Deipnosophistae

And the silver and gold offerings which were at Delphi were offered originally by Gyges the king of the Lydians. For before the reign of this monarch Apollo had no silver,

For anciently the temple was adorned with brazen offerings: I do not mean statues, but caldrons and tripods made of brass. The Lacedæmonians, therefore, wishing to gild the face of the Apollo that was at Amyclæ, and not finding any gold in Greece, having sent to the oracle of the god, asked the god from whom they could buy gold; and he answered them that they should go to Crœsus the Lydian, and buy it of him. And they went and bought the gold of Crœsus. But Hiero the Syracusan, wishing to offer to the god a tripod and a statue of Victory of unalloyed gold, and being in want of the gold for a long time, afterwards sent men to Greece to seek for it; who, coming after a time to Corinth, and tracing it out, found some in the possession of Architeles the Corinthian, who had been a long time buying it up by little and little, and so had no inconsiderable quantity of it; and he sold it to the emissaries of Hiero in what quantity they required. And after that, having filled his hand with it he made them a present of all that he could hold in his hand, in return for which Hiero sent a vessel full of corn, and many other gifts to him from Sicily.

And Phanias relates the same circumstances in his history of the Tyrants in Sicily, saying that the ancient offerings had been brass, both tripods, and caldrons, and daggers; and that on one of them there was the following inscription—

1. Look on me well; for I was once a part
2. Of the wide tower which defended Troy
3. When Greeks and Trojans fought for fair-hair'd Helen;
4. And Helicon, brave Antenor's son,
5. Brought me from thence, and placed me here, to be
6. An ornament to Phœbus' holy shrine.

1. I am a brazen tripod, and I lie
2. Here as an ornament of Delphi's shrine.
3. The swift Achilles gave me as a prize
4. What time he placed Patroclus on the pile,
5. And Tydeus' mighty son, brave Diomede,
6. Offer'd me here, won by his speedy coursers
7. In the swift race by Helle's spacious wave.

And Ephorus, or Demophilus, his son, in the thirtieth book of his Histories, speaking of the temple of Delphi, says, "But Onomarchus and Phayllus and Phalæcus not only carried off all the treasures of the god, but at last their wives carried off also the ornaments of Eriphyle, which Alcmæon consecrated at Delphi by the command of the god and also the necklace of Helen, which had been given by Menelaus. For the god had given each of them oracles: he had said to Alcmæon, when he asked him how he could be cured of his madness—

1. You ask a precious gift, relief from madness';
2. Give me a precious gift yourself; the chain
3. With which your mother buried, steeds and all,
4. Your sire, her husband, brave Amphiaraus.

1. Bring me the golden ornament of the neck
2. Of your false wife; which Venus once did give
3. A welcome gift to Helen; and then Paris
4. Shall glut your direst vengeance by his fall.

But the divine Plato, and Lycurgus the Lacedæmonian, not only forbad all costly ornaments to be introduced into their model states, but they would not permit even silver or gold to be brought into them, thinking that of the products of mines, iron and copper were sufficient, and banishing the other metals as injurious to those states which were in good order. But Zeno the Stoic, thinking everything unimportant except the legitimate and honest use of the precious metals,

Therefore a little of these metals lies on the surface just to serve as a sample of the rest which is beneath, since in the remotest corners of the earth also there are rivers bearing down gold-dust in their waters; and women and men destitute of bodily strength scratching among the sand, detach these particles from the sand, and then they wash them and bring them to the smelting-pot, as my countryman Posidonius says is done among the Helvetians, and among others of the Celtic tribes. And the mountains which used formerly to be called the Rhipeean mountains, and which were subsequently named the Olbian (as if happy), and which are now called the Alps, (they are mountains in Gaul,) when once the woods upon them had caught fire spontaneously, ran with liquid silver. The greater quantity of this metal, however, is found by mining operations carried on at a great depth, and attended by great hardship, according to the statement of Demetrius Phalereus, in consequence of the desire of avarice to draw Pluto himself out of the recesses of the earth; and, accordingly, he says facetiously that—

Men having often abandoned what was visible for the sake of what was uncertain, have not got what they expected, and have lost what they had, being unfortunate by an enigmatical sort of calamity.

But the Lacedæmonians being hindered by their national institutions from introducing silver or gold into Sparta, as the

But that tribe of Gauls which is called the Cordistæ, does not introduce gold into their country either, still they are not the less ready to plunder the territories of their neighbours, and to commit injustice; and that nation is a remnant of the Gauls who formed the army of Brennus when he made his expedition against the temple of Delphi. And a certain Bathanatius, acting as their leader, settled them as a colony in the districts around the Ister, from whom they call the road by which they returned the Bathanatian road, and even to this day they call his posterity the Bathanati. And these men proscribe gold, and do not introduce it into their territories, as a thing on account of which they have suffered many calamities; but they do use silver, and for the sake of that they commit the most enormous atrocities. Although the proper course would be, not to banish the whole class of the thing of which they were formerly plundered, but the impiety which could perpetrate such a sacrilege. And even if they did not introduce silver into their country, still they would commit excesses in the pursuit of copper and iron; and even if they had not these things, still they would continue to rage in war against other nations for the sake of meat and drink, and other necessaries.

