Deipnosophistae

But as for the word λάγυνον, they say that that is the name of a measure among the Greeks, as also are the words χοὸς and κοτύλη. And they say that the λάγυνον contains twelve Attic κότυλαι.. And at Patræ they say that there is a regular measure called ἡ λάγυνος. But Nicostratus, in his Hecate, has used the word in the masculine gender, ὁ λάγυνος, where he says—

1. A. And yet among the flagons into which
2. We pour'd the wine out of the casks, now tell me
3. What is the measure some of them contain ʽπ̔ηλίκοι τινέσ̓?
4. B. They hold three choes each.

1. Bring us the full flagon ʽτ̔ὸν μεστὸν λάγυνον̓.

1. And this most odious flagon's ʽλ̔άγυνος οὗτοσ̓ full of vinegar.

1. I have an empty flagon, my good woman,
2. And a full wallet.

At the time that you sojourned in Samos, O Diagoras, I know that you often came to banquets at my house, at which a flagon was placed by each man, and filled with wine, so as to allow every one to drink at his pleasure.

1. This flagon ʽἥδε λάγυνοσ̓ O Archinus, seems to hold
2. One half of pitch from pines, one half of wine;
3. And I have never met a leaner kid:
4. And he who sent these dainties to us now,
5. Hippocrates, has done a friendly deed,
6. And well deserves to meet with praise from all men.

1. O conduct worthy of a housebreaker
2. Or felon, thus to take a flagon now
3. Under one's arm, and so go round the inns;
4. And then to sell it, while, as at a picnic,
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5. One single vintner doth remain behind,
6. Defrauded by his wine-merchant.

But the name σκύφος is derived from σκαφὶς, a little boat. And this likewise is a round vessel made of wood, intended to receive milk, or whey; as it is said in Homer—

1. Capacious chargers all around were laid,
2. Full pails ʽσ̔καφίδεσ̓, and vessels of the milking trade.

1. Here there are no mighty joints
2. Of oxen slain,—no golden plate,
3. No purple rich embroidery;
4. But there is a cheerful mind,
5. And a sweetly-sounding Muse,
6. And plenty of delicious wine,
7. In cups of Theban workmanship ʽβ̔οιωτίοισιν ἐν σκύφοισιν̓.

The Lacedæmonians sent Dercyllidas into Asia in the place of Thymbron, having heard that the barbarians were in the habit of doing everything by deceit and trick; on which account they sent Dercyllidas, thinking that he was the least likely of all men to be taken in; for he was not at all of a Lacedæmonian and simple disposition, but exceedingly cunning and fierce; on which account the Lacedæmonians themselves used to call him σκύθον.

There is the tabaitas also. Amyntas, in the first book of his treatise on the Stations of Asia, speaking of what is called aerial honey, writes as follows:—

They gather it with the leaves, and store it up, making it up in the same manner as the Syrian cakes of fruit, but some make it into balls; and when they are about to use it for food, they break pieces off these cakes into wooden cups, which they call tabaitæ, and soak them, and then strain them off and drink the liquor; and the drink is very like diluted honey, but this is much the sweeter of the two.

There is also the tragelaphus. And this is the name given to some cups, as Alexis mentions, in his Coniates—

1. Cymbia, phialæ, tragelaphi, culices.

1. But there are five phialæ, and two tragelaphi.

1. Tragelaphi, labronii.

1. And for this rich and sordid bridegroom now,
2. Who owns so many talents, slaves, and stewards,
3. And pairs of horses, camels, coverlets,—
4. Such loads of silver plate, such phialæ,
5. Triremes, tragelaphi, carchesia,
6. Milkpails of solid gold, vessels of all sorts;
7. For all the gluttons and the epicures
8. Call casks brimful of wine mere simple milkpails.

There is also the trireme. And that trireme is the name of a species of drinking-cup Epicurus has shown, in his Supposititious Damsels; and the passage which is a proof of this has been already quoted.

There is also the hystiacum, which is some sort of drinking-cup. Rhinthon, in his Hercules, says—

1. You swallow'd, in one small hystiacum,
2. A cheesecake of pure meal, and groats, and flour.

There is the phiale too. Homer, when he says—

1. He placed a phiale upon the board,
2. By both hands to be raised (ἀμφίθετον), untouch'd by fire;

1. A golden phiale, and doubled fat;

1. An ample charger, of unsullied frame,
2. With flowers high wrought, not blacken'd yet by flame,

But as Cratinus has said, in his Female Runaways—

1. Receive from me these round-bottom'd phialæ,

There are some kinds of phialæ of which the boss is similar to a strainer.

