Deipnosophistae

Athenaeus of Naucratis

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

Now, after Democritus had uttered all this long uninterrupted discourse, Pontianus said that wine was the metropolis of all these evils; and it was owing to this that drunkenness, and madness, and all sorts of debauchery took place; and that those people who were too much addicted to it were not unappropriately called rowers of cups, by that Dionysius who is surnamed the Brazen, in his Elegies, where he says—

And those who bring their wine in Bacchus' rowing,
Sailors through feasts, and rowers of large cups.

And concerning this class of men, (for it is not extinct,) Alexis, in his Curia, speaking of some one who drunk to excess, says—

This then my son is such in disposition
As you have just beheld him. An Œnopion,
Or Maron, or Capelus, or Timoclees,
For he's a drunkard, nothing more nor less.
And for the other, what can I call him?
A lump of earth, a plough, an earth-born man.

So getting drunk is a bad thing, my good friends; and the same Alexis says, with great cleverness, to those who swallow wine in this way, in his Opora, (and the play is called after a courtesan of that name,)—

Are you then full of such a quantity
Of unmix'd wine, and yet avoid to vomit?

And in his Ring he says—

Is not, then, drunkenness the greatest evil,
And most injurious to the human race?

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And in his Steward he says—

For much wine is the cause of many crimes.

And Crobylus, in his Female Deserter, says—

What pleasure, prithee tell me, can there be
In getting always drunk? in, while still living,
Yourself depriving thus of all your senses;
The greatest good which nature e'er has given?

Therefore it is not right to get drunk; for

A city which has been governed by a democracy,

says Plato, in the eighth book of his Polity,

when it has thirsted for freedom, if it meets with bad cupbearers to help it, and if, drinking of the desired draught too deeply, it becomes intoxicated, then punishes its magistrates if they are not very gentle indeed, and if they do not allow it a great deal of licence, blaming them as wicked and oligarchical; and those people who obey the magistrates it insults.

And, in the sixth book of his Laws, he says—

A city ought to be like a well-mixed goblet, in which the wine which is poured in rages; but being restrained by the opposite and sober deity, enters into a good partnership with it, and so produces a good and moderate drink.

For profligate debauchery is engendered by drunkenness. On which account Antiphanes, in his Arcadia, says—

For it, O father, never can become
A sober man to seek debauchery,
Nor yet to serious cares to give his mind,
When it is rather time to drink and feast.
But he that cherishes superhuman thoughts,
Trusting to small and miserable riches,
Shall at some future time himself discover
That he is only like his fellow-men,
If he looks, like a doctor, at the tokens,
And sees which way his veins go, up or down,
On which the life of mortal man depends.

And, in his Aeolus, mentioning with indignation the evil deeds which those who are great drinkers do, he says—

Macareus, when smitten with unholy love
For one of his own sisters, for a while
Repress'd the evil thought, and check'd himself;
But after some short time he wine admitted
To be his general, under whose sole lead
Audacity takes the place of prudent counsel,
And so by night his purpose he accomplish'd.

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And well, therefore, did Aristophanes term wine the milk of Venus, saying—

And wine, the milk of Venus, sweet to drink;

because men, after having drunk too much of it, have often conceived a desire for illicit amours.

But Hegesander the Delphian speaks of some men as ἔξοινοι; by which term he means, overtaken with wine; speaking thus:—

Comeon and Rhodophon being two of the ministers who managed the affairs of Rhodes, were both drunk; and Comeon attacking Rhodophon as a gambler, said—
O you old man, the crew of youthful gamblers
Beyond a doubt are pressing hard upon you.
And Rhodophon reproached him with his passion for women, and with his incontinence, abstaining from no sort of abuse.

And Theopompus, in the sixteenth book of his Histories, speaking of another Rhodian, says—

When Hegesilochus had become perfectly useless, partly from drunkenness and gambling, and when he had utterly lost all credit among the Rhodians, and when instead his whole course of life was found fault with by his own companions and by the rest of the citizens.

