Deipnosophistae

ATHENAEUS is the author of this book; and in it he is discoursing with Timocrates: and the name of the book is the Deipnosophists. In this work Laurentius is introduced, a Roman, a man of distinguished fortune, giving a banquet in his own house to men of the highest eminence for every kind of learning and accomplishment; and there is no sort of gentlemanly knowledge which he does not mention in the conversation which he attributes to them; for he has put down in his book, fish, and their uses, and the meaning of their names; and he has described divers kinds of vegetables, and animals of all sorts. He has introduced also men who have written histories, and poets, and, in short, clever men of all sorts; and he discusses musical instruments, and quotes ten thousand jokes: he talks of the different kinds of drinking cups, and of the riches of kings, and the size of ships, and numbers of other things which I cannot easily enumerate, and the day would fail me if I endeavoured to go through them separately.

And the arrangement of the conversation is an imitation of a sumptuous banquet; and the plan of the book follows the arrangement of the conversation. This, then, is the delicious feast of words which this admirable master of the

And the Deipnosophists who were present at this banquet were, Masyrius, an expounder of the law, and one who had been no superficial student of every sort of learning; Magnus. . . . [Myrtilus] a poet, a man who in other branches of learning was inferior to no one, and who had devoted himself in no careless manner to the whole circle of arts and learning; for in everything which he discussed, he appeared as if that was the sole thing which he had studied; so great and so various was his learning from his childhood. And he was an iambic poet, inferior to no one who has ever lived since the time of Archilochus. There were present also Plutarchus, and Leonidas of Elis, and Aemilianus the Mauritanian, and Zöilus, all the most admirable of grammarians.

And of philosophers there were present Pontianus and Democritus, both of Nicomedia; men superior to all their contemporaries in the extent and variety of their learning; and Philadelphus of Ptolemais, a man who had not only been bred up from his infancy in philosophical speculation, but who was also a man of the highest reputation in every part of his life. Of the Cynics, there was one whom he calls Cynulcus, who had not only two white dogs following him, as they did Telemachus when he went to the assembly, but a more numerous pack than even Actæon had. And of rhetoricians there was a whole troop, in no respect inferior to the Cynics. And these last, as well, indeed, as every one else who ever opened his mouth, were run down by Uppianus the Tyrian, who, on account of the everlasting questions which he keeps putting every hour in the streets, and walks, and booksellers' shops, and baths, has got a name by which he is better known than by his real one, Ceitouceitus. This man had a rule of his own, to eat nothing without saying κεῖται; ἢ οὐ κεῖται; In this way,

Can we say of the word ὥρα that it κεῖται, or is applicable to any part of the day? And is the word μέθυσος, or drunk, applicable to a man? Can the word μήτρα, or paunch, be applied to any eatable food? Is the name σύαγρος a compound word applicable to a boar?

And Athenæus dramatises his dialogue in imitation of the manner of Plato. And thus he begins:—

TIMOCRATES. ATHENAEUS.

Tim. Were you, Athenæus, yourself present at that delightful party of the men whom they now call Deipnosophists; which has been so much talked of all over the city; or is it only from having heard an account of it from others that you spoke of it to your companions?

Ath. I was there myself, Timocrates.

Tim. I wish, then, that you would communicate to us also some of that agreeable conversation which you had over your cups;

1. Make your hand perfect by a third attempt,

Then after a little while he proceeds to the praises of Laurentius, and says that he, being a man of a munificent spirit, and one who collected numbers of learned men about him, feasted them not only with other things, but also with conversation, at one time proposing questions deserving of investigation, and at another asking for information himself; not suggesting subjects without examination, or in any random manner, but as far as was possible with a critical and Socratic discernment; so that every one marvelled at the systematic character of his questions. And he says, too, that he was appointed superintendant of the temples and sacrifices by that best of all sovereigns Marcus;[*](Marcus Aurelius.) and that he was no less conversant with the literature of the Greeks than with that of

1. You court the heav'nly muse with ceaseless zeal,
2. And seek to open all the varied stores
3. Of high philosophy.

1. Nor less renown'd his hand essays
2. To wake the muse's choicest lays,
3. Such as the social feast around
4. Full oft our tuneful band inspire.

1. Whene'er you cross the threshhold of a friend,
2. How welcome you may be needs no long time
3. To feel assured of; blithe the porter looks,
v.1.p.5
4. The house-dog wags his tail, and rubs his nose
5. Against your legs; and servants hasten quick,
6. Unbidden all, since their lord's secret wish
7. Is known full well, to place an easy chair
8. To rest your weary limbs.

