Deipnosophistae

Alexander the king was also very much in the habit

Charon the Chalcidian had a boy of great beauty, who was a great favourite of his: but when Alexander, on one occasion, at a great entertainment given by Craterus, praised this boy very much, Charon bade the boy go and salute Alexander: and he said, 'Not so, for he will not please me so much as he will vex you.' For though the king was of a very amorous disposition, still he was at all times sufficiently master of himself to have a due regard to decorum, and to the preservation of appearances. And in the same spirit, when he had taken as prisoners the daughters of Darius, and his wife, who was of extraordinary beauty, he not only abstained from offering them any insult, but he took care never to let them feel that they were prisoners at all; but ordered them to be treated in every respect, and to be supplied with everything, just as if Darius had still been in his palace; on which account, Darius, when he heard of this conduct, raised his hands to the Sun and prayed that either he might be king, or Alexander.

But Ibycus states that Talus was a great favourite of Rhadamanthus the Just. And Diotimus, in his Heraclea, says that Eurystheus was a great favourite of Hercules, on which account he willingly endured all his labours for his sake. And it is said that Argynnus was a favourite of Agamemnon; and that they first became acquainted from Agamemnon seeing Argynnus bathing in the Cephisus. And afterwards, when he was drowned in this river, (for he was continually bathing in it,) Agamemnon buried him, and raised a temple on the spot to Venus Argynnis. But Licymnius of Chios, in his Dithyrambics, says that it was Hymenæus of whom Argynnus was a favourite. And Aristocles the harp-player was a favourite of King Antigonus: and Antigonus the Carystian, in his Life of Zeno, writes of him in the following terms: —

Antigonus the king used often to go to sup with Zeno; and once, as he was returning by daylight from some entertainment, he went to Zeno's house, and persuaded him to go

v.3.p.963

with him to sup with Aristocles the harp-player, who was an excessive favourite of the king's.

Sophocles, too, had a great fancy for hating boy-favourites, equal to the addiction of Euripides for women. And accordingly, Ion the poet, in his book on the Arrival of Illustrious Men in the Island of Chios, writes thus:—"I met Sophocles the poet in Chios, when he was sailing to Lesbos as the general: he was a man very pleasant over his wine, and very witty. And when Hermesilaus, who was connected with him by ancient ties of hospitality, and who was also the proxenus[*]("Of far greater importance was the public hospitality (προξενία) which existed between two states, or between an individual or a family on the one hand, and a whole state on the other . . . . When two states established public hospitality, it was necessary that in each state persons should be appointed to show hospitality to, and watch over the interests of all persons who came from the state connected by hospitality. The persons who were appointed to this office, as the recognised agents of the state for which they acted, were called πρόξενοι. . . . . . "The office of πρόξενος, which bears great resemblance to that of a modern consul, or minister resident, was in some cases hereditary in a particular family. When a state appointed a proxenus, it either sent out one of its own citizens to reside in the other state, or it selected one of the citizens of the other, and conferred on him the honour of proxenus . . . . This custom seems in later times to have been univer- sally adopted by the Greeks. . . . "The principal duties of a proxenus were to receive those persons, especially ambassadors, who came from the state which he represented; to procure for them admission to the assembly, and seats in the theatre; to act as the patron of the strangers, and to mediate between the two states, if any dispute arose. If a stranger died in the state, the proxenus of his country had to take care of the property of the deceased. The proxenus usually enjoyed exemption from taxes; and their persons were inviolable both by sea and land."—Smith, Diet. Ant. v. Hospitium, p. 491. ) of the Athenians, entertained him, the boy who was mixing the wine was standing by the fire, being a boy of a very beautiful complexion, but made red by the fire: so Sophocles called him and said, 'Do you wish me to drink with pleasure? and when he said that he did, he said, 'Well, then, bring me the cup, and take it away again in a leisurely manner.' And as the boy blushed all the more at this, Sophocles said to the guest who was sitting next to him, 'How well did Phrynichus speak when he said—

1. The light of love doth shine in purple cheeks.

1. The maid pour'd forth a gentle voice
2. From out her purple mouth.

Pindar, Ol. vi. 71.

