Deipnosophistae
Athenaeus of Naucratis
Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists or Banquet Of The Learned Of Athenaeus. Yonge, Charles Duke, translator. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854.
Nicolaus, in the hundred and fourteenth book of his Histories, says that Andromachus of Carrhæ was a flatterer of Licinius Crassus, who commanded the expedition against the Parthians; and that Crassus communicated all his designs to him, and was, in consequence, betrayed to the Parthians by him, and so destroyed. But Andromachus was not allowed by the deity to escape unpunished. For having obtained, as the reward of his conduct, the sovereignty over his native place Carrhæ, he behaved with such cruelty and violence that he was burnt with his whole family by the Carrhans. And Posidonius the Apamean, who was afterwards surnamed Rhodius, in the fourth book of his Histories, says that Hierax of Antioch, who used formerly to accompany the
The whole populace of the Athenians, too, was very notorious for the height to which it pushed its flattery; accordingly, Demochares the cousin of Demosthenes the orator, in the twentieth book of his Histories, speaking of the flattery practised by the Athenians towards Demetrius Poliorcetes, and saying that he himself did not at all like it, writes as follows—
And some of these things annoyed him greatly, as they well might. And, indeed, other parts of their conduct were utterly mean and disgraceful. They consecrated temples to Leæna Venus and Lamia Venus, and they erected altars and shrines as if to heroes, and instituted libations in honour of Burichus, and Adeimantus, and Oxythemis, his flatterers. And poems were sung in honour of all these people, so that even Demetrius himself was astonished at what they did, and said that in his time there was not one Athenian of a great or vigorous mind.The Thebans also flattered Demetrius, as Polemo relates in the treatise on the Ornamented Portico at Sicyon; and they, too, erected a temple to Lamia Venus. But she was one of Demetrius's mistresses, as also was Leæna. So that why should we wonder at the Athenians, who stooped even to become flatterers of flatterers, singing pæans and hymns to Demetrius himself?
Accordingly Demochares, in the twenty-first book of his Histories, says—
And the Athenians received Demetrius when he came from Leucadia and Corcyra to Athens, not only with frankincense, and crowns, and libations of wine, but they even went out to meet him with hymns, and choruses, and ithyphalli, and dancing and singing, and they stood in front of him in multitudes, dancing and singing, and saying that he was the only true god, and that all the rest of the gods were either asleep, or gone away to a distance, or were no god atv.1.p.398all. And they called him the son of Neptune and Venus, for he was eminent for beauty, and affable to all men with a natural courtesy and gentleness of manner. And they fell at his feet and addressed supplications and prayers to him.
Demochares, then, has said all this about the adulatory spirit and conduct of the Athenians. And Duris the Samian, in the twenty-second book of his Histories, has given the very ithyphallic hymn which they addressed to him—
- Behold the greatest of the gods and dearest
- Are come to this city,
- For here Demeter[*](Demeter, δημήτηρ, or as it is written in the text δημήτρα. Ceres, the mother of Proserpine.) and Demetrius are
- Present in season.
- She indeed comes to duly celebrate
- The sacred mysteries
- Of her most holy daughter—he is present
- Joyful and beautiful,
- As a god ought to be, with smiling face
- Showering his blessings round.
- How noble doth he look! his friends around,
- Himself the centre.
- His friends resemble the bright lesser stars,
- Himself is Phœbus.
- Hail, ever-mighty Neptune's mightier son;
- Hail, son of Venus.
- For other gods do at a distance keep,
- Or have no ears,
- Or no existence; and they heed not us—
- But you are present,
- Not made of wood or stone, a genuine god.
- We pray to thee.
- First of all give us peace, O dearest god—
- For you are lord of peace—
- And crush for us yourself, for you've the power,
- 'This odious Sphinx;
- Which now destroys not Thebes alone, but Greece—
- The whole of Greece—
- I mean th' Aetolian, who, like her of old,
- Sits on a rock,
- And tears and crushes all our wretched bodies.
- Nor can we him resist.
