Deipnosophistae

ANTIPHANES the comic writer, my friend Timocrates, when he was reading one of his own comedies to Alexander the king, and when it was plain that the king did not think much of it, said to him,

The fact is, O king, that a man who is to appreciate this play, ought to have often supped at picnic feasts, and must have often borne and inflicted blows in

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the cause of courtesans,

1. Come now, O Erato, and tell me truly

For our admirable host, praising the married women, said that Hermippus stated in his book about lawgivers, that at Lacedæmon all the damsels used to be shut up in a dark room, while a number of unmarried young men were shut up with them; and whichever girl each of the young men caught hold of he led away as his wife, without a dowry. On which account they punished Lysander, because he left his former wife, and wished to marry another who was by far more beautiful. But Clearchus the Solensian, in his treatise on Proverbs, says,—

In Lacedæmon the women, on a certain festival, drag the unmarried men to an altar, and then buffet them; in order that, for the purpose of avoiding the insult of such treatment, they may become more affectionate, and in due season may turn their thoughts to marriage. But at Athens, Cecrops was the first person who married a man to one wife only, when before his time connexions had taken place at random, and men had had their wives in common. On which account it was, as some people state, that Cecrops was called διφυὴς, [*](διφυὴς meaning, of double nature. ) because before his time people did not know who their fathers were, by reason of the numbers of men who might have been so.

And beginning in this manner, one might fairly blame those who attributed to Socrates two wives, Xanthippe and Myrto, the daughter of Aristides; not of that Aristides who was surnamed the Just, (for the time does not agree,) but of his descendant in the third generation. And the men who made this statement are Callisthenes, and Demetrius Phalereus, and Satyrus the Peripatetic, and Aristoxenus; who were preceded in it by Aristotle, who relates the same story in his

But among the Persians the queen tolerates the king's having a number of concubines, because there the king rules his wife like her master; and also because the queen, as Dinon states in his history of Persia, receives a great deal of respect from the concubines. At all events they offer her adoration. And Priam, too, had a great many women, and Hecuba was not indignant. Accordingly, Priam says—

1. Yet what a race! ere Greece to Ilion came,
2. The pledge of many a loved and loving dame.
3. Nineteen one mother bore—dead, all are dead!

Iliad, xxiv. 489.

But among the Greeks, the mother of Phœnix does not tolerate the concubine of Amyntor. And Medea, although well acquainted with the fashion, as one well established among the barbarians, refuses to tolerate the marriage of Glauce, having been forsooth already initiated in better and Greek habits. And Clytæmnestra, being exceedingly indignant at a similar provocation, slays Cassandra with Agamemnon himself, whom the monarch brought with him into Greece, having given in to the fashion of barbarian marriages.

And a man may wonder,

1. 'Tis thine, whate'er the warrior's breast inflames,
2. The golden spoil, and thine the lovely dames;
3. With all the wealth our wars and blood bestow,
4. Thy tents are crowded and thy chests o'erflow.

Iliad, ii. 220.

But it is not natural,

to suppose that all that multitude of female slaves were given to him as concubines, but only as prizes; since he also provided himself with a great quantity of wine,—but not for the purpose of getting drunk himself.

But Hercules is the man who appears to have had more wives than any one else, for he was very much addicted to women; and he had them in turn, like a soldier, and a man employed at different times in different countries. And by them he had also a great multitude of children. For, in one week, as Herodorus relates, he relieved the fifty daughters of Thestias of their virginity. Aegeus also was a may of many wives. For, first of all he married the daughter of Hoples, and after her he married one of the daughters of Chalcodous, and giving both of them to his friends, he cohabited with a great many without marriage. Afterwards he took Aethra, the daughter of Pittheus; after her he took Medea. And Theseus, having attempted to ravish Helen, after that carried off Ariadne. Accordingly Istrus, in the fourteenth book of his History of the Affairs of Athens, giving a catalogue of those women who became the wives of Theseus, says that some of them became so out of love, and that some were carried off by force, and some were married in legal marriage. Now by force were ravished Helen, Ariadne, Hippolyta, and the daughters of Cercyon and Sinis; and he legally married Melibœa, the mother of Ajax. And Hesiod say that he married also Hippe and Aegle; on account of whom he broke the oaths which he had sworn to Ariadne, as Cercops tells us And Pherecydes adds Pherebœa. And before ravishing Helen he had also carried off Anaxo from Troy; and after Hippolyta he also had Phædra.