When Pontianus had delivered his opinion in these

The name of parasite is now a disreputable one; but among the ancients we find the word parasite used as something sacred, and nearly equivalent to the title Messmate. Accordingly, at Cynosarges, in the temple of Hercules, there is a pillar on which is engraven a decree of Alcibiades; the clerk who drew it up being Stephanus the son of Thucydides; and in it mention is made of this name in the following terms—' Let the priest perform the monthly sacrifices with the parasites; and let the parasites select one bastard, and one of the sons of the same, according to the usual national customs; and whoever is unwilling to take the place of a parasite, let the priest report him to the tribunal.' And in the tables of the laws concerning the Deliastæ it is written—' And let two heralds, of the family of the heralds, of that branch of it which is occupied about the sacred mysteries, be chosen; and let them be parasites in the temple of Delos for a year.' And in Pallenis this inscription is engraved on the offerings there found—' The Archons and parasites made these offerings, who, in the archonship of Pythodorus, were crowned with a golden crown;[*](The text is supposed to be corrupt here.) and the parasites were, in the archonship of Lycostratus, Gargettius; in the archonship of Pericletus, Pericles Pitheus; in that of Demochares, Charinus.' And in the laws of the king, we find the following words—' That the parasites of the Acharnensians shall sacrifice to Apollo.' But Clearchus the Solensian, and he was one of the disciples of Aristotle, in the first book of his Lives, writes thus-'But now they call a parasite. a man who is ready for anything; but in former times he was a man picked out as a companion.'

1. And then they chose some parasites for Hercules.

That the king, who from time to time fills that office, and the parasites, whom they appoint from the main body of the people, and the old men, and the women who still have their first husbands, shall take care of such and such things.

And from this you perceive, my good friend Ulpian, that you may raise another question, who the women are who still have their first husbands? But (for we are still speaking about the parasites) there is also an inscription on a pillar in the Anaceum to the following effect—

Of the best bulls which are selected, one-third is to be appropriated to the games; and of the remaining two-thirds, one is to go to the priest, and the other to the parasites.

And the word parasite is now used in a disreputable sense; but formerly those people were called parasites who were selected to collect the sacred corn, and there was a regular Hall of the parasites; on which account the following expressions occur in the law of the king—

For the repairs of the temple, and of the magistrates' hall, and of the hall of parasites, and of the sacred house, they shall pay whatever sums of money the contractors appointed by the priests think necessary.

And Philochorus gives the same account in his book entitled the Tetrapolis, where he mentions the parasites who were elected for the temple of Hercules; and Diodorus of Sinope, a comic poet, in his Heir, (from which I will cite some testimonies presently,) says the same. And Aristotle, in his treatise on the Constitution of the Methoneans, says—

Parasites were two in number for each of the archons, and one for the polemarchs. And they received a fixed allowance from others, and they also took dishes of fish from the fishermen.

But the meaning which is now given to the name parasite is one which Carystius of Pergamus, in his treatise on the Didascali$e, says was first invented by Alexis, forgetting that Epicharmus, in his Hope or Plutus, has introduced one in a drinking party, where he says—

1. But here another stands at this man's feet,

1. Seeking for food which shall not cost him anything,
2. And he will drink up an entire cask,
3. As if it were a cupfull.

1. I sup with any one who likes, if he
2. Has only got the good sense to invite me;
3. And with each man who makes a marriage feast,
4. Whether I'm asked or not, there I am witty;
5. There I make others laugh, and there I praise
6. The host, who gives the feast. And if by chance
7. Any one dares to say a word against him,
8. I arm myself for contest, and o'erwhelm him.
9. Then eating much and drinking plentifully,
10. I leave the house. No link-boy doth attend me;
11. But I do pick my way with stumbling steps,
12. Both dark and desolate; and if sometimes
13. I do the watchmen meet, I swear to them
14. By all the gods that I have done no wrong;
15. But still they set on me. At last, well beaten,
16. I reach my home, and go to sleep on the ground,
17. And for a while forget my blows and bruises,
18. While the strong wine retains its sway and lulls me.

And the parasite of Epicharmus makes a second speech of the same kind. And a parasite of Diphilus speaks thus—

1. When a rich man who gives a dinner asks me,
2. I look not at the ceiling or the cornices,
3. Nor do I criticise Corinthian chasings,
4. But keep my eyes fixed on the kitchen smoke,
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5. And if it goes up strong and straight to heaven,
6. I joy and triumph, and I clap my wings;
7. But it be but thin and moving sidewise,
8. Then I perceive my feast too will be thin.

1. There stood a Trojan, not unknown to fame,
2. Eetion's son, and Podes was his name,—
3. With riches honour'd, and with courage blest,
4. By Hector loved, his comrade and his guest.[*](Iliad, xvii. 575.)