- For all th' Aetolians plunder all their neighbours;
- And now they stretch afar
- Their lion hands; but crush them, mighty lord,
- Or send some Œdipus
- Who shall this Sphinx hurl down from off his precipice,
- Or starve him justly.
This is what was sung by the nation which once fought at Marathon, and they sang it not only in public, but in their private houses-men who had once put a man to death for offering adoration to the king of Persia, ad who had slain countless myriads of barbarians. Therefore, Alexis, in his Apothecary or Cratevas, introduces a person pledging one of the guests in a cup of wine, and represents him as saying—
* * * * And presently he adds—
- Boy, give a larger cup, and pour therein
- Four cyathi of strong and friendly drink,
- In honour of all present. Then you shall add
- Three more for love; one for the victory,
- The glorious victory of King Antigonus,
- Another for the young Demetrius.
- Bring a third cup in honour now of Venus,
- The lovely Venus. Hail, my friends and guests;
- I drink this cup to the success of all of you.
Such were the Athenians at that time, after flattery, that worst of wild beasts, had inspired their city with frenzy, that city which once the Pythia entitled the Hearth of Greece, and which Theopompus, who hated them, called the Prytaneum of Greece; he who said in other places that Athens was full of drunken flatterers, and sailors, and pickpockets, and also of false witnesses, sycophants, and false accusers. And it is my opinion that it was they who introduced all the flattery which we have been speaking of, like a storm, or other infliction, sent on men by the gods; concerning which Diogenes said, very elegantly—
That it was much better to go ἐς κόρακας than ἐς κόλακας, who eat up all the good men while they are still alive;and, accordingly, Anaxilas says, in his Young Woman—
And Plato says, in his Phædrus—
- The flatterers are worms which prey upon
- All who have money; for they make an entrance
- Into the heart of a good guileless man,
- And take their seat there, and devour it,
- Till they have drain'd it like the husk of wheat,
- And leave the shell; and then attack some other.
Nature has mingled some pleasure which is not entirely inelegant in its character of a flatterer, though he is an odious beast, and a great injury to a state.And Theophrastus, in his treatise on Flattery,
So that the Thessalians did well who razed the city which was called Colaceia (Flattery), which the Melians used to inhabit, as Theopompus relates in the thirtieth book of his History.
- A flatterer destroys
- By his pernicious speeches
- Both general and prince,
- Both private friends and states;
- He pleases for a while,
- But causes lasting ruin.
- And now this evil habit
- Has spread among the people,
- Our courts are all diseased,
- And all is done by favour.
But Phylarchus says, that those Athenians who settled in Lemnos were great flatterers, mentioning them as such in the thirteenth book of his History. For that they, wishing to display their gratitude to the descendants of Seleucus and Antiochus, because Seleucus not only delivered them when they were severely oppressed by Lysimachus, but also restored both their cities to them,—they, I say, the Athenians in Lemnos, not only erected temples to Seleucus, but also to his son Antiochus; and they have given to the cup, which at their feasts is offered at the end of the banquet, the name of the cup of Seleucus the Saviour.
Now some people, perverting the proper name, call this flattery ἀρέσκεια, complaisance; as Anaxandrides does in his Samian, where he says—
But those who devote themselves to flattery are not aware that that art is one which flourishes only a short time. Accordingly, Alexis says in his Liar—
- For flattery is now complaisance call'd.
- A flatterer's life but a brief space endures,
- For no one likes a hoary parasite.
No flatterer is constant in his friendship. For time destroys the falsehood of his pretences, and a lover is only a flatterer and a pretended friend on account of youth or beauty.One of the flatterers of Demetrius the king was Adeimantus of Lampsacus, who having built a temple in Thriæ, and placed statues in it, called it the temple of Phila Venus, and called the place itself Philæum, from Phila the mother of Demetrius; as we are told by Dionysius the son of Tryphon, in the tenth book of his treatise on Names.