And Hieronymus of Rhodes, in his Historic Commen- taries, says that Sophocles was not always so moderate, but that he at times committed grater excesses, and gave Euripides a handle to reproach him, as bringing himself into disrepute by his excessive intemperance.

And Theopompus, in his treatise on the Treasures of which the Temple at Delphi was plundered, says that

Asopichus, being a favourite of Epaminondas, had the trophy of Leuctra represented in relief on his shield, and that he encountered danger with extraordinary gallantry; and that this shield is consecrated at Delphi, in the portico.

Phayllus, the tyrant of Phocis, was extremely addicted to women; but that Onomarchus used to select boys as his favourites: and that he had a favourite, the son of Pythodorus the Sicyonian, to whom, when he came to Delphi to devote his hair to the god (and he was a youth of great beauty), Onomarchus gave the offerings of the Sybarites-four golden combs. And Phayllus gave to the daughter of Diniades, who was a female flute-player, a Bromiadian,[*](Schweighauser says this word is to him totally unintelligible.) a silver goblet of the Phocæans, and a golden crown of ivy-leaves, the offering of the Peparethians. And,

Onomarchus also gave,

And Philomelus gave to Pharsalia, a dancing-woman from Thessaly, a golden crown of laurel-leaves, which had been offered by the Lampsacenes. But Pharsalia herself was afterwards torn to pieces at Metapontum, by the soothsayers, in the market-place, on the occasion of a voice coming forth out of the brazen laurel which the people of Metapontum had set up at the time when Aristeas of Proconnesus was sojourning among them, on his return, as he stated, from the

v.3.p.966

Hyperboreans, the first moment that she was seen entering the market-place. And when men afterwards inquired into the reason for this violence, she was found to have been put to death on account of this crown which belonged to the god.

Now I warn you, O philosophers, who indulge in unnatural passions, and who treat the great goddess Venus with impiety, to beware, lest you be destroyed in the same manner. For boys are only handsome, as Glycera the courtesan said, while they are like women: at least, this is the saying attributed to her by Clearchus. But my opinion is that the conduct of Cleonymus the Spartan was in strict conformity with nature, who was the first man to take such hostages as he took from the Metapontines—namely, two hundred of their most respectable and beautiful virgins; as is related by Duris the Samian, in the third book of his History of Agathocles. And I too, as is said by Epicrates in his Antilais,

1. Have learnt by heart completely all the songs
2. Breathing of love which sweetest Sappho sang,
3. Or the Lamynthian Cleomenes.

1. And such another circumstance, they say,
2. Took place in Samos: there a man did fall
3. In love with a fair maiden wrought in marble,
4. And shut himself up with her in the temple.

1. But once a man, 'tis said, did fall, at Samos,
2. In love with a marble woman; and he went
3. And shut himself up with her in the temple.

And even brute beasts have fallen in love with men: for there was a cock who took a fancy to a man of the name of Secundus, a cupbearer of the king; and the cock was nicknamed the Centaur. But this Secundus was a slave of Nicomedes the king of Bithynia; as Nicander informs us in the sixth book of his essay on the Revolutions of Fortune. And, at Egium, a goose took a fancy to a boy; as Clearchus relates in the first book of his Amatory Anecdotes. And Theophrastus, in his essay on Love, says that the name of this boy was Amphilochus, and that he was a native of Olenus. And Hermeas the son of Hermodorus, who was a Samian by birth, says that a goose also took a fancy to Lacydes the philosopher. And in Leucadia according to a story told by Clearchus), a peacock fell so in love with a maiden there, that when she died, the bird died top. There is a story also that, at Iasus, a dolphin took a fancy to a boy (and this story is told by Duris, in the ninth book of his History); and the subject of that book is the history of Alexander, and the historian's words are these: "He likewise sent for the boy from Iasus. For near Iasus there was a boy whose name was Dionysius, and he once, when leaving the palæstra with the rest of the boys, went down to the sea and bathed; and a dolphin came forward out of the deep water to meet him, and taking him on his back, swam sway with him a considerable distance into the open sea, and then brought him back again to land." But the dolphin is an animal which is very fond of men, and very intelligent, and one very susceptible of gratitude. Accordingly Phylarchus, in his twelfth book, says—

Coiranus the Milesian, when he saw some fishermen who had caught a dolphin in a net, and who

v.3.p.968

were about to cut it up, gave them some money and bought the fish, and took it down and put it back in the sea again. And after this it happened to him to be shipwrecked near Myconos, and while every one else perished, Coiranus alone was saved by a dolphin. And when, at last, he died of old age in his native country, as it so happened that his funeral procession passed along the sea-shore close to Miletus, a great shoal of dolphins appeared on that day in the harbour, keeping only a very little distance from those who were attending the funeral of Coiranus, as if they also were joining in the procession and sharing in their grief.