βαλανειόμφαλοι are the Phialæ called, because their bosses and the vaulted roofs of the baths are much alike.

From the bosses in the women's baths, out of which they ladle the water in small cups.

1. Go quick, O damsels; hither bring the cups,
2. And the mesomphali;—

1. Receive from me these round-bottom'd phialæ.

1. She took a golden round-bottom'd (μεσόμφαλον) phiale,
2. Brimful of wine; to which Telestes gave
3. The name of acatos;

1. Garlands to all, and well-boss'd chrysides (ὀμφαλωταὶ χρυσίδες).

But the Athenians call silver phialæ ἀργυρίδες, and golden ones they call χρυσίδες. And Pherecrates mentions the silver phiale in the following words in his Persæ—

1. Here, you sir; where are you now carrying
2. That silver phiale (τὴν ἀργυρίδα τηνδί)?

1. Making libations with a golden phiale (χρυσίδι,)
2. He gave the serpents drink.

1. He first completely drain'd an ample cup,
2. Golden (χρυσίδα) and round, then carried it away.

There was also a kind of cup called the βαλανωτὴ phiale, under the bottom of which were placed golden feet. And Teneus says, that among the offerings at Delos there was a brazen palm-tree, the offering of the Naxians, and some golden phialæ, to which he gives the epithet καρυωταί. But Anaxandrides calls cups of this fashion the phialæ of Mars. But the AEolians call the phiale an aracis.

There is also the phthoïs these are wide-shaped Phialæ with bosses. Eupolis says—

1. He pledged the guests in phthoïdes,

There is the philotesia also. This is a kind of κύλιξ, in which they pledged one another out of friendship, as Pamphilus says. And Demosthenes says,

And he pledged him in the philotesia.

1. We, in our private and public capacity,
2. Do pledge you now in this philotesian culix.

But, besides being the name of a cup, a company feasting together was also called φιλοτήσιον. Aristophanes says—

1. Now does the shadow of the descending sun
2. Mark seven feet: 'tis time for supper now,
3. And the philotesian company invites me.

1. O thou Persuasion, mistress of my soul!
2. And you, O philotesian cup of wine.

There are also Chalcidic goblets, having their name and reputation perhaps from Chalcis in Thrace.

There are also χυτρίδες; Alexis, in his Supposititious Child, says—

1. I, seeking to do honour to the king,
2. To Ptolemy and to his sister, took
3. Four χυτρίδια of strong, untemper'd wine,
4. And drank them at a draught, with as much pleasure
5. As any one ever swallow'd half-and-half:
6. And, for the sake of this agreement, why
7. Should I not now feast in this splendid light?

that the Argives and Aeginetans made a law that no one should ever use any Attic vessel of any kind in their sacrifices, not even if made of earthenware; but that for the future every one should drink out of the χυτρίδες of the country.

And in the meantime he proposed a deep pledge to his health, twelve deep χυτρίδια full of wine.

There is also the ψυγεὺς or ψυκτήρ. Plato, in his Symposium, says,—

But, O boy, bring, said he, that psycter hither (for he had seen one which held more than eight cotylæ). Accordingly, when' he had filled it, first of all he drank it himself, and then he ordered it to be filled again for Socrates . . . . . as Archebulus was attempting to be prolix, the boy, pouring the wine out at a very seasonable time, overturned the psycter.

1. A psygeus, holding three full cotylæ.

1. And from Olympicus he then received
2. Six thericlean cups, and then two psycters.

1. And, as the present fashion is, they shouted
2. For more untemper'd wine; and some one took
3. A mighty psycter, giving them to drink,
4. And so destroy'd them wretchedly.

1. Now take the boys, and make them hither bring
2. The thericlean and the Rhodian cups;
3. But bring yourself the psycter and the cyathus,
4. Some cymbia too.

1. And one man having stolen a psycter,
2. And his companion, who has taken away
3. A brazen cyathus, both lie perplex'd,
4. Looking for a chœnix and a cotylis.

1. I went to see my friend while at his inn,
2. And there I met a dark-complexion'd man,
3. And told my slaves, for I brought two from home,
4. To put in sight the well-clean'd drinking-cups:
5. There was a silver cyathus, and cups
6. Weighing two drachmas each; a cymbium,
7. Whose weight was four; a ψυκτηρίδιον,
8. Weighing two obols, thinner than Philippides.

