Deipnosophistae

JestersConcertsSongsRhapsodistsMagodiHarp-playersMusicDancingDancesMusicMusical InstrumentsMusicLove SongsSweetmeatsDifferent Courses at DinnerDessertCheesecakesCakesVegetablesPomegranatesFigsGrapesPeacocksPartridgesThe HelotsCheeseCooksThe Thessaliansματτύη

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.

For when the wine has penetrated down into the body, as Herodotus says, bad and furious language is apt to rise to the surface. And Clearchus the comic poet says in his Corinthians—

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.

And Euripides, in his Melanippe in Chains, has said—

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.

So, on this, he hoped that when he returned to his country he should be able to laugh again; but when he found that he could laugh no more now than he could before, he considered that he had been deceived; till, by some chance, he came to Delos; and as he was admiring everything he saw in the island, he came into the temple of Latona, expecting to see some very superb statue of the mother of Apollo; but when he saw only a wooden shapeless figure, he unexpectedly burst out laughing. And then, comparing what had happened with the oracle of the god, and being cured of his infirmity, he honoured the goddess greatly.

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.

And Hippolochus the Macedonian, in his epistle to Lynceus, mentions the jesters Mandrogenes and Strato the Athenian. And at Athens there was a great deal of this kind of cleverness. Accordingly, in the Heracleum at Diomea[*](Diomea was a small village in Attica, where there was a celebrated temple of Hercules, and where a festival was kept in his honour: Aristophanes says— ῞ὅποθʼ ʽηράκλεια τὰ ʼν διομείοις γίγνεται.—Ranæ, 651. ) they assembled to the number of sixty, and they were always spoken of in the city as amounting to that number, in such expressions as—

The sixty said this,

and,

I am come from the sixty.

And among them were Callimedon, nicknamed the Crab, and Dinias, and also Mnasigeiton and Menæchmus, as Telephanes tells us in his treatise on the City. And their reputation for amusing qualities was so great, that Philip the Macedonian heard of it, and sent them a talent to engage them to write out their witticisms and send them to him. And the fact of this king having been a man who was very fond of jokes is testified to us by Demosthenes the orator in his Philippics.

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

[*](Because slaves (and the actors were usually slaves) had only names of one, or at most two syllables, such as Davus, Geta, Dromo, Mus.) (meaning to laugh at Bithys and Paris, who had more influence than anybody with Lysimachus, and at some others of his friends;)

but that his friends were

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Peucesteses, and Menelauses, and Oxythemises.

But when Lysimachus heard this, he said,—

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

referring to Lamia the female flute-player. And when this was reported to Demetrius, he rejoined,—

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

And we have mentioned before this that Sylla, the general of the Romans, was very fond of anything laughable. And Lucius Anicius, who was also a general of the Romans, after he had subdued the Illyrians, and brought with him Genthius the king of the Illyrians as his prisoner, with all his children, when he was celebrating his triumphal games at Rome, did many things of the most laughable character possible, as Polybius relates in his thirtieth book:—

For having sent for the most eminent artists from Greece, and having erected a very large theatre in the circus, he first of all introduced all the flute-players. And these were Theodorus the Bœotian, and Theopompus, and Hermippus, surnamed Lysimachus, who were the most eminent men in their profession. And having brought these men in front of the stage after the chorus was over, he ordered them all to play the flute. And as they accompanied their music with appropriate gestures, he sent to them and said that they were not playing well, and desired them to be more vehement. And while they were in perplexity, one of the lictors told them that what Anicius wished was that they should turn round so as to advance towards each other, and give a representation of a battle. And then the flute-players, taking this hint, and adopting a movement not unsuited to their habitual wantonness, caused a great tumult and confusion; and turning the middle of the chorus towards the extremities, the flute-players, all blowing unpremeditated notes, and letting their flutes be all out of tune, rushed upon one another in turn: and at the same time the choruses, all making a noise to correspond to them, and coming on the stage at the same time, rushed also upon one another, and then again retreated, advancing and retreating alternately. But when one of the chorus-dancers tucked up his garment, and suddenly turned round and raised his hands against the flute-player who was coming towards him, as if he was going to box with him, then there arose an extraordinary

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clapping and shouting on the part of the spectators. And while all these men were fighting as if in regular battle, two dancers were introduced into the orchestra with a symphony, and four boxers mounted the stage, with trumpeters and horn-players: and when all these men were striving together, the spectacle was quite indescribable: and as for the tragedians,

says Polybius,

if I were to attempt to describe what took place with respect to them, I should be thought by some people to be jesting.