The same Phylarchus also relates, in the twentieth book of his History, the great affection which was once displayed by an elephant for a boy. And his words are these:

But there was a female elephant kept with this elephant, and the name of the female elephant was Nicæa; and to her the wife of the king of India, when dying, entrusted her child, which was just a month old. And when the woman did die, the affection for the child displayed by the beast, was most extraordinary; for it could not endure the child to be away; and whenever it did not see him, it was out of spirits. And so, whenever the nurse fed the infant with milk, she placed it in its cradle between the feet of the beast; and if she had not done so, the elephant would not take any food; and after this, it would take whatever reeds and grass there were near, and, while the child was sleeping, beat away the flies with the bundle. And whenever the child wept, it would rock the cradle with its trunk, and lull it to sleep. And very often the male elephant did the same.

But you, O philosophers, are far fiercer than dolphins and elephants, and are also much more untameable; although Persæus the Cittiæan, in his Recollections of Banquets, says loudly,—“It is a very consistent subject of conversation at drinking-parties for men to talk of amatory matters; for we are naturally inclined to such topics after drinking. And at those times we should praise those who indulge in that kind of conversation to a moderate and temperate degree, but blame those who go to excess in it, and behave in a beastly manner. But if logicians, when assembled in a social party, were to talk about syllogisms, then a man might very fairly think that they were acting very unseasonably. And a

"And one of the philosophers who was once drinking with us, when a flute-playing girl came in, and when there was plenty of room near him, when the girl wished to sit down near him, would not allow her, but drew himself up and looked grave. And then afterwards, when the girl was put up to auction, as is often the fashion at such entertainments, he was exceedingly eager to buy her, and quarrelled with the man who sold her, on the ground that he had knocked her down too speedily to some one else; and he said that the auctioneer had not fairly sold her. And at last his grave philosopher, he who at first would not permit the girl even to sit near him, came to blows about her." And perhaps this very philosopher, who came to blows about the flute-playing girl, may have been Persæus himself; for Antinus the Carystian, in his treatise on Zeno, makes the following statement:—

Zeno the Cittiæan, when once Persæus and a drinking-party bought a flute-playing girl, and after that was afraid to bring her home, because he lived in the same house with Zeno, becoming acquainted with the circumstance, brought the girl home himself, and shut her up with Persæus.

Kings, too, have shown great anxiety about musical women; as Parmenion tells us in his Letter to Alexander, which he sent to that monarch after he had taken Damascus, and after he had become master of all the baggage of Darius. Accordingly, having enumerated all the things which he had taken, he writes as follows:—

I found three hundred and twenty-nine concubines of the king, all skilled in music; and forty-six men who were skilful in making garlands, and two hundred and seventy-seven confectioners, and twenty-nine boilers of pots, and thirteen cooks skilful in pre- paring milk, and seventeen artists who mixed drinks, and seventy slaves who strain wine, and forty preparers of perfumes.

1. And one did lie with garment well thrown back,
2. Showing her snow-white bosom to the moon:
3. Another, as she lightly danced, display'd
4. The fair proportions of her lefthand side,
5. Naked-a lovely picture for the air
6. To wanton with; and her complexion white
7. Strove with the darkening shades. Another bared
8. Her lovely arms and taper fingers all:
9. Another, with her robe high round her neck,
10. Conceal'd her bosom, but a rent below
11. Show'd all her shapely thighs. The Graces smiled,
12. And love, not without hope, did lead me on.
13. Then on th' inviting asphodel they fell,
14. Plucking the dark leaves of the violet flower,
15. And crocus, which, with purple petals rising,
16. Copies the golden rays of the early sun.
17. There, too, the Persian sweetly-smelling marjoram
18. Stretch'd out its neck along the laughing meadow.