. . . .Then he goes on to speak of the oligarchy which he established with his friends, saying—

And they violated a great number of nobly-born women, wives of the first men in the state; and they corrupted no small number of boys and young men; and they carried their profligacy to such a height that they even ventured to play with one another at dice for the free-born women, and they made a bargain which of the nobly-born matrons he who threw the lowest number on the dice should bring to the winner for the purpose of being ravished; allowing no exception at all; but the loser was bound to bring her to the place appointed, in whatever way he could, using persuasion, or even force if that was necessary. And some of the other Rhodians also played at dice in this fashion; but the most frequent and open of all the players in this way was Hegesilochus, who aspired to become the governor of the city.

And Antheas the Lindian, who claimed to be considered a relation of Cleobulus the philosopher, as Philodemus reports, in his treatise on the Sminthians in Rhodes, being an oldish man, and very rich, and being also an accomplished poet,

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celebrated the festivals in honour of Bacchus all his life, wearing a dress such as is worn by the votaries of Bacchus, and maintaining a troop of fellow-revellers. An he was constantly leading revels both day and night; and he was the first man who invented that. kind of poetry which depends upon compound words, which Asopodorus the Phliasian afterwards employed in his conversational Iambics. And he too used to write comedies and many other pieces in the same style of poetry, which he used to recite to his phallus-bearers.

When Ulpian had heard all this he said,—Tell me, my good Pontianus, says he, in what author does the word πάροινος occur? And he replied—

You will undo me with your questions..

(as the excellent Agatho says)—

. . . . and your new fashion,
Always talking at an unseasonable time.

But since it is decided that we are to be responsible to you for every word, Antiphanes, in his Lydian, has said—

A Colchian man drunken and quarrelsome (πάροινος).

But you are not yet satisfied about your πάροινοι, and drunkards; nor do you consider that Eumenes the king of Pergamus, the nephew of Philetærus, who had formerly been king of Pergamus, died of drunkenness, as Ctesicles relates, in the third book of his Times. But, however, Perseus, whose power was put down by the Romans, did not die in that way; for he did not imitate his father Philip in anything; for he was not eager about women, nor was he fond of wine; but when at a feast he was not only moderate himself, but all his friends who were with him were so too, as Polybius relates, in his twenty-sixth book. But you, O Ulpian, are a most immoderate drinker yourself (ἀῤῥυθμοπότης), as Timon te Phliasian calls it. For so he called those men who drink a great quantity of unmixed wine, in the second book of his Silli—

Or that great ox-goad, harder than Lycurgus's,
Who smote the ἀῤῥυθμόποται of Bacchus,
And threw their cups and brimming ladles down.

For I do not call you simply ποτικὸς, or fond of drinking; and this last is a word which Alæus has used, in his Ganymede. And that a habit of getting drunk deceives our eyesight, Anacharsis has shown plainly enough, in what he says here he shows that mistaken opinions are taken up by drunken men.

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For a fellow-drinker of his once, seeing his wife at a banquet, said,

Anacharsis, you have married an ugly woman.

And he replied,

Indeed I think so too, but however now, give me, O boy, a cup of stronger wine, that I may make her out beautiful.

After this Ulpian, pledging one of his companions, said,—But, my dear friend, according to Antiphanes, who says, in his Countryman—

A. Shut now your eyes, and drink it all at once.
B. 'Tis a great undertaking.
A. Not for one
Who has experience in mighty draughts.

Drink then, my friend; and—

A. Let us not always drink

(as the same Antiphanes says, in his Wounded Man,)

Full cups, but let some reason and discussion
Come in between, and some short pretty songs;
Let some sweet strophes sound. There is no work,
Or only one at least, I tell you true,
In which some variation is not pleasant.
B. Give me, then, now at once, I beg you, wine,
Strengthening the limbs (ἀρκεσίγυιον), as says Euripides—
A. Aye, did Euripides use such a word?
B. No doubt—who else?
A. It may have been Philoxenus,
'Tis all the same; my friend, you now convict me,
Or seek to do so, for one syllable.

And he said,—But who has ever used this form πῖθι? And Ulpian replied,—Why, you are all in the dark, my friend, from having drunk such a quantity of wine. You have it in Cratinus, in his Ulysseses,—

Take now this cup, and when you've taken, drink it (πῖθι),
And then ask me my name.

And Antiphanes, in his Mystic, says—

A. Still drink (πῖθι), I bid you.
B. I'll obey you, then,
For certainly a goblet's figure is
A most seductive shape, and fairly worthy
The glory of a festival. We have—
Have not we? (for it is not long ago)—
Drunk out of cruets of vile earthenware.
May the Gods now, my child, give happiness
And all good fortune to the clever workman
For the fair shape that he bestow'd on thee.