But Heracleon of Ephesus says,

The cup which we call ψυγεὺς some name the ψυκτηρία, but the Attic writers make jokes upon the ψυγεὺς, as being a foreign name.

1. But when they call a ψυγεὺς a ψυκτηρίς,
2. And σεύτλιον τεῦλα, and the φακῆ φακεὺς,
3. What can one do? For I rightly said,
4. Give me, I pray, Pyrgothemis, some change
5. For this your language, as for foreign money.

1. How then are we to live? Our bedclothes are
2. A saddlecloth, and our well-fitting hat
3. Only a psycter. What would you have more?
4. Here is the very Amalthean horn.

1. And putting on the board a tripod and cask,
2. And psycter too, he gets drunk on the wine;

1. So will the drink be fiercer: therefore now,
2. If any one should say it is not fit
3. T' indulge in wine at present, just leave out
4. This cask, and this one single drinking-cup,
5. And carry all the rest away at once.

But Dionysius the pupil of Tryphon, in his treatise on Names, says—

The ancients used to call the psygeus dinus.

1. And gentle airs, in the cool, shady places (ψυκτηρίυις);

1. The trees, affording a cool shade (ψυκτήρια),
2. Shall now embrace him in their loving arms;

1. There shall my cool shade (ψυκτήριον) be, O king of men.

There is also the oidos. This was the name of a drinking-cup, as we are told by Tryphon, in his Onomasticon; a cup given to him who sang the scolia—as Antiphanes shows in his Doubles—

1. A. What will there be, then, for the gods
2. B. Why, nothing,
3. Unless now some one mixes wine for them.
4. A. Stop; take this ᾠδὸς, and abandon all
5. Those other worn-out fashions; sing no more
6. Of Telamon, or Pæon, or Harmodius.

There is also the ὠὸν, or egg-cup. Dinon, in the third book of his Affairs of Persia, speaks as follows:—There is also a bread called potibazis, made of barley and roasted wheat; and a crown of cypress leaves; and wine tempered in a golden oon, from which the king himself drinks."

Plutarch having said this, and being applauded by every one, asked for a phiala, from which he made a libation to the Muses, and to Mnemosyne their mother, and drank the health of every one present, saying,—As if any one, taking a cup in his hand, being a rich man, were to make a present of it, foaming over with the juice of the vine;"— and drinking not only to the young bridegroom, but also to all his friends; and he gave the cup to the boy, desiring him to carry it round to every one, saying that this was the proper meaning of the phrase κύκλῳ πίνειν, reciting the verses of Menander in his Perinthian Woman—

1. And the old woman did not leave untouch'd
2. One single cup, but drank of all that came.

1. And then again she carries round to all
2. A cup of unmix'd wine.

1. Farewell all other things, as long
2. As cups of wine go freely round.

But when they had finished the sacrifice they turned to the banquet, and to craters, and prayers, and peas;

we had drunk;

But Socrates, in his turn, said, But it seems to me now, O men, that we ought to drink hard. For wine, in reality, while it moistens the spirit, lulls the griefs to sleep as mandragora does men; but it awakens all cheerful feelings, as oil does fire. And it appears to me that the bodies of men are liable to the same influences which affect the bodies of those things which grow in the ground; for the very plants, when God gives them too much to drink, cannot hold up their heads, nor can they expand at their proper seasons. But when they drink just as much as is good for them, and no more, then they grow in an upright attitude, and flourish, and come in a flourishing state to produce fruit. And so, too, in our case, if we take too much drink all at once, our bodies and our minds rapidly get disordered, and we cannot even breathe correctly, much less speak. But if our slaves bedew us (to use Gorgias-like language) in small quantities with small cups, then we are not compelled to be intoxicated by the wine; but being gently induced, we proceed to a merry and cheerful temperament.

Now, any one who considers these expressions of the accomplished Xenophon, may understand how it as that the brilliant Plato displayed such jealousy of him. But perhaps the fact may partly be because these men did from the very

But with respect to Cyrus, I consider that, as to other things, he was indeed a skilful and careful general, but that he had never had the very least particle of a proper education, and that he had never turned his mind the least in the world to the administration of affairs. But he appears from his earliest youth to have been engaged in war, and to have given his children to his wives to bring up.