But Clearchus the Solensian, in his book which is inscribed Gergithius, tells us whence the origin of the name flatterer is derived; and mentioning Gergithius himself, from whom the treatise has its name, he says that he was one of Alexander's flatterers; and he tells the story thus—
That flattery debases the characters of the flatterers, making them apt to despise whoever they associate with; and a proof of this is, that they endure everything, well knowing what they dare do. And those who are flattered by them, being puffed up by their adulation, they make foolish and empty-headed, and cause them to believe that they, and everything belonging to them, are of a higher order than other people.And ten proceeding to mention a certain young man, a Paphian by birth, but a king by the caprice of fortune, he says—"This young man (and he does not mention his name) used out of his preposterous luxury to lie on a couch with silver feet, with a smooth Sardian carpet spread under it of the most expensive description. And over him was thrown a piece of purple cloth, edged with a scarlet fringe; and he had three pillows under his head made of the finest linen, and of purple colour, by which he kept himself cool. And under his feet he had two pillows of the kind called Dorian, of a bright crimson colour; and on all this he lay himself, clad in a white robe.
"And all the monarchs who have at any time reigned in Cyprus have encouraged a race of nobly-born flatterers as useful to them; for they are a possession very appropriate to tyrants. And no one ever knows them (any more the they do the judges of the Areopagus), either how many they are, or who they are, except that perhaps some of the most
There were also in this country, in the time of Glutus the Carian, women attaching themselves to the Queens, who were called flatterers; and a few of them who were left crossed the sea, and were sent for to the wives of Artabazus and Mentor, and instead of κολακίδες were called κλιμακίδες from this circumstance. By way of making themselves agreeable to those who had sent for them, they made a ladder (κλίμακια) of themselves, in such a manner that there was a way of ascending over their backs, and also a way of descending, for their mistresses when they drove out in chariots: to such av.1.p.403pitch of luxury, not to say of miserable helplessness, did they bring those silly women by their contrivance therefore, they themselves, when they were compelled by fortune to quit that very luxurious way of living, lived with great hardship in their old age. And the others who had received these habits from us, when they were deprived of their authority came to Macedonia; and the customs which they taught to the wives and princesses of the great men in that country by their association with them, it is not decent even to mention farther than this, that practising magic arts themselves, and being the objects of them when practised by others, they did not spare even the places of the greatest resort, but they became complete vagabonds, and the very scum of the streets, polluted with all sorts of abominations. Such and so great are the evils which seem to be engendered by flattery in the case of all people who admit from their own inclination and predisposition to be flattered.
And a little further Clearchus goes on as follows:— "But still a man may have a right to find fault with that young man for the way in which he used those things, as I have said before. For his slaves stood in short tunics a little behind the couch: and as there are now three men on whose account all this discussion has been originated, and as all these men are men who have separate names among us, the one sat on the couch close to his feet, letting the feet of the young man rest upon his knees, and covering them with a thin cloth; and what he did further is plain enough, even if I do not mention it. And this servant is called by the natives Parabystus, because he works his way into the company of those men even who do not willingly receive him, by the very skilful character of his flatteries. The second was one sitting on a certain chair which was placed close to the couch; and he, holding by the hand of the young mar, as he let it almost drop, and clinging to it, kept on rubbing it, and taking each of his fingers in turn he rubbed it and stretched it, so that the man appeared to have said a very with thing who first gave that officer the name of Sicya.[*](σικύα, a cucumber.) The third, however, was the most noble of all, and was called Theer (or the wild beast), who was indeed the principal person of the whole body, and who stood at his master's head, and shared
So when the young man was stung, this man uttered such a loud scream in his behalf, and was so indignant, that on account of his hatred to one fly he banished the whole tribe of flies from his house: from which it is quite plain that he appointed this servant for this especial purpose.
But Leucon, the tyrant of Pontus, was a different kind of man, who when he knew that many of his friends had been plundered by one of the flatterers whom he had about him, perceiving that the man was calumniating some one of his remaining friends, said,
I swear by the gods that I would kill you if a tyrannical government did not stand in need of bad men.And Antiphanes the comic writer, in his Soldier, gives a similar account of the luxury of the kings in Cyprus. And he represents one of them as asking a soldier these questions—
- A. Tell me now, you had lived some time in Cyprus
- Say you not so?
- B. Yes, all the time of the war.
