Quaestiones Convivales

Now when the whole company were grown to a certain uproar, Menephylus, a Peripatetic philosopher, called to

Hylas by name and said: You see that this question was not propounded by way of mockery and flouting; but leave now that obstinate Ajax, whose very name (according to Sophocles) is ill-omened, and betake yourself to Neptune. For you are wont to recount unto us how he has been oftentimes overcome,—here by Minerva, in Delphi by Apollo, in Argos by Juno, in Aegina by Jupiter, in Naxos by Bacchus,—and yet has borne himself always mild and gentle in all his repulses. In proof whereof, there is even in this city a temple common to him and Minerva, in which there is also an altar dedicated to Oblivion. Then Hylas, who seemed by this time to be more pleasantly disposed, replied: You have forgotten, Menephylus, that we have abolished the second day of September, not in regard of the moon, but because it was thought to be the day on which Neptune and Minerva contended for the seigniory of Attica. By all means, quoth Lamprias, by as much as Neptune was every way more civil than Thrasybulus, since not being like him a winner, but the loser,...

(The rest of this book to Question XIII is lost; with the exception of the titles that follow, and the fragment of Question XII.)