And Philip the Macedonian did not take any women with him to his wars, as Darius did, whose power was subverted by Alexander. For he used to take about with him

But Philip,

was always marrying new wives in war time. For, in the twenty-two years which he reigned, as Satyrus relates in his History of his Life, having married Audata the Illyrian, he had by her a daughter named Cynna; and he also married Phila, a sister of Derdas and Machatas. And wishing to conciliate the nation of the Thessalians, he had children by two Thessalian women; one of whom was Nicesipolis of Pheræ, who brought him a daughter named Thessalonica; and the other was Philenora of Larissa, by whom he had Aridæus. He also acquired the kingdom of the Molossi, when he married Olympias, by whom he had Alexander and Cleopatra. And when he subdued Thrace, there came to him Cithelas, the king of the Thracians, bringing with him Meda his daughter, and many presents: and having married her, he added her to Olympias. And after all these, being violently in love, he married Cleopatra, the sister of Hippostratus and niece of Attalus. And bringing her also home to Olympias, he made all his life unquiet and troubled. For, as soon as this marriage took place, Attalus said, 'Now, indeed, legitimate kings shall be born, and not bastards.' And Alexander having heard this, smote Attalus with a goblet which he had in his hand; and Attalus in return struck him with his cup. And after that Olympias fled to the Molossi; and Alexander fled to the Illyrians. And Cleopatra bore to Philip a daughter who was named Europa.

Euripides the poet, also, was much addicted to women: at all events Hieronymus in his Historical Commentaries speaks as follows,—

When some one told Sophocles that Euripides was a woman-hater, 'He may be,' said he, 'in his tragedies, but in his bed he is very fond of women.

But our married women are not such as Eubulus speaks of in his Female Garland-sellers—

1. By Jove, we are not painted with vermilion,
2. Nor with dark mulberry juice, as you are often:
3. And then, if in the summer you go out,
4. Two rivulets of dark discoloured hue
5. Flow from your eyes, and sweat drops from your jaws,
6. And makes a scarlet furrow down your neck;
7. And the light hair, which wantons o'er your face,
8. Seems grey, so thickly is it plastered over.

1. The man whoe'er has loved a courtesan,
2. Will say that no more lawless worthless race
3. Can anywhere be found: for what ferocious
4. Unsociable she-dragon, what Chimæra,
5. Though it breathe fire from its mouth, what Charybdis,
6. What three-headed Scylla, dog o' the sea,
7. Or hydra, sphinx, or raging lioness,
8. Or viper, or winged harpy (greedy race),
9. Could go beyond those most accursed harlots?
10. There is no monster greater. They alone
11. Surpass all other evils put together.
12. And let us now consider them in order:—
13. First there is Plangon; she, like a chimera,
14. Scorches the wretched barbarians with fire;
15. One knight alone was found to rid the world of her,
16. Who, like a brave man, stole her furniture
17. And fled, and she despairing, disappear'd.
18. Then for Sinope's friends, may I not say
19. That 'tis a hydra they cohabit with?
20. For she is old: but near her age, and like her,
21. Greedy Gnathæna flaunts, a twofold evil.
22. And as for Nannion, in what, I pray,
23. Does she from Scylla differ? Has she not
24. Already swallow'd up two lovers, and
25. Open'd her greedy jaws t' enfold a third?
26. But he with prosp'rous oar escaped the gulf. '
27. Then does not Phryne beat Charybdis hollow?
28. Who swallows the sea-captains, ship and all.
29. Is not Theano a mere Siren pluck'd?
30. Their face and voice are woman's, but their legs
31. Are feather'd like a blackbird's. Take the lot,
32. 'Tis not too much to call them Theban Sphinxes.
33. For they speak nothing plain, but only riddles;
34. And in enigmas tell their victims how
35. They love and dote, and long to be caress'd.