It would be a good thing if other rich men were like him; since when a man acts in a different manner, people are apt to say to him,

Why are you so mean You tents are full of wine.

1. Call the elders to the feast,
2. Such a course befits you best.

1. For why should any man wealth desire,'
2. And seek to pile his treasures higher,
3. If it were not to aid his friends in their need,
4. And to gain for himself love's and gratitude's meed?
5. For all can drink and all can eat,
6. And it is not only the richest meat,
7. Or the oldest wine in the well-chased bowl
8. Which can banish hunger and thirst from the soul.

And in the same manner Gellias of Agrigentum, being a very hospitable man, and very attentive to all his guests, gave a tunic and cloak to every one of five hundred horsemen who once came to him from Gela in the winter season.

The sophist uses the word Dinnerchaser, on which Clearchus says that Charmus the Syracusan adopted some little versicles and proverbs very neatly to whatever was put on the table. As on seeing a fish, he says:—

1. I come from the salt depths of Aegeus' sea.

1. Hail holy heralds (κήρυκες), messengers of Jove.

1. Crooked ways, and nothing sound.

1. Good morrow, fool.

1. O charming sight; hence with the vulgar crowd.

1. Beauty when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most.

Many such men then as these, he says, were present at Laurentius's supper; bringing books out of their bags, as their contribution to the picnic. And he says also that Charmus, having something ready for everything that was served up, as has been already said, appeared to the Massenians to be a most accomplished man; as also did Calliphanes, who was called the son of Parabrycon, who having copied out the beginnings of many poems and other writings, recollected three or four stanzas of each, aiming at a reputation for extensive learning, And many other men had in their mouths turbots caught in the Sicilian sea, and swimming eels, and the trail of the tunny-fish of Pachynum, and kids from Melos, and mullets from Symæthus. And, of dishes of less repute, there were cockles from Pelorum, anchovies from Lipara, turnips from Mantinea, rape from Thebes, and beetroot from the Ascræans. And Cleanthes the Tarentine, as Clearchus says, said everything while the drinking lasted, in metres. And so did Pamphilus the Sicilian, in this way:—

1. Give me a cup of sack, that partridge leg,
2. Likewise a pot, or else at least a cheesecake.

1. Bringing baskets full of votes.

Archestratus the Syracusan or Geloan, in his work to which Chrysippus gives the title of Gastronomy, but Lynceus and Callimachus of Hedypathy, that is Pleasure, and which Clearchus calls Deipnology, and others Cookery, (but it is an epic poem, beginning,

1. Here to all Greece I open wisdom's store;)

1. A numerous party may sit round a table,
2. But not more than three, four, or five on one sofa;
3. For else it would be a disorderly Babel,
4. Like the hireling piratical band of a rover.

1. How keenly they watch for a feast in the town,
2. And, asked or not, they are sure to go down;

1. Such are the men the state at public cost
2. Should gladly feed;

1. Treat them like flies at the Olympic games
2. And hang them up an ox to feast upon.

1. Winter produces this, that summer bears;

1. A. But I have sought this tranquil solitude,
2. To ponder deeply on this wondrous book.
3. B. I pray you, what's the nature of its treasures
4. A.

   Sauce for the million,

   by Philoxenus.
5. B. Oh, let me taste this wisdom. A. Listen then;
6. I start with onions, and with tunnies end."
v.1.p.8
7. B. With tunnies? Surely, then, he keeps the best
8. And choicest of his dishes for the last.
9. A. Listen. In ashes first your onions roast
10. Till they are brown as toast,
11. Then with sauce and gravy cover;
12. Eat them, you'll be strong all over.
13. So much for earth; now list to me,
14. While I speak of the sons of the sea.

And presently he says:—

1. A good large flat dish is not bad,
2. But a pan is better when 'tis to be had.

And presently again:—

1. Never cut up a sardine
2. Or mackarel of silv'ry sheen,
3. Lest the gods should scorn a sinner—
4. Such as you, and spoil your dinner;
5. But dress them whole and serve them up,
6. And so you shall most richly sup.
7. Good sized polypus in season
8. Should be boil'd,—to roast them's treason;
9. But if early and not big,
10. Roast them; boil'd ain't worth a fig.
11. Mullets, though the taste is good,
12. Are by far too weakening food;
13. And the ills it brings to master
14. You will need a scorpion plaster.