Now when Ulpian had said thus much, and when all were laughing at the idea of this exhibition of Anicius, a discussion arose about the men who are called πλάνοι. And the question was asked, Whether there was any mention of these men in any of the ancient authors? for of the jugglers (θαυματοποιοὶ) we have already spoken: and Magnus said,— Dionysius of Sinope, the comic poet, in his play entitled the Namesakes, mentions Cephisodorus the πλάνος in the following terms:—

1. They say that once there was a man at Athens,
2. A πλάνος, named Cephisodorus, who
3. Devoted all his life to this pursuit;
4. And he, whenever to a hill he came,
5. Ran straight up to the top; but then descending
6. Came slowly down, and leaning on a stick.

And Nicostratus also mentions him in his Syrian—

1. They say the πλάνος Cephisodorus once
2. Most wittily station'd in a narrow lane
3. A crowd of men with bundles of large faggots,
4. So that no one else could pass that way at all.

There was also a man named Pantaleon, who is mentioned by Theognetus, in his Slave devoted to his Master—

1. Pantaleon himself did none deceive (ἐπλάνα)
2. Save only foreigners, and those, too, such
3. As ne'er had heard of him: and often he,
4. After a drunken revel, would pour forth
5. All sorts of jokes, striving to raise a laugh
6. By his unceasing chattering.

And Chrysippus the philosopher, in the fifth book of his treatise on Honour and Pleasure, writes thus of Pantaleon: —

But Pantaleon the πλάνος, when he was at the point of death, deceived every one of his sons separately, telling each of them that he was the only one to whom he was revealing the place where he had buried his gold; so that they after-

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wards went and dug together to no purpose, and then found out that they had been all deceived.

And our party was not deficient in men fond of raising a laugh by bitter speeches. And respecting a man of this kind, Chrysippus subsequently, in the same book, writes as follows:—

Once when a man fond of saying bitter things was about to be put to death by the executioner, he said that he wished to die like the swan, singing a song; and when he gave him leave, he ridiculed him.

And Myrtilus having had a good many jokes cut on him by people of this sort, got angry, and said that Lysimachus the king had done a very sensible thing; for he, hearing Telesphorus, one of his lieutenants, at an entertainment, ridiculing Arsinoe (and she was the wife of Lysimachus), as being a woman in the habit of vomiting, in the following line—

1. You begin ill, introducing τηνδεμουσαν, [*](τήνδε μοῦσαν, this Muse; τήνδʼ ἐμοῦσαν, this woman vomiting.)—

ordered him to be put in a cage (γαλεάγρα) and carried about like a wild beast, and fed; and he punished him in this way till he died. But if you, O Ulpian, raise a question about the word γαλεάγρα, it occurs in Hyperides the orator; and the passage you may find out for yourself.

And Tachaos the king of Egypt ridiculed Agesilaus king of Lacedæmon, when he came to him as an ally (for he was a very short man), and lost his, kingdom in consequence, as Agesilaus abandoned his alliance. And the expression of Tachaos was as follows:—

1. The mountain was in labour; Jupiter
2. Was greatly frighten'd: lo! a mouse was born.

And Agesilaus hearing of this, and being indignant at it, said,

I will prove a lion to you.

So afterwards, when the Egyptians revolted (as Theopompus relates, and Lyceas of Naucratis confirms the statement in his History of Egypt), Agesilaus refused to cooperate with him, and, in consequence, Tachaos lost his kingdom, and fled to the Persians.

So as there was a great deal of music introduced, and not always the same instruments, and as there was a good deal of discussion and conversation about them, (without always giving the names of those who took part in it,) I will enumerate the chief things which were said. For concerning

flutes, somebody said that Melanippides, in his Marsyas, dis- paraging the art of playing the flute, had said very cleverly about Minerva:—

1. Minerva cast away those instruments
2. Down from her sacred hand; and said, in scorn,
3. "Away, you shameful things—you stains of the body!
4. Shall I now yield myself to such malpractices'"

And some one, replying to him, said,—But Telestes of Selinus, in opposition to Melanippides, says in his Argo (and it is of Minerva that he too is speaking):—

1. It seems to me a scarcely credible thing
2. That the wise Pallas, holiest of goddesses,
3. Should in the mountain groves have taken up
4. That clever instrument, and then again
5. Thrown it away, fearing to draw her mouth
6. Into an unseemly shape, to be a glory
7. To the nymph-born, noisy monster Marsyas.
8. For how should chaste Minerva be so anxious
9. About her beauty, when the Fates had given her
10. A childless, husbandless virginity?

intimating his belief that she, as she was and always was to continue a maid, could not be alarmed at the idea of disfiguring her beauty. And in a subsequent passage he says—

1. But this report, spread by vain-speaking men,
2. Hostile to every chorus, flew most causelessly
3. Through Greece, to raise an envy and reproach
4. Against the wise and sacred art of music.