36. Would that I had a quadruped,

    says one,
37. That may serve for a bed or easy chair.

38. Would that I had a tripod

    —

    Or a biped,

39. That is, a handmaid. And the hapless fool
40. Who understands these hints, like Œdipus,
41. If saved at all is saved against his will.
42. But they who do believe they're really loved
43. Are much elated, and raise their heads to heaven.
44. And in a word, of all the beasts on earth
45. The direst and most treacherous is a harlot.

After Laurentius had said all this, Leonidas, finding fault with the name of wife (γαμετὴ), quoted these verses out of the Soothsayers of Alexis—

1. All liberty of life, all luxury,
2. And live as slaves of women, not as freemen.
3. We say we have a dowry; do we not
4. Endure the penalty, full of female bile,
5. Compared to which the bile of man's pure honey?
6. For men, though injured, pardon: but the women
7. First injure us, and then reproach us more;
8. They rule those whom they should not; those they should
9. They constantly neglect. They falsely swear;
10. They have no single hardship, no disease;
11. And yet they are complaining without end.

1. Are then the grasshoppers not happy, say you?
2. When they have wives who cannot speak a word.

1. O Jupiter, how soft and bland an eye
2. The lady has! 'Tis not for nothing we
3. Behold the temple of Hetæra here;
4. But there is not one temple to a wife
5. Throughout the whole of Greece.

1. Is not a courtesan much more good-humour'd
2. Than any wedded wife? No doubt she is,
3. And 'tis but natural; for she, by law,
4. Thinks she's a right to sulk and stay at home:
5. But well the other knows that 'tis her manners
6. By which alone she can retain her friends;
7. And if they fail, she must seek out some others.

And Eubulus, in his Chrysille, says—

1. May that man, fool as he is, who marries
2. A second wife, most miserably perish;
3. Him who weds one, I will not blame too much,
4. For he knew little of the ills he courted.
5. But well the widower had proved all
6. The ills which are in wedlock and in wives.

1. O holy Jove, may I be quite undone,
2. If e'er I say a word against the women,
3. The choicest of all creatures. And suppose
4. Medea was a termagant,—what then?
5. Was not Penelope a noble creature?
6. If one should say,

   Just think of Clytæmnestra,

7. I meet him with Alcestis chaste and true.
8. Perhaps he'll turn and say no good of Phædra;
9. But think of virtuous . . . . who?. . . . Alas, alas!
10. I cannot recollect another good one,
11. Though I could still count bad ones up by scores.

1. May he be quite undone, he well deserves it,
2. Who dares to marry any second wife;
3. A man who marries once may be excused;
4. Not knowing what misfortune he was seeking.
5. But he who, once escaped, then tries another,
6. With his eyes open seeks for misery.

1. A. He's married now.
2. B. How say you? do you mean
3. He's really gone and married-when I left him,
4. Alive and well, possess'd of all his senses?

1. A. You will not marry if you're in your senses
2. When you have left this life. For I myself
3. Did marry; so I recommend you not to.
4. B. The matter is decided—the die is cast.
5. A. Go on then. I do wish you then well over it;
6. But you are taking arms, with no good reason,
7. Against a sea of troubles. In the waves
8. Of the deep Libyan or Aegean sea
9. Scarce three of thirty ships are lost or wreck'd;
10. But scarcely one poor husband 'scapes at all.

1. Oh, may the man be totally undone
2. Who was the first to venture on a wife;
3. And then the next who follow'd his example;
4. And then the third, and fourth, and all who followed.

O nights

1. O Jupiter, why need one waste one's words
2. In speaking ill of women? for what worse
3. Can he add, when he once has call'd them women?

But, above all other cases, those who when advanced in years marry young wives, do not perceive that they are running voluntarily into danger, which every one else foresees plainly; and that, too, though the Megarian poet[*](Theognis.) has given them this warning:—

1. A young wife suits not with an aged husband;
2. For she will not obey the pilot's helm
3. Like a well-managed boat; nor can the anchor
4. Hold her securely in her port, but oft
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5. She breaks her chains and cables in the night,
6. And headlong drives into another harbour.