And it is from this Philoxenus that the Philoxenean cheesecakes are named; and Chrysippus says of him, "I know an epicure, who carried his disregard of his neighbours to such an extent, that he would at the bath openly put in his hand to accustom it to the warm water, and who would rinse out his mouth with warm water, in order to be less affected by heat. And they said that he used to gain over the cooks to set very hot dishes before him, so that he might have them all to himself, as no one else could keep up with him. And they tell the same story about Philoxenus of Cythera, and about Archytas, and many more, one of whom is represented by Cromylus, the comic writer, as saying:

1. I've fingers Idæan[*](There is a pun here that is untranslateable. δάκτυλος is a finger; but the δάκτυλοι ʼιδαῖοι were also priests of Cybele in Crete, and are the people to whom the discovery of iron, and the art of working it by fire, is ascribed.) to take up hot meat,
2. And a throat to devour it too;
3. Curries and devils are my sweetest treat,
4. Not more like a man than a flue.

1. O Marriage, greatest of the gods,

Philoxenus, are you going to dine here to-morrow?

Certainly,

if no one sells any meat in the market.

But Theophilus says:—"We should not act like Philoxenus, the son of Eryxis; for he, blaming, as it seems, the niggardliness of nature, wished to have the neck of a crane for the purposes of enjoyment. But it would be better still to wish to be altogether a horse, or an ox, or a camel, or an elephant; for in the case of those animals the desires and pleasures are greater and more vehement; for they limit their enjoyments only by their power. And Clearchus says that Melanthius did pray in this way, saying,

Melanthius seems to have been wiser than Tithonus; for this last, having desired immortality, is hung up in a basket; being deprived of every sort of pleasure by old age. But Melanthius, being devoted to pleasure, prayed to have the neck of an ostrich, in order to dwell as long as possible on sweet things.

The same Clearchus says that Pithyllus, who was called Tenthes, not only had a covering to his tongue made o skin, but that he also wrapped up his tongue for the sake of luxury, and then that he rubbed it clean again with the skin of a fish. And he is the first of the epicures who is said to have eaten his meat with fingerstalls on, in order to convey it to his mouth as warm as possible. And others call Philoxenus Philicthus;[*](φίλιχθυς, fond of fish.) but Aristotle simply calls him Philodeipnus,[*](φιλόδειπνος, fond of feasting.)

Those who make harangues to the multitude, spend the whole day in looking at jugglers and mountebanks, and men who arrive from the Phasis or the Borysthenes; having never read a book in their lives except The Banquet of Philoxenus, and not all of that.

But Phanias says that Philoxenus of Cythera, a poet, being exceedingly fond of eating, once when he was supping with Dionysius, and saw a large mullet put before him and a small one before himself, took his up in his hands and put it to his ear; and, when Dionysius asked him why he did so, Philoxenus said that he was writing Galatea, and so he wished to ask the fish some of the news in the kingdom of Nereus; and that the fish which he was asking said that he knew nothing about it, as he had been caught young; but that the one which was set before Dionysius was older, and was well acquainted with everything which he wished to know. On which Dionysius laughed, and sent him the mullet which had been set before himself. And Dionysius was very fond of drinking with Philoxenus, but when he detected him in trying to seduce Galatea, whom he himself was in love with, he threw him into the stone quarries; and while there he wrote the Cyclops, constructing the fable with reference to what had happened to himself; representing Dionysius as the Cyclops, and the flute-player as Galatea, and himself as Ulysses.

About the time of Tiberius there lived a man named Apicius; very rich and luxurious; from whom several kinds of cheesecakes are called Apician. He spent myriads of drachms on his belly, living chiefly at Minturnæ, a city of Campania, eating very expensive crawfish, which are found in that place superior in size to those of Smyrna, or even to the crabs of Alexandria. Hearing too that they were very large in Africa, he sailed thither, without waiting a single day, and suffered exceedingly on his voyage. But when he came near the place, before he disembarked from the ship, (for his arrival made a great noise among the Africans,) the fishermen came alongside in their boats and brought him some very fine crawfish; and he, when he saw them, asked if they had any finer; and when they said that there were none finer than those which they brought, he, recollecting those at Minturnæ, ordered the master of the ship to sail back the same way into Italy, without going near the land. But Aristoxenus,