And Diphilus, in his Bath, says—

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Fill the cup full, and hide the mortal part,
The goblet made by man, with godlike wine:
Drink (πῖθι); these are gifts, my father, given us
By the good Jove, who thus protects companionship.

And Ameipsias, in his Sling, says—

When you have stirr'd the sea-hare, take and drink (πῖθι).

And Menander, in his Female Flute-player, says—

Away with you; have you ne'er drunk, O Sosilas?
Drink (πῖθι) now, I beg, for you are wondrous mad.

And in the future tense of πίνω, we should not read πιοῦμαι, but πιόμαι without the υ, lengthening the ι. And this is the way the future is formed in that line of Homer—

(πιόμενʼ ἐκ βοτάνης) Drank after feeding.

And Aristophanes, in his Knights, says—

He ne'er shall drink (πίεται) of the same cup with me:

and in another place he says—

Thou shalt this day drink (πίει) the most bitter wine;

though this might, perhaps, come from πιοῦμαι. Sometimes, however, they shorten the ι, as Plato does, in his Women Returning from Sacrifice—

Nor he who drinks up (ἐκπίεται) all her property:

and in his Syrphax he says— And ye shall drink (πίεσθε) much water. And Menander uses the word πῖε as a dissyllable, in his Dagger—

A. Drink (πῖε).
B. I will compel this wretch,
This sacrilegious wretch, to drink (πιεῖν) it first:

and the expression τῆ πίε, take and drink, and πῖνε, drink. So do you, my friend, drink; and as Alexis says, in his Twins,—

Pledge you (πρόπιθι) this man, that he may pledge another.

And let it be a cup of comradeship, which Anaceron calls ἐπίστιος. For that great lyric poet says—

And do not chatter like the wave
Of the loud brawling sea, with that
Ever-loquacious Gastrodora,
Drinking the cup ἐπίστιος.

But the name which we give it is ἀνίσων.

But do not you be afraid to drink; nor will you be in

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any danger of falling on your hinder parts; for the people who drink what Simonides calls—

Wine, the brave router of all melancholy,

can never suffer such a mischance as that. But as Aristotle says, in his book on Drunkenness, they who have drunk beer, which they call πῖνος, fall on their backs. For he says,

But there is a peculiarity in the effects of the drink made from barley, which they call πῖνος, for they who get drunk on other intoxicating liquors fall on all parts of their body; they fall on the left side, on the right side, on their faces, and on their backs. But it is only those who get drunk on beer who fall on their backs, and lie with their faces upwards.

But the wine which is made of barley is by some called βρύτος, as Sophocles says, in his Triptolemus—

And not to drink the earthy beer (βρύτον).

And Archilochus says—

And she did vomit wine as any Thracian
Might vomit beer (βρύτον), and played the wanton stooping.

And Aeschylus, also, mentions this drink, in his Lycurgus—

And after this he drank his beer (βρύτον), and much
And loudly bragg'd in that most valiant house.

But Hellanicus, in his Origins, says that beer is made also out of roots, and he writes thus:—

But they drink beer (βρύτον) made of roots, as the Thracians drink it made of barley.

And Hecatæus, in the second book of his Description of the World, speaking of the Egyptians, and saying that they are great bread-eaters, adds,

They bruise barley so as to make a drink of it.

And, in his Voyage round Europe, he says that

the Pæonians drink beer made of barley, and a liquor called παραβίη, made of millet and conyza. And they anoint themselves,

adds he,

with oil made of milk.

And this is enough to say on these topics.

But in our time dear to the thyrsus-bearers
Is rosy wine, and greatest of all gods
Is Bacchus.

As Ion the Chian says, in his Elegies—

For this is pretext fit for many a song;
The great assemblies of th' united Greeks,
The feasts of kings, do from this gift proceed,
Since first the vine, with hoary bunches laden,
Push'd from beneath the ground its fertile shoots,
Clasping the poplar in its firm embrace,
And from its buds burst forth a numerous race,

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Crashing, as one upon the other press'd;
But when the noise has ceased they yield their juice,
Divinest nectar, which to mortal men
Is ever the sole remedy for care,
And common cause of joy and cheerfulness.
Parent of feasts, and laughter, and the dance,
Wine shows the disposition of the good,
And strengthens all their noble qualities.
Hail! then, O Bacchus, president of feasts,
Dear to all men who love the wreathed flowers;
Give us, kind God, an age of happiness,
To drink, and play, and cherish just designs.