1. A young wife does not suit an old man well;
2. For, like a crazy boat, she not at all
3. Answers the helm, but slips her cable off
4. By night, and in some other port is found.

And I do not think that any of you are ignorant, my friends, that the greatest wars have taken place on account of women:—the Trojan war on account of Helen; the plague which took place in it was on account of Chryseis; the anger of Achilles was excited about Briseis; and the war called the Sacred War, on account of another wife (as Duris relates in the second book of his History), who was a Theban by birth, by name Theano, and who was carried off by some Phocian. And this war also lasted ten years, and in the tenth year was brought to an end by the cooperation of Philip; for by his aid the Thebans took Phocis.

The war, also, which is called the Crissæan War (as Callisthenes tells us in his account of the Sacred War), when the Crissæans made war upon the Phocians, lasted ten years; and it was excited on this account,—because the Crissæans carried off Megisto, the daughter of Pelagon the Phocian, and the daughters of the Argives, as they were returning from the Pythian temple: and in the tenth year Crissa was taken. And whole families also have been ruined owing to women;— for instance, that of Philip, the father of Alexander, was ruined on account of his marriage with Cleopatra; and Hercules was ruined by his marriage with Iole, the daughter of Eurytus; and Theseus on account of his marriage with Phædra, the daughter of Minos; and Athamas on account of his marriage with Themisto, the daughter of Hypseus; and Jason on account of his marriage with Glauce, the daughter of Creon; and Agamemnon on account of Cassandra. And the expedition of Cambyses against Egypt (as Ctesias relates) took place on account of a woman; for Cambyses, having heard that Egyptian women were far more amorous than other women, sent to Amasis the king of the Egyptians, asking him for one of his daughters in marriage. But he did not give him one of his own daughters, thinking that she would not be honoured as a wife, but only treated as a concubine; but he sent him Nitetis, the daughter of Apries.

Now, after this conversation, it seemed good to the philosophers who were present to say something themselves about love and about beauty: and so a great many philosophical sentiments were uttered; among which, some quoted some of the songs of the dramatic philosopher, Euripides,— some of which were these:—

1. Love, who is wisdom's pupil gay,
2. To virtue often leads the way:
3. And this great god
4. Is of all others far the best for man;
5. For with his gentle nod
6. He bids them hope, and banishes all pain.
7. May I be ne'er mixed up with those who scorn
8. To own his power, and live forlorn,
9. Cherishing habits all uncouth.
10. I bid the youth
11. Of my dear country ne'er to flee from Love,
12. But welcome him, and willing subjects prove.
[*](It is not known from what play this fragment comes. It is given in the Variorum Edition of Euripides, Inc. Fragm. 165.)

1. Let it be my fate always to love,
2. And to obey Love's will in proper season.

1. But you, O mighty Love, of gods and men
2. The sovereign ruler, either bid what's fair
3. To seem no longer fair; or else bring aid
4. To hapless lovers whom you've caused to love,
5. And aid the labours you yourself have prompted.
6. If you do this, the gods will honour you;
7. But if you keep aloof, you will not even
8. Retain the gratitude which now they feel
9. For having learnt of you the way to love.
[*](From the Andromeda.)

And Pontianus said that Zeno the Cittiæan thought that Love was the God of Friendship and Liberty, and also that he was the great author of concord among men; but that he had no other office. On which account, he says in his Polity, that Love is a God, being one who cooperates in securing the safety of the city. And the philosophers, also, who preceded him considered Love a venerable Deity, removed from everything discreditable: and this is plain from their having set up holy statues in his honour in their Gymnasia, along with those of Mercury and Hercules—the one of whom is the patron of eloquence, and the other of valour. And when these are united, friendship and unanimity are engendered; by means of which the most perfect liberty is secured to those who excel in these practices. But the Athenians were so far from thinking that Love presided over the gratification of the mere sensual appetites, that, though the Academy was manifestly consecrated to Minerva, they yet erected in that place also a statue of Love, and sacrificed to it.