- A. In what part most especially? tell me that.
- B. In Paphos, where you should have seen the luxury
- That did exist, or you could not believe it.
- A. What kind of luxury?
- B. The king was fann'd
- While at his supper by young turtle-doves
- And by nought else.
- A. How mean you? never mind
- My own affairs, but let me ask you this.
- B. He was anointed with a luscious ointment
- Brought up from Syria, made of some rich fruit
- Which they do say doves love to feed upon.
- They were attracted by the scent and flew
- Around the royal temples; and had dared
- To seat themselves upon the monarch's head,
- But that the boys who sat around with sticks
- Did keep them at a slight and easy distance.
v.1.p.405- And so they did not perch, but hover'd round,
- Neither too far nor yet too near, still fluttering,
- So that they raised a gentle breeze to blow
- Not harshly on the forehead of the king.
The flatterer (κόλαξ) of that young man whom we have been speaking of must have been a μαλακοκόλαξ, (a soft flatterer,) as Clearchus says. For besides flattering such a man as that, he invents a regular gait and dress harmonizing with that of those who receive the flattery, folding his arms and wrapping himself up in a small cloak; on which account some men call him Paranconistes, and some call him a Repository of Attitudes. For really a flatterer does seem to be the very same person with Proteus himself. Accordingly he changes into nearly every sort of person, not only in form, but also in his discourse, so very varied in voice he is.
But Androcydes the physician said that flattery had its name (κολάκεια) from becoming glued (ἀπὸ τοῦ προσκολλᾶσθαι) to men's acquaintance. But it appears to me that they were named from their facility; because a flatterer will undergo anything, like a person who stoops down to carry another on his back, by reason of his natural disposition, not being annoyed at anything, however disgraceful it may be.
And a man will not be much out who calls the life of that young Cyprian a wet one. And Alexis says that there were many tutors and teachers of that kind of life at Athens, speaking thus in his Pyraunus—
And Crobylus says in his Female Deserter—
- I wish'd to try another style of life,
- Which all men are accustom'd to call wet.
- So walking three days in the Ceramicus,
- I found it may be thirty skilful teachers
- Of the aforesaid life, from one single school.
- The wetness of your life amazes me,
- For men do call intemperance now wetness.
And Antiphanes, in his Lemnian Women, lays it down that flattery is a kind of art, where he says—
- Is there, or can there be an art more pleasing,
- Or any source of gain more sure and gainful
- Than well-judged flattery? Why does the painter
- Take so much pains and get so out of temper?
- Why does the farmer undergo such risks?
- Indeed all men are full of care and trouble.
- But life for us is full of fun and laughter.
v.1.p.406- For where the greatest business is amusement,
- To laugh and joke and drink full cups of wine,
- Is not that pleasant't How can one deny?
- 'Tis the next thing to being rich oneself.
But Menander, in his play called the Flatterer, has given us the character of one as carefully and faithfully as it was possible to manage it: as also Diphilus has of a parasite in his Telesias. And Alexis, in his Liar, has introduced a flatterer speaking in the following manner—
And it seems to me, my friends, that that fine epicure would not have scrupled to quote from the Omphale of Ion the tragedian, and to say—
- By the Olympian Jove and by Minerva
- I am a happy man. And not alone
- Because I'm going to a wedding dinner,
- But because I shall burst, an it please God.
- And would that I might meet with such a death.
- For I must speak of a yearly feast
- As if it came round every day.
But Hippias the Erythræan, in the second book of his Histories of his own Country, relating how the kingdom of Cnopus was subverted by the conduct of his flatterers, says this—"When Cnopus consulted the oracle about his safety, the god, in his answer, enjoined him to sacrifice to the crafty Mercury. And when, after that, he went to Delphi, they who were anxious to put an end to his kingly power in order to establish an oligarchy instead of it, (and those who wished this were Ortyges, and Irus, and Echarus, who, because they were most conspicuous in paying court to the princes, were called adorers and flatterers,) they, I say, being on a voyage in company with Cnopus, when they were at a distance from land, bound Cnopus and threw him into the sea; and then they sailed to Chios, and getting a force from the tyrants there, Amphiclus and Polytechnus, they sailed by night to Erythræ, and just at the same time the corpse of Cnopus was washed up on the sea-shore at Erythræ, at a place which is now called Leopodon. And while Cleonice, the wife of Cnopus, was busied about the offices due to the corpse, (and it was the time of the festival and assembly instituted in honour of Diana Stophea,) on a sudden there is heard the noise of a trumpet; and the city is taken by Ortyges and his troops, and many of the friends of Cnopus are put to death; and Cleonice, hearing what had happened, fled to Colophon.