But Amphis, in his Philadelphi, praising the life of those who are fond of drinking, says:—

For many causes do I think our life,
The life of those who drink, a happy one;
And happier far than yours, whose wisdom all
Lies in a stern and solemn-looking brow.
For that slow prudence which is always busy
In settling small affairs, which with minuteness,
And vain solicitude, keeps hunting trifles,
Fears boldly to advance in things of weight;
But our mind, not too fond of scrutinising
Th' exact result of every trifling measure,
Is ever for prompt deeds of spirit ready.

And when Ulpian was about to add something to this Aemilianus said,—It is time for us, my friends, to inquire in some degree about γρῖφοι, that we may leave our cups for a little while, not indeed in the spirit of that work which is entitled the Grammatical Tragedy of Callias the Athenian: but let us first inquire what is the definition of what we call a γρῖφος. . . . And we may omit what Cleobulina of Lindus has proposed in her Epigrams; for our companion, Diotimus of Olympia, has discussed that point sufficiently; but we must consider how the comic poets have mentioned it, and what punishment those who have failed to solve it have undergone. And Laurentius said,—Clearchus the Solensian defines the word thus:

γρῖφος,

says he,

is a sportive problem, in which we are bidden to seek out, by the exertion of our intellect and powers of investigation, what i proposed to us, which has been uttered for the sake of some honour or some penalty.

And in his discussion on these griphi, the same Clearchus asserts that

there are seven kinds of griphi. In the letter, when we say that there is a certain name of a fish or plant, beginning with a. And similarly,
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when he who proposes the griphus desires us to mention some name in which some particular letter is or is not. Such are those which are called sigma-less griphi; on which account Pindar has composed an ode on the ς, as if some griphus had been proposed to him as a subject for a lyric poem. Then griphi are said to be in the syllable, when we are desired to recite some verse which begins with the syllable βα, as with βασιλεὺς, for instance, or which ends with ναξ, as καλλιάναξ, or some in which the syllables λεων take the lead, as λεωνίδης, or on the other hand close the sentence, as θρασυλέωϝ. They are in the name, when we utter simple or compound names of two syllables, by which some tragic figure, or on the other hand some humble one, is indicated; or some names which have no connexion with anything divine, as κλεώνυμος, or which have some such connexion, as διονύσιος: and this, too, whether the connexion be with one God or with more, as ʽἑρμαφρόδιτος; or whether the name begins with Jupiter, as διοκλῆς, or with Mercury, as ʽἑρμόδωρος; or whether it ends, as it perhaps may, with νῖκος. And then they who were desired to say such and such things, and could not, had to drain the cup.

And Clearchus defined the word in this way. And now you, my good friend Ulpian, may inquire what the cup to be drained is.

But concerning these griphi, Antiphanes says, in his Cnœthis, or the Pot-bellied Man—

A. I thought before that those who while at meals
Bade me solve griphi, were the silliest triflers,
Talking mere nonsense. And when any one
Was bade to say what a man bore and bore not,
I laugh'd and thought it utter childishness;
And did not think that truth did lie beneath,
But reckon'd them as traps for the unwary.
But now, indeed, I see there is some truth in them;
For we, ten men, contribute now for supper,
But no one of them all bears what he brings,
So here's a case where he who bears bears not,
And this is just the meaning of a griphus.
So surely this may fairly be excused;
But others play tricks with the things themselves,
Paying no money, as, for instance, Philip.
B. A wise and fortunate man, by Jove, is he.

And in his Aphrodisian he says—

A. Suppose I want to say now
dish
to you,
Shall I say
dish,
or shall I rather say,
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A hollow-bodied vessel, made of earth,
Form'd by the potter's wheel in rapid swing,
Baked in another mansion of its mother,
Which holds within its net the tender milk-fed
Offspring of new-born flocks untimely choked?
B. By Hercules, you'll kill me straight if you
Do not in plain words say a
dish of meat.