The Thespians also celebrate Erotidia, or festivals of Love, just as the Athenians do Athenæa, or festivals of Minerva, and as the Eleans celebrate the Olympian festivals, and the Rhodians the Halæan. And in the public sacrifices, everywhere almost, Love is honoured. And the Lacedæmonians offer sacrifices to Love before they go to battle, thinking that safety and victory depend on the friendship of those who stand side by side in the battle array. And the Cretans, in their line of battle, adorn the handsomest of their citizens, and employ them to offer sacrifices to Love on behalf of the state, as Sosicrates relates. And the regiment among the Thebans which is called the Sacred Band, is wholly composed of mutual lovers, indicating the majesty of the God, as

After this had been said, Plutarch cited the following passage from the Phædrus of Alexis:—

1. As I was coming from Piræus lately,
2. In great perplexity and sad distress,
3. I fell to thoughts of deep philosophy.
4. And first I thought that all the painters seem
5. Ignorant of the real nature of Love;
6. And so do all the other artists too,
7. Whoe'er make statues of this deity:,
8. For he is neither male nor female either;
9. Again, he is not God, nor yet is he man:
10. He is not foolish, nor yet is he wise;
11. But he's made up of all kinds of quality,
12. And underneath one form bears many natures.
13. His courage is a man's; his cowardice
14. A very woman's. Then his folly is
15. Pure madness, but his wisdom a philosopher's;
16. His vehemence is that of a wild beast,
17. But his endurance is like adamant;
18. His jealousy equals any other god's.
19. And I, indeed,—by all the gods I swear,—
20. Do not myself precisely understand him;
21. But still he much resembles my description,
22. Excepting in the name.

1. What man was he, what modeller or painter,
2. Who first did represent young Love as wing'd?
3. He was a man fit only to draw swallows,
4. Quite ignorant of the character of the god.
5. For he's not light, nor easy for a man
6. Who's once by him been master'd, to shake off
7. But he's a heavy and tenacious master.
8. How, then, can he be spoken of as wing'd?
9. The man's a fool who such a thing could say.

1. For this opinion is by all the Sophists
2. Embraced, that Love is not a winged god;
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3. But that the winged parties are the lovers,
4. And that he falsely bears this imputation:
5. So that it is out of pure ignorance
6. That painters clothe this deity with wings.

And Theophrastus, in his book on Love, says that Chseremon the tragedian said in one of his plays, that—

1. As wine adapts itself to the constitution
2. Of those who drink it, so likewise does Love
3. Who, when he's moderately worshipp'd,
4. Is mild and manageable; but if loosed
5. From moderation, then is fierce and troublesome.

On which account the same poet afterwards, distinguishing his powers with some felicity, says—

1. For he doth bend a double bow of beauty,
2. And sometimes men to fortune leads,
3. But sometimes overwhelms their lives
4. With trouble and confusion.

But the same poet also, in his play entitled The Wounded Man, speaks of people in love in this manner:—

1. Who would not say that those who love alone
2. Deserve to be consider'd living men?
3. For first of all they must be skilful soldiers,
4. And able to endure great toil of body,
5. And to stick close to th' objects of their love :
6. They must be active, and inventive too,
7. Eager, and fertile in expedients,
8. And prompt to see their way in difficulties.

And Theophilus, in his Man fond of the Flute, says—

1. Who says that lovers are devoid of sense?
2. He is himself no better than a fool:
3. For if you take away from life its pleasures,
4. You leave it nothing but impending death.
5. And I myself am now indeed in love
6. With a fair maiden playing on the harp;

1. And tell me, pray, am I a fool for that.
2. She's fair, she's tall, she's skilful in her art;
3. And I'm more glad when I see her, than you
4. When you divide your salaries among you.

1. Now, is not Love deservedly cast out
2. From his place among the twelve immortal gods?
3. For he did sow the seeds of great confusion,
4. And quarrels dire, among that heavenly ban
5. When he was one of them. And, as he was
6. Bold and impertinent, they clipp'd his wing
7. That he might never soar again to heaven;
8. And then they banished him to us below;
9. And for the wings which he did boast before
10. Them they did give to Victory, a spoil
11. Well won, and splendid, from her enemy.