But Ortyges and his companions, establishing themselves as tyrants, and having possessed themselves of the supreme power in Chios, destroyed all who opposed their proceedings, and they subverted the laws, and themselves managed the whole of the affairs of the state, admitting none of the popular party within the walls. And they established a court of justice outside the walls, before the gates; and there they tried all actions, sitting as judges, clothed in purple cloaks, and in tunics with purple borders, and they wore sandals with many slits in them during the hot weather; but in winter they always walked about in women's shoes; and they let their hair grow, and took great care of it so as to have ringlets, dividing it on the top of their head with fillets of yellow and purple. And they wore ornaments of solid gold, like women, and they compelled some of the citizens to carry their litters, and some to act as lictors to them, and some to sweep the roads. And they sent for the sons of some of the citizens to their parties when they supped together; and some they ordered to bring their own wives and daughters within. And on those who disobeyed they inflicted the most extreme punishment. And if any one of their companions died, then collecting the citizens with their wives and children, they compelled them by violence to utter lamentations over the dead, and to beat their breasts, and to cry out shrilly and loudly with their voices, a man with a scourge standing over them, who compelled them to do so—until Hippotes, the brother of Cnopus, coming to Erythræ with an army at the time of a festival, the people of Erythræ assisting him, set upon the tyrants, and having punished a great many of their companions, slew Ortyges in his flight, and all who were with him, and treated their wives and children with the very extremity of ill-usage, and delivered his country.
Now from all this we may understand, my friends, of how many evils flattery is the cause in human life. For Theopompus, in the nineteenth book of his history of the Transactions of Philip, says,
Agathocles was a slave, and one of the Penestee in Thessaly, and as he had great influence with Philip by reason of his flattery of him, and because he was constantly at his entertainments dancing and making him laugh, Philip sent him to destroy the Perrhæbi, and to govern all that part of the country. And the Macedonian constantlyAnd Hegesander the Delphian gives a similar account of him, and relates how he sent a large sum of money to the men who are assembled at Athens at the temple of Hercules in Diomea, and who say laughable things; and he ordered some men to write down all that was said by them, and to send it to him. And Theopompus, in the twenty-sixth book of his History, saysv.1.p.408had this kind of people about him, with whom he associated the greater part of his time, because of their fondness for drinking and buffoonery, and in their company he used to deliberate on the most important affairs.
that Philip knowing that the Thessalians were an intemperate race, and very profligate in their way of living, prepared some entertainments for them, and endeavoured in every possible manner to make himself agreeable to them. For he danced and revelled, and practised every kind of intemperance and debauchery. And he was by nature a buffoon, and got drunk every day, and he delighted in those occupations which are consistent with such practices, and with those who are called witty men, who say and do things to provoke laughter. And he attached numbers of the Thessalians who were intimate with him to himself, still more by his entertainments than by his presents.And Dionysius the Sicilian used to do very nearly the same thing, as Eubulus the comic poet tells us in his play entitled Dionysius;—
- But he is harsh and rigorous to the solemn,
- But most good-humour'd to all flatterers,
- And all who jest with freedom. For he thinks
- Those men alone are free, though slaves they be.
