Most of the
company were drunk by then, and the room was full
of uproar. Dionysodorus the rhetorician was making
speeches, pleading first on one side and then on the
other, and was getting applauded by the servants
who stood behind him. Histiaeus the grammarian,
who had the place next him, was reciting verse,
combining the lines of Pindar and Hesiod and
Anacreon in such a way as to make out of them a
single poem and a very funny one, especially in the
part where he said, as though foretelling what was
going to happen:
They smote their shields together,Iliad 4, 447.
and
Then lamentations rose, and vaunts of men.Iliad 4, 450Ausonius’ Cento Nupiialis, an epithalamium composed of tags from Vergil, illustrates Lucian’s
meaning perfectly.
But Zenothemis was reading aloud from a closely
written book that he had taken from his attendant.
When, as often happens, the service of the waiters
was interrupted for a while, Aristaenetus planned
to prevent even that period from being unentertaining and empty, and ordered the clown to come
in and do or say something funny, in order to
make his guests still merrier. In came an ugly
fellow with his head shaven except for a few hairs
that stood up straight on his crown. First he
danced, doubling himself up and twisting himself
about to cut a more ridiculous figure; then he beat
time and recited scurrilous verses in an Egyptian
brogue, and finally he began to poke fun at the
guests.
The rest laughed when they were made
fun of, but when he took a fling at Alcidamas in
the same way, calling him a Maltese lapdog,
The joke here lies primarily in the play on κύων (Cynic),
but it should also be borne in mind that the Greek name
Melite was given not only to the island of Malta, but to the
deme in Athens in which the worship of Heracles, the patron
of the Cynic sect, was localised. Alcidamas got angry: indeed, for a long time it had
been plain that he was jealous because the other
fellow was making a hit and holding the attention
of the room. So, throwing off his philosopher’s
cloak, he challenged him to fight, or else, he said,
he would lay his staff on him. Then poor Satyrion,
for that was the clown’s name, stood up to him and
fought. It was delicious to see a philosopher squaring
off at a clown, and giving and receiving blows in
turn. Though some. of onlookers were disgusted,
others kept laughing, until finally Alcidamas had
enough of his punishment, well beaten by a tough
little dwarf. So they got roundly laughed at.
At that point Dionicus, the doctor, came in, not
long after the fray. He had been detained, he said,
to attend a man who had gone crazy, Polyprepon the
flute-player; and he told a funny story. He said
that he had gone. into the man’s room without
knowing that he was already affected by the trouble,
and that Polyprepon, getting out of bed quickly, had
locked the door, drawn a knife, handed him his flutes
and told him to begin playing; and then, because
he could not play, had beaten him with a strap on
the palms of his hands. At last in the face of so
great a peril, the doctor devised this scheme: he
challenged him to a match, the loser to get a certain
number of blows. First he himself played wretchedly, and then giving up the flutes to Polyprepon, he
took the strap and the knife and threw them quickly
out of the window into. the open court. Then,
feeling safer, he grappled with him and called the
neighbours, who prised the door open and rescued
him. And he showed the marks of the blows, and
a few scratches on his face.
Dionicus, who had made no less of a hit than the
clown, thanks to his story, squeezed himself in
beside Histiaeus and fell to dining on what was left.
His coming was a special dispensation, for he proved
very useful in what followed.
You see, a servant
came into the midst of us, saying that he was from
Hetoemocles the Stoic and carrying a paper which
he said his master had told him to read in public, so
that everybody would hear, and then to go back
again. On getting the consent of Aristaenetus, he
went up to the lamp and began to read.
I suppose, Lycinus, that it was an address in
praise of the bride, or else a wedding-song? They
often write such pieces.
Of course we ourselves expected something of the
sort, but it was far from that: its contents were :
"Hetoemocles the philosopher to Aristaenetus.
“How I feel about dining out, my whole past life
can testify; for although every day I am pestered
by many men much richer than you are, nevertheless
I am never. forward about accepting, as I am familiar
with the disturbances and riotous doings at dinnerparties. But in your case and yours only I think I
have reason to be angry, because you, to whom I
have so long ministered indefatigably, did not think
fit to number me among your friends : no, I alone do
not count with you, and that too though I live next
door. I am indignant, therefore, and more on your
account than on my own, because you have shown
yourself so thankless, For me, happiness is not a
matter of getting a wild boar, a hare or a cake—
things which I enjoy ungrudged at the tables of
other people who know what is right. Indeed, today I might have had dinner with my pupil
Pammenes (and a splendid dinner, too, they say), but
I did not accede to his entreaties, saving myself for
you, fool that I was.
You, however, have given me
the go-by and are entertaining others. No wonder,
for you are even yet unable to distinguish between
the better and the worse, and you have not the
faculty of direct comprehension, either. But I know
where all this comes from—those wonderful philosophers of yours, Zenothemis and the Labyrinth, whose
mouths I could very soon stop, I know, with a single
syllogism, Heaven forgive me for boasting! Just
let one of them say what philosophy is, or, to go
back to the elements, what is the difference between
attribute and accident.More literally, ἕξις means a permanent state, σέσις a
transient state. I shall not mention an
of the fallacies like ‘ the horns,’ ‘ the heap,’ or ‘ the
mower.’
The Stoics devoted a great deal of study to the invention
and solution of fallacies. “The horns” ran thus: “All that
you have not lost, you have; but you have not lost horns,
ergo, you have them.” In "the heap” the philosopher proves that one grain of corn makes a heap; in “the
mower,” that a man who says he will mow a field will not
and cannot mow it. Several other fallacies are illustrated
in "Philosophers for Sale,” 22.
“Well, much may your philosophers profit you !
Holding as I do that only what is honourable is good,
I shall easily stand the slight.
But you need not
think you can afterwards take refuge in the plea
that you forgot me in all the confusion and bother,
for I spoke to you twice to-day, not only in the morning at your house, but later in the day, when you
were sacrificing at the temple of Castor and Pollux,
“I have made this statement to set myself right with
your guests.