1. What say'st thou?—dost thou think that all your words
2. Could e'er persuade me that that man's a lover
3. Who falls in love with a girl's manners only
4. And never thinks what kind of face she's got?
5. I call him mad; nor can I e'er believe
6. That a poor man, who often sees a rich one,
7. Forbears to covet some of his great riches.

1. The man who falls in love with beauty's flower,
2. And taketh heed of nothing else, may be
3. A lover of pleasure, but not of his love;
4. And he does openly disparage Love,
5. And causes him to be suspect to others.

Myrtilus, having cited these lines of Alexis, and then looking round on the men who were partisans of the Stoic school, having first recited the following passage out of the Iambics of Hermeas the Curian—

1. Listen, you Stoiclings, traffickers in nonsense
2. Punners on words,—gluttons, who by yours
3. Eat up the whole of what is in the dishes,
4. And give no single bit to a philosopher.
5. Besides, you are most clearly proved to do
6. All that is contrary to those professions
7. Which you so pompously parade abroad,
8. Hunting for beauty;—

the proper object of love is not the body, but the mind;

1. Great was thy aim, and mighty is the prize.

Iliad, x. 401.

But Hegesander, in his Commentaries, says that all men love seasoned dishes, but not plain meats, or plainly dressed fish. And accordingly, when seasoned dishes are wanting, no one willingly eats either meat or fish; nor does any one desire meat which is raw and unseasoned. For anciently men used to love boys (as Aristophon relates); on which account it came to pass that the objects of their love were called παιδικά. And it was with truth (as Clearchus says in the first book of his treatise on Love and the Affairs of Love) that Lycophronides said—

1. No boy, no maid with golden ornaments,
2. No woman with a deep and ample robe,
3. Is so much beautiful as modest; for
4. 'Tis modesty that gives the bloom to beauty.

1. And in his eyes the charm which love compels
2. Shines forth a light, embellishing his face:
3. He glows himself, and he makes me glow too,
4. Measuring my eyes with his,—as any builder
5. Makes his work correspond to his careful rule.
[*](This fragment is from the Hippodamia.)

And Licymnius the Chian, saying that Somnus was in love with Endymion, represents him as refusing to close the eyes of the youth even when he is asleep; but the God sends his beloved object to sleep with his eyelids still open,

1. But Somnus much delighted
2. In the bright beams which shot from his eyes,
3. And lull'd the youth to sleep with unclosed lids.

1. Stand opposite, my love,
2. And open upon me
3. The beauteous grace which from your eyes doth flow.

1. Oh, boy, as maiden fair,
2. I fix my heart on you;
3. But you despise my prayer,
4. And little care that you do hold the reins
5. Which my soul's course incessantly do guide.

Ode 67.

1. The man who gazes on the brilliant rays
2. Which shoot from th' eyes
3. Of beautiful Theoxenus, and yet can feel his heart
4. Unmoved within his breast, nor yields to love,
5. Must have a heart
6. Black, and composed of adamant or iron.
[*](This is not from any one of the odes, which we have entire; but is only a fragment.)

1. O Galatea,
2. Nymph with the beauteous face and golden hair,
3. Whose voice the Graces tune,
4. True flower of love, my beauteous Galatea.

1. Beauteous Euryalus, of all the Graces
2. The choicest branch,—object of love to all
3. The fair hair'd maidens,—sure the soft-eyed goddess,
4. The Cyprian queen, and soft Persuasion
5. Combin'd to nourish you on beds of roses.

1. The light of love shines in his purple cheeks.

But you prefer having all the objects of your love shaved and hairless. And this custom of shaving the beard originated in the age of Alexander, as Chrysippus tells us in the fourth book of his treatise on The Beautiful and on Pleasure. And I think it will not be unseasonable if I quote what he says; for he is an author of whom I am very fond, on account of his great learning and his gentle good-humoured disposition. And this is the language of the philosopher:—

The custom of shaving the beard was introduced in the time of Alexander, for the people in earlier times did not practise it; and Timotheus the flute-player used to play on the flute having a very long beard. And at Athens they even now remember that the man who first shaved his chin, (and he is not a very ancient man indeed,) was given the surname of κόρσης; [*](From κείρω, to cut the hair.): on which account Alexis says—

1. Do you see any man whose beard has been
2. Removed by sharp pitch-plasters or by razors?
3. In one of these two ways he may be spoken of:
4. Either he seems to me to think of war,
5. And so to be rehearsing acts of fierce
6. Hostility against his beard and chin;
7. Or else he's some complaint of wealthy men.
8. For how, I pray you, do your beards annoy you?—
9. Beards by which best you may be known as men?
10. Unless, indeed, you're planning now some deed
11. Unworthy of the character of men.