When the emperor Trajan was in Parthia, at a distance of many days' journey from the sea, Apicius sent him fresh oysters, which he had kept so by a clever contrivance of his own; real oysters, not like the sham anchovies which the cook of Nicomedes, king of the Bithynians, made in imitation of the real fish, and set before the king, when he expressed a wish for anchovies, (and he too at the time was a long way from the sea.) And in Euphron, the comic writer a cook says:—

1. A. I am a pupil of Soterides,
2. Who, when his king was distant from the sea
3. Full twelve days' journey, and in winter's depth,
4. Fed him with rich anchovies to his wish,
5. And made the guests to marvel.
6. B. How was that?
7. A. He took a female turnip, shred it fine
8. Into the figure of the delicate fish;
9. Then did he pour on oil and savoury salt
10. With careful hand in due proportion.
11. On that he strew'd twelve grains of poppy seed,
12. Food which the Scythians love; then boil'd it all.
13. And when the turnip touch'd the royal lips,
14. Thus spake the king to the admiring guests:
15. "A cook is quite as useful as a poet,
16. And quite as wise, and these anchovies show it."

Archilochus, the Parian poet, says of Pericles, that he would often come to a banquet without being invited, after the fashion of the Myconians. But it seems to me that the Myconians are calumniated as sordid and covetous because of their poverty, and because they live in a barren island. At all events Cratinus calls Ischomachus of Myconos sordid.

1. A. But how can you be generous, if the son
2. Of old Ischomachus of Myconos?
3. B. I, a good man, may banquet with the good,
4. For friends should have all their delights in common.

1. You come and drink full cups of Chian wine,
2. And yet give no return for them, nor wait
v.1.p.12
3. To be invited, as a friend would do.
4. Your belly is your god, and thus misleads
5. Your better sense to acts of shamelessness.

1. We have invited two unequaled men,
2. Philocrates and eke Philocrates.
3. For that one man I always count as two,
4. I don't know that I might not e'en say three.
5. They say that once when he was ask'd to dinner,
6. To come when first the dial gave a shade
7. Of twenty feet, he with the lark uprose,
8. Measuring the shadow of the morning sun,
9. Which gave a shade of twenty feet and two.
10. Off to his host he went, and pardon begg'd
11. For having been detain'd by business;
12. A man who came at daybreak to his dinner!

1. A man who comes late to a feast,
2. At which he has nothing to pay,
3. Will be sure if in battle he's press'd,
4. To run like a coward away.

1. Never shun a banquet gay,
2. Where the cost on others falls;
3. Let them, if they like it, pay
4. For your breakfasts, dinners, balls.

1. More blest than all the gods is he,
2. Whom every one is glad to see,
3. Who from all care and cost is free.

1. Happy am I, who never have cause
2. To be anxious for meat to put in my jaws.

1. For bards make offerings which give no smoke.

The ancients had a word, μονοφαγεῖν, applied to those who eat alone. And so Antiphanes says:—

1. But if you sulk, μονοφαγῶν,
2. Why must I, too, eat alone?

And Ameipsias says:—

1. And if she's a μονοφάγος, plague take her,
2. I'd guard against her as a base housebreaker.

Dioscorides, with respect to the laws praised in Homer, says, "The poet, seeing that temperance was the most desirable virtue for young men, and also the first of all virtues, and one which was becoming to every one; and that which, as it were, was the guide to all other virtues, wishing to implant it from the very beginning in every one, in order that men might devote their leisure to and expend their energies on honourable pursuits, and might become inclined to do good to, and to share their good things with others; appointed a simple and independent mode of life to every one; considering that those desires and pleasures which had reference to eating and drinking were those of the greater power, and of the highest estimation, and moreover innate in all men; and that those men who continued orderly and temperate in respect of them, would also be temperate and well regulated in other matters. Accordingly, he laid down a simple mode of life for every one, and enjoined the same system indifferently to kings and private individuals, and young men and old, saying—

1. The tables in fair order spread,
2. They heap the glittering canisters with bread,
3. Viands of simple kinds allure the taste,
4. Of wholesome sort, a plentiful repast.[*](Odyss. iv. 54. The poetical translations are from the corresponding passages in Pope's Homer.)

1. The table groan'd beneath a chine of beef,
2. With which the hungry heroes quell'd their grief.[*](lb. iv. 65.)

Priam also, as the poet represents him, reproaches his sons for looking for unusual delicacies; and calls them

1. The wholesale murderers of lambs and kids.[*](Iliad, xxiv. 262.)

Pears upon pears,

In the same way he allots to the gods a very simple way of life, and plain food, namely, nectar and ambrsia; and he represents men as paying them honour with the materials of their feasts; making no mention of frankincens, or myrrh, or garlands, or luxury of this sort. And he does not describe them as indulging in even this plain food to an immoderate extent; but like the most skilful physicians he abhors satiety.