All this is not true,

Let us not then call those Mimes, as they are called, of Sophron, which are written in metre, Discourses and Imitations; or those Dialogues of Alexamenus

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of Teos, which were written before the Scratic Dialogues;

When, as I think, a city which has been governed by a democracy, feels a thirst far liberty, and meets with bad cupbearers, and so it gets intoxicated by too untempered a draught . . .

And it is said also, that Gorgias himself, when he read the dialogue to which Plato has given his name, said to his friends,

How well Plato knows how to write iambics!

When Gorgias was sojourning at Athens, after he had offered up at Delphi the golden image of himself which is there now, and when Plato said when he had seen it, The beautiful and golden Gorgias is come among us, Gorgias replied, This is indeed a fine young Archilochus whom Athens has now brought forth.

1. How that learned Plato invented fictitious marvels!

But that Plato was ill-natured to everybody is plain from what he says in his dialogue entitled Ion; in which first of all he abuses all the poets, and then all those who have been promoted to the highest dignities by the people, such as Phanosthenes of Andros, and Apollodorus of Cyzicus, and also Heraclides of Clazomenæ. And in his Menon he abuses those who have been the greatest men among the Athenians—Aristides and Themistocles; and he extols Meno, who betrayed the Greeks. But in his Euthydemus he attacks this same Meno and his brother Dionysiodorus, and calls them men slow to learn any good thing, and contentious people, reproaching them with their flight from Chios, which was their native place, from which they went and settled in Thurii. And, in his essay on Manly Courage, he attacks Melesias, the son of that Thucydides who headed the opposite party to Pericles, and Lysimachus, the son of Aristides the Just, saying that they both fell far short of their fathers' virtues. And as to what he said about Alcibiades, in his Banquet, that is not fit to be produced to light; nor is what he says in the first of the Dialogues which go by his name. For the second Alcibiades is said by some people to be the work of Xenophon; as also the Halcyon is said to be the work of Leon the Academician, as Nicias of Nicæa says. Now, the things which he has said against Alcibiades I will pass over; but I cannot forbear to mention his calling the Athenian people a random judge, guided only by outward appearance. And he praises the Lacedæmonians, and extols also the Persians, who are the enemies of all the Greeks.

And he calls Cleinias the brother of Alcibiades a madman; and the sons of Pericles he makes out to be fools; and Meidias he calls a man fit for nothing but killing quails; and of the people of the Athenians he says, that it wears a fair mask, but that one ought to strip the mask off, and look at it then; for he says that it will then be seen that it is only clothed with a specious appearance of a beauty which is not genuine.

But in the Cimon he does not abstain from accusing Themistocles, and Alcibiades, and Myronides, and even Cimon himself; and his Crito contains an invective against Sopho-

Speusippus, hearing that Philip used calumnious language respecting Plato, wrote something of this sort in his letter to him: 'Just as if men did not know that Philip originally obtained the kingdom by the assistance of Plato.' For Plato sent Euphræus of Oreum to Perdiccas, who persuaded him to apportion a certain district to Philip; and so he, maintaining a force in that country, when Perdiccas died, having all his forces in a state of preparation, seized the supreme power.

But his fine Protagoras, besides that it contains attacks on many poets and wise men, also shows up the life of Callias with much greater severity than Eupolis does in his flatterers. And in his Menexenus, not only is Hippias the Elean turned into ridicule, but also Antipho the Rhamnusian, and Lamprus the musician. And the day would fail me, if I were inclined to go through the names of all those who have been abused by that wise man. Nor indeed do I praise Antisthenes; for he, having abused many men, did not abstain even from Plato himself, but, having given him the odious name of Sathon, he then published a dialogue under this name.

But Hegesander the Delphian, in his Commentaries, speaking about the universal ill-nature of Plato towards everybody, writes as follows:—

After the death of Socrates, when a great many of his friends, being present at a banquet, were very much out of spirits, Plato, being present, taking the cup, exhorted them not to despond, as he himself was well able to lead the school; and, so saying, he pledged Apollodorus: and he said, I would rather have taken the cup of poison from Socrates than that pledge of wine from you.' For Plato was considered to be an envious man, and to have a disposition which was far from praiseworthy; for he

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ridiculed Aristippus when he went to visit Dionysius, though he himself had three times sailed to Sicily,—once for the purpose of investigating the torrents of lava which flow from Mount Aetna, when he lived with the elder Dionysius, and was in danger from his displeasure; and twice he went to visit the younger Dionysius.