A. 'Tis well. And shall I speak to you of drops
Flowing from bleating goats, and well compounded
With streams proceeding from the yellow bee,
Sitting on a broad receptacle provided
By the chaste virgin born of holy Ceres,
And now luxuriating beneath a host
Of countless finely-wrought integuments;
Or shall I say
a cheesecake?

B. Prithee say
A cheesecake.
A. Shall I speak of rosy sweat
From Bacchic spring?
B. I'd rather you'd say wine.
A. Or shall I speak of dusky dewy drops?
B. No such long paraphrase,—say plainly, water.
A. Or shall I praise the cassia-breathing fragrance
That scents the air
B. No, call it myrrh,—forbear
Those sad long-winded sentences, those long
And roundabout periphrases; it seems
To me by far too great a labour thus
To dwell on matters which are small themselves,
And only great in such immense descriptions.

And Alexis, in his Sleep, proposes a griphus of this kind—

A. It is not mortal, nor immortal either
But as it were compounded of the two,
So that it neither lives the life of man,
Nor yet of God, but is incessantly
New born again, and then again deprived
Of this its present life; invisible,
Yet it is known and recognised by all.
B. You always do delight, O lady, in riddles.
A. No, I am speaking plain and simple things.
B. What child then is there which has such a nature!
A. 'Tis sleep, my girl, victor of human toils.

And Eubulus, in his Sphingocarion, proposes grip i of this kind, himself afterwards giving the solution of there—

A. There is a thing which speaks, yet has no tongue
A female of the same name as the male;
The steward of the winds, which it holds fast;
Rough, and yet sometimes smooth; full of dark voices
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Scarce to be understood by learned men;
Producing harmony after harmony;
'Tis one thing, and yet many; e'en if wounded
'Tis still invulnerable and unhurt.
B. What can that be?
A. Why, don't you know, Callistratus?
It is a bellows.
B. You are joking now.
A. No; don't it speak, although it has no tongue?
Has it not but one name with many people?
Is't not unhurt, though with a wound i' the centre?
Is it not sometimes rough, and sometimes smooth?
Is it not, too, a guardian of much wind?

Again:—

There is an animal with a locust's eye,
With a sharp mouth, and double deathful head;
A mighty warrior, who slays a race
Of unborn children.

('Tis the Egyptian ichneumon.) For he does seize upon the crocodile's eggs, And, ere the latent offspring is quite form'd, Breaks and destroys them: he's a double head, For he can sting with one end, and bite with th' other. Again:—

I know a thing which, while it's young, is heavy,
But when it's old, though void of wings, can fly
With lightest motion, out of sight o' th' earth.

This is thistledown. For it—

While it is young, stands solid in its seed,
But when it loses that, is light and flies,
Blown about every way by playful children.

Listen, now, to this one—

There is an image all whose upper part
Is its foundation, while the lower part
Is open; bored all through from head to feet;
'Tis sharp, and brings forth men in threefold way,
Some of whom gain the lot of life, some lose it:
All have it; but I bid them all beware.

And you yourselves may decide here, that he means the box into which the votes are thrown, so that we may not borrow everything from Eubulus.

And Antiphanes, in his Problem, says—

A. A man who threw his net o'er many fish,
Though full of hope, after much toil and cost,
Caught only one small perch. And 'twas a cestreus,
Deceived itself, who brought this perch within,
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For the perch followeth the blacktail gladly.
B. A cestreus, blacktail, perch, and man, and net,—
I don't know what you mean; there's no sense in it.
A. Wait while I clearly now explain myself:
There is a man who giving all he has,
When giving it, knows not to whom he gives it,
Nor knows he has the things he does not need.
B. Giving, not giving, having, and not having,—
I do not understand one word of this.
A. These were the very words of this same griphus.
For what you know you do not just now know,
What you have given, or what you have instead.
This was the meaning.
B. Well, I should be glad
To give you too a griphus.
A. Well, let's have it.
B. A pinna and a mullet, two fish, both
Endued with voices, had a conversation,
And talk'd of many things; but did not say
What they were talking of, nor whom they thought
They were addressing; for they both did fail
In seeing who it was to whom they talk'd.
And so, while they kept talking to each other,
The goddess Ceres came and both destroy'd.