And Diogenes, when he saw some one once whose chin was smooth, said, 'I am afraid you think you have great ground to accuse nature, for having made you a man and not a woman.' And once, when he saw another man, riding a horse, who was shaved in the same manner, and perfumed all over, and clothed, too, in a fashion corresponding to those particulars, he said that he had often asked what a ʽἱππόπορνος was; and now he had found out. And at Rhodes, though there is a law against shaving, still no one ever prosecutes another for doing so, as the whole population is shaved. And at Byzantium, though there is a penalty to which any barber is liable who is possessed of a razor, still every one uses a razor none the less for that law.

But that wise Zeno, as Antigonus the Carystian says, speaking, as it should seem, almost prophetically of the lives

those who misunderstood and failed rightly to enter into the spirit of his words, would become dirty and ungentlemanlike-looking; just as those who adopted Aristippus's sect, but perverted his precepts, became intemperate and shameless.

1. Thin, starved philosophers, as dry as leather,

But I am a great admirer of beauty myself. For, in the contests [at Athens] for the prize of manliness, they select the handsomest, and give them the post of honour to bear the sacred vessels at the festivals of the gods. And at Elis there is a contest as to beauty, and the conqueror has the vessels of the goddess given to him to carry; and the next handsomest has the ox to lead, and the third places the sacrificial cakes on the head of the victim. But Heraclides Lembus relates that in Sparta the handsomest man and the handsomest woman have special honours conferred on them; and Sparta is famous for producing the handsomest women in the world. On which account they tell a story of king Archidamus, that when one wife was offered to him who was very handsome, and another who was ugly but rich, and he chose the rich one, the Ephori imposed a fine upon him, saying that he had preferred begetting kinglings rather than kings for the Spartans. And Euripides has said—

1. Her very mien is worthy of a kingdom.

From the Aeolus.

1. They cried, "No wonder such celestial charms
2. For nine long years have set the world in arms;—
3. What winning graces! what majestic mien!
4. She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen."

Illiad, iii. 156.

1. Say, what Greek is he
2. Around whose brow such martial graces shine,—
3. So tall, so awful, and almost divine?
4. Though some of larger stature tread the green,
5. None match his grandeur and exalted mien.

Ib. iii. 170.

1. The matchless Ganymede, divinely fair,
2. Whom Heaven, enamour'd, snatch'd to upper air.

Ib. xx. 234.

And Cynulcus said:—And do you dare to talk in this way, you who are not

rosy fingered,

But not one of their servants ever would have venture to eat or drink in a cookshop; for they studied to keep up the dignity of their appearance, and not to behave like buffoons.

Oh, what a learned man you are! how far are you from imitating Theomandrus of Cyrene, who, as Theophrastus, in his treatise on Happiness, says, used to go about and profess that he gave lessons in prosperity. You, you teacher of love, are in no respect better than Amasis of Elis, whom Theophrastus, in his treatise on Love, says was extraordinarily addicted to amatory pursuits. And a man will not be much out who calls you a πορνογράφος, just as they call Aristides and Pausanias and Nicophanes ζωγράφοι. And Polemo mentions them, as painting the subjects which they did paint exceedingly well, in his treatise on the Pictures at Sicyon. Think, my friends, of the great and varied learning of this grammarian, who does not conceal what he means, but openly quotes the verses of Eubulus, in his Cercopes—

1. I came to Corinth; there I ate with pleasure
2. Some herb called basil (ocimum), and was ruined by it;
3. And also, trifling there, I lost my cloak.