And after this, in an express panegyric on the art of flute-playing, he says—

1. And so the happy breath of the holy goddess
2. Bestow'd this art divine on Bromius,
3. With the quick motion of the nimble fingers.

And very neatly, in his Aesculapius, has Telestes vindicated the use of the flute, where he says—

1. And that wise Phrygian king who first poured forth
2. The notes from sweetly-sounding sacred flutes,
3. Rivalling the music of the Doric Muse,
4. Embracing with his well-join'd reeds the breath
5. Which fills the flute with tuneful modulation.

And Pratinas the Phliasian says, that when some hired flute-players and chorus-dancers were occupying the orchestra, some people were indignant because the flute-players did not play in tune to the choruses, as was the national custom, but the choruses instead sang, keeping time to the flutes. And

what his opinion and feelings were towards those who did this, Pratinas declares in the following hyporchema:—

1. What noise is this
2. What mean these songs of dancers now?
3. What new unseemly fashion
4. Has seized upon this stage to Bacchus sacred,
5. Now echoing with various noise?
6. Bromius is mine! is mine!
7. I am the man who ought to sing,
8. I am the man who ought to raise the strain,
9. Hastening o'er the hills,
10. In swift inspired dance among the Naiades;
11. Blending a song of varied strain,
12. Like the sweet dying swan.
13. You, O Pierian Muse, the sceptre sway
14. Of holy song:
15. And after you let the shrill flute resound;
16. For that is but the handmaid
17. Of revels, where men combat at the doors,
18. And fight with heavy fists.[*](The text here is corrupt and hopeless.—Schweig. )
19. * * * * *
20. And is the leader fierce of bloody quarrel.
21. Descend, O Bacchus, on the son of Phrynæus,
22. The leader of the changing choir,—
23. Chattering, untimely, leading on
24. The rhythm of the changing song.
25. * * * * w
26. King of the loud triumphal dithyrambic,
27. Whose brow the ivy crowns,
28. Hear this my Doric song.

And of the union of flutes with the lyre (for that concert has often been a great delight to us ourselves), Ephippus, in his Traffic, speaks as follows:—

1. Clearly, O youth, the music of the flute,
2. And that which from the lyre comes, does suit
3. Well with our pastimes; for when each resound
4. In unison with the feelings of those present,
5. Then is the greatest pleasure felt by all.

And the exact meaning of the word συναυλία is shown by Semus the Delian, in the fifth book of his Delias, where he writes—

But as the term 'concert' (συναυλία) is not understood by many people, we must speak of it. It is wren there is a union of the flute and of rhythm in alternation, without any words accompanying the melody.

And Antiphanes explains it very neatly in his Flute-player, where he says—

1. Tell me, I pray you, what this concert (ἡ συναυλία αἵτη) was
2. Which he did give you. For you know; but they
3. Having well learnt, still played.[*](This passage, again, is hopelessly corrupt. Merum Augeee stabu- lum. —Casaub. ). . . . . . .
4. * * * * *
5. A concert of sweet sounds, apart from words,
6. Is pleasant, and not destitute of meaning.

But the poets frequently call the flute

the Libyan flute,

as Duris remarks in the second book of his History of Agathocles, because Seirites, who appears to have been the first inventor of the art of flute-playing, was a Libyan, of one of the Nomad tribes; and he was the first person who played airs on the flute in the festival of Cybele." And the different kinds of airs which can be played on the flute (as Tryphon tells us in the second book of his treatise on Names) have the following names:—the Comus, the Bucoliasmus, the Gingras, the Tetracomus, the Epiphallus, the Choreus, the Callinicus, the Martial, the Hedycomus, the Sicynnotyrbe, the Thyrocopicum, which is the same as the Crousithyrum (or Door-knocker), the Cnismus, the Mothon. And all these airs on the flute, when played, were accompanied with dancing.