And in his play called Sappho, Antiphanes represents the poetess herself as proposing griphi, which we may call riddles, in this manner: and then some one else is represented as solving them. For she says—

S. There is a female thing which holds her young
Safely beneath her bosom; they, though mute,
Cease not to utter a loud sounding voice
Across the swelling sea, and o'er the land,
Speaking to every mortal that they choose;
But those who present are can nothing hear,
Still they have some sensation of faint sound.

And some one, solving this riddle, says—

B.The female thing you speak of is a city;
The children whom it nourishes, orators;
They, crying out, bring from across the sea,
From Asia and from Thrace, all sorts of presents
The people still is near them while they feed on
And pour reproaches ceaselessly around,
While it nor hears nor sees aught that they do.
S. But how, my father, tell me, in God's name,
Can you e'er say an orator is mute,
Unless, indeed, he's been three times convicted?
B. And yet I thought that I did understand
The riddle rightly. Tell me then yourself.

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And so then he introduces Sappho herself solving the riddle, thus—

S. The female thing you speak of is a letter,
The young she bears about her is the writing:
They're mute themselves, yet speak to those afar off
Whene'er they please. And yet a bystander,
However near he may be, hears no sound
From him who has received and reads the letter.

And Diphilus, in his Theseus, says that there were once three Samian damsels, who, on the day of the festival of Adonis, used to delight themselves in solving riddles at their feasts. And that when some one had proposed to them this riddle,

What is the strongest of all things?

one said iron, and alleged the following reasons for her opinion, because that is the instrument with which men dig and cut, and that is the material which they use for all purposes. And when she had been applauded, the second damsel said that a blacksmith exerted much greater strength, for that he, when he was at work, bent this strong iron, and softened it, and used it for whatever purposes he chose. And the third said, they were both wrong, and that love was the strongest thing of all, for that love could subdue a blacksmith.

And Achæus the Eretrian, though he is usually a very clear poet as respects the structure of his poems, sometimes makes his language obscure, and says many things in an enigmatical style; as, for instance, in his Iris, which is a satyric play. For he says,

A cruet of litharge full of ointment was suspended from a Spartan tablet, written upon and twisted on a double stick;

meaning to say a white strap, from which a silver cruet was suspended; and he has spoken of a Spartan written tablet when he merely meant the Spartan scytale. And that the Lacedæmonians put a white strap, on which they wrote whatever they wished, around the scytale, we are told plainly enough by Apollonius Rhodius, in his Treatise on Archilochus. And Stesichorus, in his Helen, speaks of a footpan of litharge; and Ion, in his Phœnix or Cæneus, calls the birdlime the sweat of the oak, saying—

The sweat of oaks, and a long leafy branch
Cut from a bush supports me, and a thread
Drawn from Egyptian linen, clever snare
To catch the flying birds.

And Hermippus says, that Theodectes of Phaselus, in

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his book on the Pupils of Isocrates, was a wonderfully clever man at discovering any riddles that might be proposed to him, and that he too could propose riddles to others with great acuteness. As that riddle about shade, for instance;— for he said that there was a nature which is greatest at its birth and at its decease, and least when at its height. And he speaks thus:—

Of all the things the genial earth produces,
Or the deep sea, there is no single one,
Nor any man or other animal
Whose growth at all can correspond to this:
For when it first is born its size is greatest;
At middle age 'tis scarcely visible,
So small it's grown; but when 'tis old and hastens
Nigh to its end, it then becomes again
Greater than all the objects that surround it.

And in the Œdipus, which is a tragedy, he speaks of night and day in the following riddle:—

There are two sisters, one of whom brings forth
The other, and in turn becomes its daughter.

And Callisthenes, in his Greek History, tells the following story, that

when the Arcadians were besieging Cromnus, (and that is a small town near Megalopolis,) Hippodamus the Lacedæmonian, being one of the besieged persons, gave a message to the herald who came to them from the Lacedæmonians, showing the condition in which they were by a riddle, and he bade him tell his mother-'to be sure and release within the next ten days the little woman who was bound in the temple of Apollo; as it would not be possible to release her if they let those days elapse.' And by this message he plainly enough intimated what he was desirous to have understood; for the little woman meant is Famine, of which there was a picture in the temple of Apollo, near the throne of Apollo, and it was represented under a woman's form; so it was evident to every one that those who were besieged could hold out only ten days more because of famine. So the Lacedæmonians, understanding the meaning of that had been said, brought succour with great speed to the men in Cromnus.