And the same poet, being passionately fond of flowers, says also in his Alphesibcea—

1. The glorious beauty of her dazzling body
2. Shone brilliant, a sweet sight to every eye;
3. And modesty, a tender blush exciting,
4. Tinted her gentle cheeks with delicate rose:
5. Her waxy hair, in gracefully modell'd curls,
6. Falling as though arranged by sculptor's hand,
7. Waved in the wanton breeze luxuriant.

1. Strewing around sweet children of the spring.

1. There, too, they did invade the countless host
2. Of all the new-born flowers that deck the fields,
3. Hunting with joy the offspring of the meadows.

1. The ivy, lover of the dance,
2. Child of the mirthful year.

1. And in their hair the Hours' choicest gifts
2. They wore, the flowering, fragrant rose,
3. The loveliest foster-child of spring.

1. The brilliant rose, and modest snow-white lily.

1. There was full many a store of Venus to view,
2. Dark in the rich flowers in due season ripe.

Now there have been many women celebrated for their beauty (for, as Euripides says—

1. E'en an old bard may sing of memory)

And Theopompus, in the fifty-sixth book of his History, speaks of Xenopithea, the mother of Lysandrides, as the most beautiful of all the women in Peloponnesus. And the Lacedæmonians put her to death, and her sister Chryse also, when Agesilaus the king, having raised a seditious tumult in the city, procured Lysandrides, who was his enemy, to be banished by the Lacedæmonians. Pantica of Cyprus was

O wretched man, you are marrying with your eyes, and not with your understanding.

And he also gave the woman, by name Phya, who had been in the chariot with him, in marriage to his son Hipparchus. And she was the daughter of a man named Socrates. And he took for Hippias, who succeeded him in the tyranny, the daughter of Charmus the polemarch, who was extraordinarily beautiful.

And it happened, as it is said, that Charmus was a great admirer of Hippias, and that he was the man who first erected a statue of Love in the Academy, on which there is the following inscription—

1. O wily Love, Charmus this altar raised
2. At the well-shaded bounds of her Gymnasium.

1. Land of fair women;—

I am aware, too, that on one occasion there was a contest of beauty instituted among women. And Nicias, speaking of it in his History of Arcadia, says that Cypselus instituted it, having built a city in the plain which is watered by the Alpheus; in which he established some Parrhasians, and consecrated a plot of sacred ground and an altar to Ceres of Eleusis, in whose festival it was that he had instituted this contest of beauty. And he says that the woman who gained the victory in this contest was Herodice. And

But in some places,

there are contests between the women in respect of modesty and good management, as there are among the barbarians; and at other places also there are contests about beauty, on the ground that this also is entitled to honour, as for instance, there are in Tenedos and Lesbos. But they say that this is the gift of chance, or of nature; but that the honour paid to modesty ought to be one of a greater degree. For that it is in consequence of modesty that beauty is beautiful; for without modesty it is apt to be subdued by intemperance.

Now, when Myrtilus had said all this in a connected statement; and when all were marvelling at his memory, Cynulcus said—

1. Your multifarious learning I do wonder at—
2. Though there is not a thing more vain and useless,

A great variety of information does not usually give wisdom.

1. There is great ostentation and parade
2. Of multifarious learning, than which nothing
3. Can be more vain or useless.

Do I not then deservedly detest all you philosophers, since you are all haters of philology,—men whom not only did Lysimachus the king banish from his own dominions, as Carystius tells us in his Historic Reminiscenses, but the Athenians did so too. At all events, Alexis, in his Horse, says—

1. Is this the Academy; is this Xenocrates?
2. May the gods greatly bless Demetrius
3. And all the lawgivers; for, as men say,
4. They've driven out of Attica with disgrace
5. All those who do profess to teach the youth
6. Learning and science.

1. Alas, you're a philosopher; but I
2. Do think philosophers are only wise
3. In quibbling about words; in deeds they are,
4. As far as I can see, completely foolish.