And indeed Dionysius was not the only person who encouraged and received those who had squandered their estates on drunkenness and gambling and all such debauchery as that, for Philip also did the same. And Theopompus speaks of such of them in the forty-ninth book of his History, where he writes as follows:—
Philip kept at a distance all men who were well regulated in their conduct and who took care of their property; but the extravagant and those who lived in gambling and drunkenness he praised and honoured. And therefore he not only took care that they should always have such amusements, but he encouraged them to devote themselves to all sorts of injustice and debauchery besides. For what disgraceful or iniquitous practices were there to whichAnd he makes a very similar statement about Dionysius, in his twenty-first book, when he says,v.1.p.409these men were strangers, or what virtuous or respectable habits were there which they did not shun? Did they not at all times go about shaven and carefully made smooth, though they were men? And did not they endeavour to misuse one another though they had beards? And they used to go about attended by two or three lovers at a time; and they expected no complaisance from others which they were not prepared to exhibit themselves. On which account a man might very reasonably have thought them not ἑταῖροι but ἑταῖραι, and one might have called them not soldiers, but prostitutes. For though they were ἀνδροφόνοι by profession, they were ἀνδρόπορνοι by practice. And in addition to all this, instead of loving sobriety, they loved drunkenness; and instead of living respectably they sought every opportunity of robbing and murdering; and as for speaking the truth, and adhering to their agreements, they thought that conduct quite inconsistent with their characters; but to perjure themselves and cheat, they thought the most venerable behaviour possible. And they disregarded what they had, but they longed for what they had not; and this too, though a great part of Europe belonged to them. For I think that the companions of Philip, who did not at that time amount to a greater number than eight hundred, had possession so far as to enjoy the fruits of more land than any ten thousand Greeks, who had the most fertile and large estates.
Dionysius the tyrant of Sicily encouraged above all others those who squandered their property in drunkenness and gambling and intemperance of that sort. For he wished every one to become ruined and ready for any iniquity, and all such people he treated with favour and distinction.
And Demetrius Poliorcetes was a man very fond of mirth, as Phylarchus relates in the tenth book of his History. But in the fourteenth book he writes as follows:—
Demetrius used to allow men to flatter him at his banquets, and to pour libations in his honour, calling him Demetrius the only king, and Ptolemy only the prefect of the flee, and Lysimachus only a steward, and Seleucus only a superintendent of elephants, and in this way he incurred no small amount of hatred.And Herodotus states that Amasis the
And Theophrastus, in his treatise on Comedy, tells us that the Tirynthians, being people addicted to amusement, and utterly useless for all serious business, betook themselves once to the oracle at Delphi in hopes to be relieved from some calamity or other. And that the God answered them,
That if they sacrificed a bull to Neptune and threw it into the sea without once laughing, the evil would cease.And they, fearing lest they should make a blunder in obeying the oracle, forbade any of the boys to be present at the sacrifice; however, one boy, hearing of what was going to be done, mingled with the crowd, and then when they hooted him and drove him away,
Why,said he,
are you afraid lest I should spoil your sacrifice?and when they laughed at this question of his, they perceived that the god meant to show them by a fact that an inveterate custom cannot be remedied. And Sosicrates, in the first book of his History of Crete, says that the Phæstians have a certain peculiarity, for that they seem to practise saying ridiculous things from their earliest childhood; on which account it has often happened to them to say very reasonable and witty things because of their early habituation: and therefore all the Cretans attribute to them preeminence in the accomplishment of raising a laugh.
But after flattery, Anaxandrides the comic poet gives the next place to ostentation, in his Apothecary Prophet, speaking thus—
- Do you reproach me that I'm ostentatious?
- Why should you do so? for this quality
- Is far beyond all others, only flattery
- Excepted: that indeed is best of all.
And Sannyrion says—
- You are call'd a whisperer and psomocolax.
And Philemon says in his Woman made young again—
- What will become of you, you cursed psomocolaces.
And Philippides says in his Renovation—
- The man is a psomocolax.
But the word κόλαξ especially applies to these parasitical flatterers; for κόλον means food, from which come the words βουκόλος, and δύσκολος, which means difficult to be pleased and squeamish. And the word κοιλία means that part of the body which receives the food, that is to say, the stomach. Diphilus also uses the word ψωμοκόλαφος in his Theseus, saying—
- Always contending and ψωμοκολακεύων.
- They call you a runaway ψωμοκόλαφος.