And again, though Aeschines was a poor man, and had but one pupil, Xenocrates, he seduced him from him; and he was also detected in instigating the commencement of a prosecution against Phædo, which, if successful, would have reduced him to slavery; and altogether he displayed the feelings of a stepmother towards all the pupils of Socrates. On which account, Socrates, making a not very unreasonable Conjecture respecting him, said in the presence of several persons that he had had a dream, in which he thought he had seen the following vision.

For I thought,

that Plato had become a crow, and leaped on my head, and began to scratch my bald place, and to take a firm hold, and so to look about him. I think, therefore,

that you, O Plato, will say a good many things which are false about my head.

My last tunic, my desire of glory, I lay aside in death itself—in my will, and in my funeral procession, and in my burial;

I have the same feelings towards my constitution that a painter would have towards his works; for as he would wish to see them possessed of the power of motion and action, so too do I wish to see the citizens whom I here describe.

But concerning the things which he has said in his Dialogues, what can any one say? For the doctrine respecting the soul, which he makes out to be immortal, even after it is separated from the body, and after the dissolution of this latter, was first mentioned by Homer; for he has said, that the soul of Patroclus—

1. Fled to the shades below,
2. Lamenting its untimely fate, and leaving
3. Its vigour and its youth.

And as to the book of the Laws composed by him, and the Polity which was written before the Laws, what good have they done us? And yet he ought (as Lycurgus did the Lacedæmonians, and as Solon did the Athenians, and Zaleucus the Thurians), if they were excellent, to have persuaded some of the Greeks to adopt them. For a law (as Aristotle says) is a form of words decided on by the common agreement of a city, pointing out how one ought to do everything. And how can we consider Plato's conduct anything but ridiculous; since, when there were already three Athenian lawgivers who had a great name,—Draco, and Plato himself, and Solon,—the citizens abide by the laws of the other two, but ridicule those of Plato? And the case of the Polity is the same. Even if his Constitution is the best of all possible constitutions, yet, if it does not persuade us to adopt it, what are we the better for it? Plato, then, appears to have written his laws, not for men who have any real existence, but rather for a set of men invented by himself; so that one has to look for people who will use them. But it would have been better for him to write such things as he could persuade men of; and not to act like people who only pray, but rather like those who seize hold of what offers itself to them.

However, to say no more on this point, if any one were to go through his Timæus and his Gorgias, and his other dialogues of the same character, in which he discuss the different subjects of education, and subjects of natural philosophy, and several other circumstances,—even when considered in this light, he is not to be admired on this account; for one may find these same topics handled by others, either better than by him, or at all events not worse. For Theopompus the Chian, in his book Against the School of Plato, says—

We shall find the greater part of his Dialogues useless and false, and a still greater number borrowed from other people;

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as some of them come from the school of Aristippus, and some from that of Antisthenes, and a great many from that of Bryson of Heraclea.

For Euphræus, when he was sojourning with king Perdiccas in Macedonia, was not less a king than the other, being a man of a depraved and calumnious disposition, who managed all the companionship of the king in so cold a manner, that no one was allowed to partake of his entertainments unless he knew something about geometry or philosophy; on which account, after Philip obtained the government, Parmenio, having caught him in Oreum, put him to death; as Carystius relates in his Historical Com- mentaries. And Callippus the Athenian, who was himself a pupil of Plato, having been a companion and fellow-pupil of Dion, and having travelled with him to Syracuse, when he saw that Dion was attempting to make himself master of the kingdom, slew him; and afterwards, attempting to usurp the supreme power himself, was slain too. And Euagon of Lampsacus (as Eurypylus says, and Dicæocles of Cnidus, in the ninety-first book of his Commentaries, and also Demochares the orator, in his argument in defence of Sophocles, against Philo), having lent his native city money on the security of its Acropolis, and being afterwards unable to recover it, endeavoured to seize on the tyranny, until the Lampsacenes attacked him, and repaid him the money, and drove him out of the city. And Timæus of Cyzicus (as the same Demochares relates), having given largesses of money and corn to his fellow-citizens, and being on this account believed by the Cyzicenes to be an excellent man, after having waited a little time, attempted to overturn the constitution with the assistance of Aridæus; and being brought to trial and convicted, and branded with infamy, he remained in the city to an extreme old age, being always, however, considered dishonoured and infamous.

And such now are some of the Academicians, who live in