Tryphon also gives a list of the different names of songs, as follows. He says—"There is the Himæus, which is also called the Millstone song, which men used to sing while grinding corn, perhaps from the word ἱμαλίς.. But ἱμαλίς is a Dorian word, signifying a return, and also the quantity of corn which the millers gave into the bargain. Then there is the Elinus, which is the song of the men who worked at the loom; as Epicharmus shows us in his Atalantas. There is also the Ioulos, sung by the women who spin. And Semus the Delian, in his treatise on Pæans, says—'"They used to call the handfuls of barley taken separately, ἄμάλαι; but when they were collected so that a great many were made into one sheaf, then they were called οὔλοι and ἴουλοι.. And Ceres herself was called sometimes Chloe, and sometimes Ioulo; and, as being the inventions of this goddess, both the fruits of the ground and also the songs addressed to the goddess were called οὖλοι and ἴουλοι: and so, too, we have the words δημήτρουλοι and καλλίουλοι, and the line—

1. πλεῖστον οὖλον οὖλον ἵει, ἴουλον ἵει.

But others say that the Ioulis is the song of the workers in wool. There are also the songs of nurses, which are called καταβαυκαλήσεις. There was also a song used at the feast of Swings,[*](There is no account of what this feast of Swings was. The Greek is ἔωραι. Some have fancied it may have had some connexion with the images of Bacchus (oscilla) hung up in the trees. See Virg. G. ii. 389.) in honour of Erigone, which is called Aletis. At all events, Aristotle says, in his treatise on the Constitution of the Colophonians—

Theodorus also himself died afterwards by a violent death. And he is said to have been a very luxurious man, as is evident from his poetry; for even now the women sing his songs on the festival of the Swing.

There was also a reaper's song called Lityerses; and another song sung by hired servants when going to the fields, as Teleclides tells us in his Amphictyons. There were songs, too, of bathing men, as we learn from Crates in his Deeds of Daring; and a song of women baking, as Aristophanes intimates in his Thesmophoriazusæ, and Nicochares in his Hercules Choregus. And another song in use among those who drove herds, and this was called the Bucoliasmus. And the man who first invented this species of song was Diomus, a Sicilian cowherd; and it is mentioned by Epicharmus in his Halcyon, and in his Ulysses Shipwrecked. The song used at deaths and in mourning is called Olophyrmus; and the songs called Iouli are used in honour of Ceres and Proserpine. The song sung in honour of Apollo is called Philhelias, as we learn from Telesilla; and those addressed to Diana are called Upingi.

There were also laws composed by Charondas, which were sung at Athens at drinking-parties; as Hermippus tells us in the sixth book of his treatise on Lawgivers. And Aristophanes, in his catalogue of Attic Expressions, say—

The Himæus is the song of people grinding; the Hymenæus is the song used at marriage-feasts; and that employed in lamentation is called Ialemus. But the Linus and the Aelinus are not confined to occasions of mourning, but are in use also in good fortune, as we may gather from Euripides.

But Clearchus, in the first book of his treatise on matters relating to Love, says that there was a kind of song called Nomium, derived from Eriphanis; and his words are these:—"Eriphanis was a lyric poetess, the mistress of Menalcas the hunter; and she, pursuing him with her passions, hunted too. For often frequenting the mountains, and

wandering over them, she came to the different groves, equal- ling in her wanderings the celebrated journeys of Io; so that not only those men who were most remarkable for their deficiency in the tender passion, but even the fiercest beasts, joined in weeping for her misfortunes, perceiving the lengths to which her passionate hopes carried her. Therefore she wrote poems; and when she had composed them, as it is said, she roamed about the desert, shouting and singing the kind of song called Nomium, in which the burden of the song is—

1. The lofty oaks, Menalcas."

And Aristoxenus, in the fourth book of his treatise on Music, says—

Anciently the women used to sing a kind of song called Calyca. Now, this was a poem of Stesichorus, in which a damsel of the name of Calyca, being in love with a young man named Euathlus, prays in a modest manner to Venus to aid her in becoming his wife. But when the young man scorned her, she threw herself down a precipice. And this disaster took place near Leucas. And the poet has represented the disposition of the maiden as very modest; so that she was not willing to live with the youth on his own terms, but prayed that, if possible, she might become the wedded wife of Euathlus; and if that were not possible, that she might be released from life.