There are also many other riddles, such as this:—

I saw a man who by the means of fire
Was glueing brass unto another man
So closely that they two became like brothers.

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And this expression means the application of a cupping- glass. And a similar one is that of Panarces, mentioned by Clearchus, in his Essay on Griphi, that

A man who is not a man, with a stone which was not a stone, struck a bird which was not a bird, sitting on a tree which was not a tree.

For the things alluded to here are a eunuch, a piece of pumice-stone, a bat, and a narthex[*](νάρθηξ, a tall umbelliferous plant, (Lat. ferula,) with a slight knotted pithy stalk, in which Prometheus conveyed the spark of fire from heaven to earth. —L. & S. Gr. Eng. Lex. in voc. νάρθηξ. ). And Plato, in the fifth book of his Laws,[*](This is a mistake of Athenæus. The passage referred to occurs in the fifth book of the De Republica.) alludes to this riddle, where he says, that those philosophers who occupy themselves about minute arts, are like those who, at banquets, doubt what to eat, and resemble too the boys' riddle about the stone thrown by the eunuch, and about the bat, and about the place from which they say that the eunuch struck down the bat, and the engine with which he did it.

And of this sort also are those enigmatical sayings of Pythagoras, as Demetrius of Byzantium says, in the fourth book of his treatise on Poets, where, for instance, he says,

A man should not eat his heart;

meaning,

a man should cultivate cheerfulness.

One should not stir the fire with a sword;

meaning,

One should not provoke an angry man;

for anger is fire, and quarrelsomeness is a sword.

One should not step over a yoke

meaning,

one should avoid and hate all kinds of covetousness, but seek equality.

One should not travel along the high road;

meaning, One should not follow the opinions of the multitude, (for the common people approve of whatever they take in their heads without any fixed principle,) but one should rather go on the straight road, using sense as one's guide."

One should not sit down upon a bushel;

meaning,

one should not be content with merely considering what is sufficient for the present day, but one should always have an eye to the future

* * * * * * [*](A line or two is lost here, containing probably the enigmatical sentence subsequently referred to.)

For death is the boundary and limit of life;

and this saying is meant to forbid us approaching the subject with anxiety and grief.

And Dromeas the Coan used to play at riddles in

v.2.p.715

much the same way as Theodectes, according to the state- ment of Clearchus: and so did Aristonymus, the player on the harp, without any vocal accompaniment: and so did that Cleon who was surnamed Mimaulus, who was the best actor of Italian mimes that ever appeared on the stage without a mask. For in the style of play which I have mentioned already, he was superior even to Nymphodors. And Ischomachus the herald was an imitator of his, who used to give his representations in the middle of a crowd, and after he had become celebrated, he altered his style and used to act mimes at the jugglers[*](The Greek is ἐν γάστρι ἔχει, which also signifies to be pregnant.) shows. And the riddles which these men used to propose were of the following kind:—A clown once had eaten too much, and was very unwell, and when the physician asked him whether he had eaten to vomit, No, said he, but I ate to my stomach. And another was,— A poor woman had a pain in her stomach, and when the physician asked her whether she had anything in her stomach, How should I, said she, when I have eaten nothing for three days?

And the writings of Aristonymus were full of pompous ex- pressions: and Sosiphanes the poet said to Cephisocles the actor, reproaching him as a man fond of long words,

I would throw a stone at your loins, if I were not afraid of wetting the bystanders.

But the logical griphus is the oldest kind, and the one most suited to the natural character of such enigmatical language.

What do we all teach when We do not know it ourselves

and,

What is the same nowhere and everywhere?

and also,

What is the same in the heavens and on the earth and in the sea?

But this is a riddle arising from an identity of name; for there is a bear, and a serpent, and an eagle, and a dog, both in the heavens and on the earth and in the sea. And the other riddle means Time; for that is the same to all people and everywhere, because it has not its nature depending on one place. And the first riddle means

How to live:

for though no one knows this himself he teaches his neighbour.

