Deipnosophistae

Athenaeus of Naucratis

Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists or Banquet Of The Learned Of Athenaeus. Yonge, Charles Duke, translator. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854.

Themistocles received from the king of Persia Lampsacus, to supply him with wine; Magnesia, for bread; Myus, for meat; and Percope and Palæscepsis were to provide him with bedclothes and garments. The king moreover enjoined him to wear a cloak such as is worn by the barbarians, as he had previously bade Demaratus do; and he gave him the same presents as he had formerly given to Demaratus, and added also a robe such as is worn by the sons-in-law of the king, on condition of his never reassuming the Greek attire. And Cyrus the Great gave Pytharchus of Cyzicus, being a friend of his, seven cities, as is related by Agathocles of Babylon; namely, Pedasus, and Olympius, and Cama, and Tium, and Sceptra, and Artypsus, and Tortyra. But he, being made insolent and having his head turned by this liberality, attempted to make himself tyrant of his country, and collected an army for that purpose. On which the people of Cyzicus went out to battle against him, and attacked him eagerly, and so preserved their liberties.

Among the people of Lampsacus Priapus is held in high honour, being the same as Bacchus, and having this name Priapus only as an epithet, just as Thriambus and Dithyrambus are.

The Mitylenæans have a sweet wine which they call πρόδρομος, and others call it πρότροπος.

The Icarian wine, too, is held in high estimation, as Amphis says:—

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  1. Thurium gives the olive juice,
  2. Lentils Gela's fields produce;
  3. Icarian wine well merits praise,
  4. And figs which the Cimolians raise.
The Pramnian wine, too, according to Eparchides, is produced in Icarus. It is a peculiar kind of wine; and it is neither sweet nor thick, but dry and hard, and of extraordinary strength; and Aristophanes says that the Athenians did not like it, for that
the Athenian people did not like hard and sour poets, nor hard Pramnian wines, which contract the eyebrows and the stomach; but they prefer a fragrant wine, ripe, and flavoured like nectar.
For Semus says that there is in Icarus a rock called the Pramnian rock; and near it is a great mountain, from which the Pramnian wine has its name, and some call it a medicinal wine. Now Icarus used formerly to be called the Fishy Icarus, from the number of fish around it; just as the Echinades had their name from the sea-urchins, and the promontory Sepias from the number of cuttle-fish which are taken near it. And in like manner the Lagussæ islands are so called from λαγὼς, a hare, as being full of hares. And other islands are called Phycussæ, and Lopadussæ, for similar reasons. And according to Eparchides, the vine which produces the Icarian Pramnian wine, is called by the strangers the Holy vine, and by the people of Œnoe the Dionysiac vine. And Œnoe is a city in the island.

But Didymus says that the Pramnian wine comes from a vine called Pramnian; and some say that the name means merely dark-coloured. But others affirm that it is a generic name for wine suitable for long keeping, as being παραμένιος, that is to say, such as can be kept. And some say that it is so called from πραΰνειν τὸ μένος, mollifying anger, because those who drink it become good-humoured.

Amphis praises also the wine which comes from the city of Acanthus, saying,—

  1. A. Whence do you come, friend? speak.
  2. B. From Acanthus I.
  3. A. Acanthus? then I trow,
  4. Since you're a countryman of wine so strong,
  5. You must be fierce yourself;
  6. Your country's name is thorny,[*](῎ἄκανθα is Greek for a thorn.) but I hope
  7. Your manners are not quite so rough and prickly.
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And Alexis mentions Corinthian wine as a harsh wine—
  1. And foreign wine was there; for that from Corinth
  2. Is painful drinking.
He speaks, too, of wine from Eubœa—
  1. Drinking deep draughts of harsh Eubœan wine.
The Naxian wine is compared by Archilochus to nectar. And he says in some one of his poems—
  1. My spear finds corn, my spear finds wine,
  2. From Ismarus; on my spear I dine,
  3. And on it, when fatigued, recline.
But Strattis praises the wine of Sciathus—
  1. The black Sciathian wine mix'd half and half,
  2. Invites the traveller to halt and quaff.
And Achæus praises the Bibline wine—
  1. He pledged him in a cup of Bibline wine.
While it has its name from some district which is called by a similar appellation. And Philyllius says,—
  1. I'll give you Lesbian, Chian wine,
  2. Thasian, Mendæan, and Bibline;
  3. Sweet wines, but none so strong and heady
  4. As that you shall next day feel seedy.

But Epicharmus says that it is named from some mountains of a similar name. And Armenidas says that there is a district of Thrace called the Biblian, the same which was afterwards called Tisara, and Œsyma. And it was very natural for Thrace to be admired as a country producing fine wines; and indeed all the adjacent country deserves the same character.

  1. Full of rich wine the ships from Lemnos came.
But Hippias the Rhegian says that the wine called the creeper was also called Biblian; and that Pollis the Argive, who was king of Syracuse, was the first person who brought it to Syracuse from Italy. And if that be true, probably the sweet wine which among the Sicilians is called Pollian, is the same as the Bibline wine. There is an ancient oracle:—
  1. Drink wine where lees abound, since Fate has not
  2. Placed you amid Anthedon's flowery plains,
  3. Or in the streets of sacred Hypera,
  4. Where purer wine abounds.
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And there was a vine among the people of Trœzene, (as Aris- totle says, in his book on their polity,) called Anthedonian, and another called Hyperian; from men of the name of Anthus and Hyperus, just as the Althephian vine is named after a man of the name of Althephias, one of the descendants of Alpheus.