It is, therefore, with good reason that many cities, and especially the city of the Lacedæmonians, as Chamæleon says in his book on Simonides, will not admit either rhetoric or philosophy, on account of the jealousy, and strife, and profitless discussions to which they give rise; owing to which it was that, Socrates was put to death; he, who argued

And, in short, according to Clearchus the Solensian, you do not adopt a manly system of life, but you do really aim at a system which might become a dog; but although this animal has four excellent qualities, you select none but the worst of his qualities for your imitation. For a dog is a wonderful animal as to his power of smelling and of distinguishing what belongs to his own family and what does not; and the way in which he associates with man and the manner in which he watches over and protects the houses of all those who are kind to him, is extraordinary. But you who imitate the dogs, do neither of these things. For you do not associate with men, nor do you distinguish, between those with whom you are acquainted; and being very deficient in sensibility, you live in an indolent and indifferent manner. But while the dog is also a snarling and greedy animal, and also hard in his way of living, and naked; these habits of his you practise, being abusive and gluttonous, and, besides all this, living without a home or a hearth. The result of all which circumstances is, that you are destitute of virtue, and quite unserviceable for any useful purpose in life. For there is nothing less philosophical than those persons who are called philosophers. For whoever supposed that Aeschines, the pupil of Socrates, would have been such a man in his manners as Lysias the orator, in his speeches on the Contracts, represents him to have been; when, out of the dialogues which are extant, and generally represented to be his work, we are inclined to admire him as an equitable and moderate man? unless, indeed, those writings are in reality the work of the wise Socrates, and were given to Aeschines by Xanthippe, the wife of Socrates, after his death, which Idomeneus asserts to be the case.

But Lysias, in the oration which bears this title—

Against Aeschines, the Pupil of Socrates, for Debt,

I never should have imagined, O judges, that Aeschines would have dared to come into court on a trial which is so discreditable to him. For a more disgracefully false accusation than the one which he has brought forward, I do not believe it to be easy to find. For he, O judges, owing a sum of money with a covenanted interest of three drachmæ to Sosinomus the banker and Aristogiton, came to me, and besought me not to allow him to be wholly stripped of his own property, in consequence of this high interest. ' And I,' said he, am at this moment carrying on the trade of a perfumer; but I want capital to go on with, and I will pay you nine[*](This would have been 18 per cent. Three drachmæ were about 36 per cent. The former appears to have been the usual rate of interest at Athens in the time of Lysias; for we find in Demosthenes that interest ἐπὶ δραχμῇ, that is to say, a drachma a month interest for each mina lent, was considered low. It was exceedingly common, however, among the money-lenders, to exact an exorbitant rate of interest, going even as high as a drachma every four days.—See Smith's Dict. Ant. v. Interest, p. 524.) obols a month interest.

1. Why should he practise a perfumer's trade,
2. Sitting beneath a high umbrella there,
3. Preparing for himself a seat on which
4. To gossip with the youths the whole day long?

1. And no one ever saw a female cook
2. Or any fishwoman; for every class
3. Should practise arts which are best suited to it.

And I was persuaded by this speech of his, considering also that this Aeschines had been the pupil of Socrates, and was a man who uttered fine sentiments about

v.3.p.977

virtue and justice, and who would never attempt nor venture on the actions practised by dishonest and unjust men.

And after this again, after he had run through the accusation of Aeschines, and had explained how he had bor- rowed the money, and how he never paid either interest or principal, and how, when an action was brought against him, he had allowed judgment to go by default, and how a branded slave of his had been put forward by him as security; and after he had brought a good many more charges of the same kind against him, he thus proceeded:—“But, O judges, I am not the only person to whom he behaves in this manner, but he treats every one who has any dealings with him in the same manner. Are not even all the wine-sellers who live near him, from whom he gets wine for his entertainments and never pays for it, bringing actions against him, having already closed their shops against him? And his neighbours are ill- treated by him to such a degree that they leave their own houses, and go and rent others which are at a distance from him. And with respect to all the contributions which he collects, he never himself puts down the remaining share which is due from him, but all the money which ever gets into this pedlar's hands is lost as if it were utterly destroyed. And such a number of men come to his house daily at dawn, to ask for their money which he owes them, that passers-by suppose he must be dead, and that such a crowd can only be collected to attend his funeral.