And Callias the Athenian, whom we were discussing just now, and who was a little before Strattis in point of time, wrote a play which he called Grammatical Science; and the plot of it was as follows. The prologue consists of the

v.2.p.716

elements, and the actor should recite it, dividing it into para- graphs, and making the termination in the manner of a dramatic catastrophe, into

Alpha, beta, gamma, delta, eta, theta. For ει is sacred to the God; iota, cappa, lambda, mu, nu, xu, the diphthong ou, pi, rho, sigma, tau, the present u, phi, chi, which is next to psi, all down to omega.

And the chorus consisted of women, in pairs, made of two elements taken together, composed in metre and lyrical odes in this fashion —

Beta alpha ba, beta ei be, beta eta be, beta iota bi, beta ou bo, beta upsilon bu, beta omega bo.

And then, again, in the antistrophe of the ode and of the metre,

Gamma alpha, gamma ei, gamma eta, gamma iota, gamma omicron, gamma upsilon, gamma omega.

And in the same way he dealt with all other syllables—all which have the same melody and the same metre in the antistrophes. So that people not only suspect that Euripides drew all his Medea from this drama, but they think that it is perfectly plain that he drew the system of his choruses from it. And they say that Sophocles, after he had heard this drama, endeavoured to divide his poem in respect of the metre, and did it thus, in the Œdipus,—

I shall not grieve myself nor you,
Being convicted of this action.

On which account, all the rest admitted the system of antistrophes from his example, as it should seem, into their tragedies. Then, after this chorus, Callias introduces another speech of vowels, in this manner: (and this also the reciter must divide into paragraphs in the same way as the previous portions, in order that that delivery may be preserved which the author originally intended)—

Alpha alone, O woman; then one should
Say ει alone in the second place: next,
Still by itself you will say, thirdly, Eta;
Fourth, still alone, Iota; fifthly, Ou.
In the sixth place, Upsilon by itself.
The last of all the seven vowels is
The slow-paced Omega. The seven vowels
In seven verses; and when you've recited
All these, then go and ponder by yourself.

Callias was also the first man who taught the elements of learning by iambics, in a licentious sort of language, described in the following manner—

v.2.p.717

For I'm in labour, ladies; but from shame,
I will, my dear, in separate lines and letters,
Tell you the name of the child. There is a line
Upright and long; and from the middle of it
There juts forth on each side a little one,
With upward look: and next a circle comes,
On two short feet supported.

And afterwards, following this example, as any one may suspect, Mæandrius the prose writer, turning away a little from the usual pronunciation in his descriptions, wrote those things which are found in his Precepts, in a less polished style than the above-mentioned Callias. And Euripides appears to have followed the same model when he composed those verses, in his Theseus, in which the elements of writing are described. But the character is an illiterate shepherd, who is showing that the name of Theseus is inscribed in the place in this way—

For I indeed do nothing know of letters,
But I will tell you all their shapes, and give
Clear indications by which you may judge.
There is a circle, round as though 't had been
Work'd in a lathe, and in its centre space
It has a visible sign. Then the second
Has first of all two lines, and these are parted
By one which cuts them both across the middle.
The third's a curly figure, wreathed round.
The fourth contains one line which mounts right up,
And in a transverse course three others hang
From its right side. The letter which cones fifth
Admits of no such easy explanation;
For there are two diverging lines above,
Which meet in one united line below.
The letter which comes last is like the third.

[So as to make θ η ς ε υ ς.]

And Agathon the tragic poet has composed a similar passage, in his Telephus; for there also some illiterate man explains the way of spelling Theseus thus:—

The letter which comes first is like a circle,
Divided by a navel in the middle;
Then come two upright lines well-join'd together;
The third is something like a Scythian bow:
Next comes a trident placed upon its side;
And two lines branching from one lower stem:
The last again the same is as the third.

And Theodectes of Phaselus introduces an illiterate clown, who also represents the name of Theseus in his own way—

v.2.p.718

The letter which comes first a circle is,
With one soft eye; then come two upright lines
Of equal and exact proportions,
United by one middle transverse line;
The third is like a wreathed curl of hair;
The next a trident lying on its side;
The fifth two lines of equal length above,
Which below join together in one base;
The sixth, as I have said before, a curl.

And Sophocles has said something like this, in his Amphiaraus, which is a satyric drama, where he introduces an actor dancing in unison with his explanation of the letters.