But, in his Brief Memoranda, Aristoxenus says—

Iphiclus despised Harpalyce, who was in love with him; but she died, and there has been a contest established among the virgins of songs in her honour, and the contest is called from her, Harpalyce.

And Nymphis, in the first book of his History of Heraclea, speaking of the Maryandyni, says—

And in the same way it is well to notice some songs which, in compliance with a national custom, they sing, in which they invoke some ancient person, whom they address as Bormus. And they say that he was the son of an illustrious and wealthy man, and that he was far superior to all his fellows in beauty and in the vigour of youth; and as he was superintending the cultivation of some of his own lands, and wishing to give his reapers something to drink, he went to fetch some water, and disappeared. Accordingly, they say that on this the natives of the country sought him with a kind of dirge and invocation set to music, which even to this day they are in the habit of using frequently. And a

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similar kind of song is that which is in use among the Egyp- tians, and is called Maneros.

Moreover, there were rhapsodists also present at our entertainments: for Laurentius delighted in the reciters of Homer to an extraordinary degree; so that one might call Cassander the king of Macedonia a trifler in comparison of him; concerning whom Carystius, in his Historic Recollections, tells us that he was so devoted to Homer, that he could say the greater part of his poems by heart; and he had a copy of the Iliad and the Odyssey written out with his own hand. And that these reciters of Homer were called Homeristæ also, Aristocles has told us in his treatise on Choruses. But those who are now called Homeristæ were first introduced on the stage by Demetrius Phalereus.

Now Chamæleon, in his essay on Stesichorus, says that not only the poems of Homer, but those also of Hesiod and Archilochus, and also of Mimnermus and Phocylides, were often recited to the accompaniment of music; and Clearchus, in the first book of his treatise on Pictures, says—

Simonides of Zacynthus used to sit in the theatres on a lofty chair reciting the verses of Archilochus.

And Lysanias, in the first book of his treatise on Iambic Poets, says that Mnasion the rhapsodist used in his public recitations to deliver some of the Iambics of Simonides. And Cleomenes the rhapsodist, at the Olympic games, recited the Purification of Empedocles, as is asserted by Dicæarchus in his history of Olympia. And Jason, in the third book of his treatise on the Temples of Alexander, says that Hegesias, the comic actor, recited the works of Herodotus in the great theatre, and that Hermophantus recited the poems of Homer.

And the men called Hilarodists (whom some people at the present day call Simodists, as Aristocles tells us in his first book on Choruses, because Simus the Magnesian was the most celebrated of all the poets of joyous songs,) frequently come under our notice. And Aristocles also gives a regular list of them in his treatise on Music, here he speaks in the following manner:—

The Magodist—but he is the same as the Lysiodist.

But Aristoxenus says that Magodus is the name given to an actor who acts both male and female characters;[*](There is probably some corruption in this passage: it is clearly unintelligible as it stands.) but that he who acts a woman's part in combination with a man's is called a Lysiodist. And they both sing the same songs, and in other respects they are similar.

The Ionic dialect also supplies us with poems of Sotades, and with what before his time were called Ionic poems, such as those of Alexander the Aetolian, and Pyres the Milesian, and Alexas, and other poets of the same kind; and Sotades is called κιναιδόλογος. And Sotades the Maronite was very notorious for this kind of poetry, as Carystius of Pergamus says in his essay on Sotades; and so was the son of Sotades, Apollonius: and this latter also wrote an essay on his father's poetry, from which one may easily see the unbridled licence of language which Sotades allowed himself,—abusing Lysimachus the king in Alexandria,—and, when at the court of Lysimachus, abusing Ptolemy Philadelphus,-and in different cities speaking ill of different sovereigns; on which account, at last, he met with the punishment that he deserved: for when he had sailed from Alexandria (as Hegesander, in his Reminiscences, relates), and thought that he had escaped all danger, (for he had said many bitter things against Ptolemy the king, and especially this, after he had heard that he had married his sister Arsinoe,—

1. He pierced forbidden fruit with deadly sting,)

Patrocles, the general of Ptolemy, caught him in the island of Caunus, and shut him up in a leaden vessel, and carried him into the open sea and drowned him. And his poetry is of this kind: Philenus was the father of Theodorus the fluteplayer, on whom he wrote these lines:—

1. And he, opening the door which leads from the back-street,
2. Sent forth vain thunder from a leafy cave,
3. Such as a mighty ploughing ox might utter.