chiefly of the Cynic or Stoic school, who frequented the tables of great men, and entertained them at their banquets with disputations on virtue, vice, and other popular topics. These are sometimes also denominated Circulators Philosophi. Such a mode of life would naturally degenerate into that of the parasite and buffoon; hence they are mentioned with contempt by Juvenal, Sat. xv.