And those men who live in the Piræus have such an opi- nion of him, that they think it a far less perilous business to sail to the Adriatic than to deal with him; for he thinks that all that he can borrow is much more actually his own thin what his father left him. Has he not got possession of the property of Hermæus the perfumer, after having seduced his wife, though she was seventy years old? whom he pretended to be in love with, and then treated in such a manner that she reduced her husband and her sons to beggary, and made him a per- fumer instead of a pedlar! in so amorous a manner did he handle the damsel, enjoying the fruit of her youth, when it would have been less trouble to him to count her teeth than the fingers of her hand, they were so much fewer And now come forward, you witnesses, who will prove these facts. —This, then, is the life of this sophist.

These, O Cynulcus, are the words of Lysias. But I, in the words of Aristarchus the tragic poet,

1. Saying no more, but this in self-defence,

MOST people, my friend Timocrates, call Bacchus frantic, because those who drink too much unmixed wine become violent

1. To copious wine this insolence we owe,
2. And much thy betters wine can overthrow
3. The great Eurytion, when this frenzy stung,
4. Pirithous' roofs with frantic riot rung:
5. Boundless the Centaur raged, till one and all
6. The heroes rose and dragg'd him from the hall;
7. His nose they shorten'd, and his ears they slit,
8. And sent him sober'd home with better wit.

Odyss. xxi. 293.

1. If all the men who to get drunk are apt,
2. Had every day a headache ere they drank
3. The wine, there is not one would drink a drop:
4. But as we now get all the pleasure first,
5. And then the drink, we lose the whole delight
6. In the sharp pain which follows.

And Xenophon represents Agesilaus as insisting that a man ought to shun drunkenness equally with madness, and immoderate gluttony as much as idleness. But we, as we are not of the class who drink to excess, nor of the number of those who are in the habit of being intoxicated by midday, have come rather to this literary entertainment; for Ulpian, who is always finding fault, reproved some one just now who said, I am not drunk (ἔξοινος), saying,—Where do you find that word ἔξοινος? But he rejoined,—Why, in Alexis, who, in his play called the New Settler, says—

1. He did all this when drunk (ἔξοινος).

But as, after the discussion by us of the new topics which arise, our liberal entertainer Laurentius is every day constantly introducing different kinds of music, and also jesters and buffoons, let us have a little talk about them. Although I am aware that Anacharsis the Scythian, when on one occasion jesters were introduced in his company, remained without moving a muscle of his countenance; but afterwards, when a monkey was brought in, he burst out laughing, and said,

Now this fellow is laughable by his nature, but man is only so through practice.

1. But many men, from the wish to raise a laugh,
2. Practise sharp sayings; but those sorry jesters
3. I hate who let loose their unbridled tongues
4. Against the wise and good; nor do I class them
5. As men at all, but only as jokes and playthings.
6. Meantime they live at ease, and gather up
7. Good store of wealth to keep within their houses.

And Parmeniscus of Metapontum, as Semus tells us in the fifth book of his Delias, a man of the highest consideration both as to family and in respect of his riches, having gone down to the cave of Trophonius, after he had come up again, was not able to laugh at all. And when he consulted the oracle on this subject, the Pythian priestess replied to him—

1. You're asking me, you laughless man,
2. About the power to laugh again;
3. Your mother 'll give it you at home,
4. If you with reverence to her come.

Now Anaxandrides, in his Old Man's Madness, says that it was Rhadamanthus and Palamedes who invented the fashion of jesters; and his words are these:—

1. And yet we labour much.
2. But Palamedes first, and Rhadamanthus,
3. Sought those who bring no other contribution,
4. But say amusing things.

Xenophon also, in his Banquet, mentions jesters; introducing Philip, of whom he speaks in the following manner: —

But Philip the jester, having knocked at the door, told the boy who answered, to tell the guests who he was, and that he was desirous to be admitted; and he said that he came provided with everything which could qualify him for supping at other people's expense. And he said, too, that his boy was in a good deal of distress because he had brought nothing, and because he had had no dinner.

The sixty said this,

I am come from the sixty.

Demetrius Poliorcetes was a man very eager for anything which could make him laugh, as Phylarchus tells us in the sixth book of his History. And he it was who said,

that the palace of Lysimachus was in no respect different from a comic theatre; for that there was no one there bigger than a dissyllable

but that his friends were

v.3.p.981

Peucesteses, and Menelauses, and Oxythemises.

I, however, never saw a prostitute on the stage in a tragedy;

But the prostitute who is with me, lives in a more modest manner than the Penelope who is with him.