1. But when their thirst and hunger were appeased;[*](Iliad, i. 469.)

So that it is not at all wonderful that men who lived in such a way as they did were healthy and vigorous both in mind and body. And he, pointing out how wholesome and useful a thing moderation is, and how it contributes to the general good, has represented Nestor, the wisest of the Greeks, as bringing wine to Machaon the physician when wounded in the right shoulder, though wine is not at all good for inflammations; and that, too, was Pramnian wine, which we know to be very strong and nutritious. And he brings it to him too, not as a relief from thirst, but to drink of abundantly; (at all events, when he has drank a good draught of it, he recommends him to repeat it.)

1. Sit now, and drink your fill,

1. A shoeing-horn for further draughts of wine;[*](Ib. xi. 629.)

Homer knew also the use and advantages of wine, when he said that if a man drank it in too large draughts it did harm. And he was acquainted, too, with many different ways of mixing it. For else Achilles would not have bade his attendants to mix it for him with more wine than usual, if there had not been some settled proportion in which it was usually mixed. But perhaps he was not aware that wine was very digestible without any admixture of solid food, which is a thing known to the physicians by their art; and, therefore, in the case of people with heartburn they mix something to eat with the wine, in order to retain its power. But Homer gives Machaon meal and cheese with his wine; and represents Ulysses as connecting the advantages to be derived from food and wine with one another when he says—

1. Strengthen'd with wine and meat, a man goes forth:[*](Iliad, xxii. 427.)

1. There, too, were casks of old and luscious wine.[*](Odyss. ii. 340.)

Homer, too, represents the virgins and women washing the strangers, knowing that men who have been brought up in right principles will not give way to undue warmth or violence; and accordingly the women are treated with proper respect. And this was a custom of the ancients; and so too the daughters of Cocalus wash Minos on his arrival in Sicily, as if it was a usual thing to do. On the other hand, the poet, wishing to disparage drunkenness, represents the Cyclops, great as he was, destroyed through inebriety by a man of small stature, and also Eurytian the Centaur. And he relates how the men at Circe's court were transformed into lions and wolves, from a too eager pursuit of pleasure. But Ulysses was saved from following the advice of Mercury, by means of which he comes off unhurt. But he makes Elpenor, a man given to drinking and luxury, fall down a precipice. And Antinous, though he says to Ulysses—

1. Luscious wine will be your bane,[*](Ib. xxi. 293.)

1. Disastrous folly led me thus astray,
2. Or wine's excess, or madness sent from Jove:

1. Tyrant, with sense and courage quell'd by wine."

This was the way in which the sophist of Thessalia argued, from whence came the term, a Sicilian proverb, and Athenæus is, perhaps, playing on the proverb.

As to the meals the heroes took in Homer, there was first of all breakfast, which he calls ἄριστον, which he mentions once in the Odyssey,

1. Ulysses and the swineherd, noble man,
2. First lit the fire, and breakfast then began.[*](Odyss. xv. 499. )

1. Then quickly they prepared to break their fast.[*](Iliad, xxiv. 124.)

1. While the cook the ἄριστον prepares.

1. Then when you have done your business,
2. Come and share my ἀκρατισμός.

1. A. Shall we, then, take our ἀκρατισμὸς there?
2. B. No; at the Isthmus all the slaves prepare
3. The sweet ἄριστον,—

1. I'll stop awhile to breakfast, then I'll come,
2. When I a slice or two of bread have eaten,

1. The different officers I then appointed,
2. And bade them recollect the soldiers' meals,
3. In number three, first breakfast, and then dinner,
4. Supper the third.

1. And come thou δειελιήσας. [*](Odyss. xvii. 599. This word is found nowhere else; waiting till evening, Buttman Lexic. s. v. δείλη, 12, explains it, having taken an afternoon meal.—L. & S. v. Call. Fr. 190.)

That which some call δειλινὸν is between what we call ἄριστον and δεῖπνον; and ἄριστον in Homer, that which is taken in the morning, δεῖπνον is what is taken at noon, which we call ἄριστον, and δόρπον is the name for the evening meal. Sometimes, then, ἄριστον is synonymous with δε͂ιπνον; for somewhere or other Homer says—

1. δε͂ιπνον they took, then arm'd them for the fray.