Deipnosophistae

Athenaeus of Naucratis

Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists or Banquet Of The Learned Of Athenaeus. Yonge, Charles Duke, translator. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854.

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.

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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 constantly
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had 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.

And 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, says

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 which
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these 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.

And he makes a very similar statement about Dionysius, in his twenty-first book, when he says,

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

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king of the Egyptians was always a man full of tricks, and one who was used to turn his fellow feasters into ridicule; and when he was a private man he says he was very fond of feasting and of jesting, and he was not at all a serious man. And Nicolaus, in the twenty-seventh book of his History, says that Sylla the Roman general was so fond of mimics and buffoons, being a man very much addicted to amusement, that he gave such men several portions of the public land. And the satyric comedies which he wrote himself in his native language, show of how merry and jovial a temperament he was in this way.

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.

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And Antiphanes speaks of what he calls a psomocolax, a flatterer for morsels of bread, in his Gerytades, when he says—

You are call'd a whisperer and psomocolax.

And Sannyrion says—

What will become of you, you cursed psomocolaces.

And Philemon says in his Woman made young again—

The man is a psomocolax.

And Philippides says in his Renovation—

Always contending and ψωμοκολακεύων.

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—

They call you a runaway ψωμοκόλαφος.

When Democritus had made this speech, and had asked for some drink in a narrow-necked sabrias, Ulpian said, And what is this sabrias? And just as Democritus was beginning to treat us all to a number of interminable stories, in came a troop of servants bringing in everything requisite for eating. Concerning whom Democritus, continuing his discourse, spoke as follows:—I have always, O my friends, marvelled at the race of slaves, considering how abstemious they are, though placed in the middle of such numbers of dainties; for they pass them by, not only out of fear, but also because they are taught to do so; I do not mean being taught in the Slave-teacher of Pherecrates, but by early habituation; and without its being necessary to utter any express prohibition respecting such matters to them, as in the island of Cos, when the citizens sacrifice to Juno. For Macareus says, in his third book of his treatise on Coan Affairs, that, when the Coans sacrifice to Juno, no slave is allowed to enter the temple, nor does any slave taste any one of the things which are prepared for the sacrifice. And Antiphanes, in his Dyspratus,[*](The exact meaning of this title is disputed, some translate it, hard to sell, or to be sold, others merely miserable. ) says—

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'Tis hard to see around one savoury cakes,
And delicate birds half eaten; yet the slaves
Are not allow'd to eat the fragments even,
As say the women.

And Epicrates, in his Dyspratus, introduces a servant expressing his indignation, and saying—

What can be worse than, while the guests are drinking,
To hear the constant cry of, Here, boy, here!
And this that one may bear a chamberpot
To some vain beardless youth; and see around
Half eaten savoury cakes, and delicate birds,
Whose very fragments are forbidden strictly
To all the slaves—at least the women say so;
And him who drinks a cup men call a belly-god;
And if he tastes a mouthful of solid food
They call him greedy glutton:

from the comparison of which iambics, it is very plain that Epicrates borrowed Antiphanes's lines, and transferred them to his own play.

And Dieuchidas says, in his history of the Affairs of Megara—

Around the islands called Arææ (and they are between Cnidos and Syme) a difference arose, after the death of Triopas, among those who had set out with him on his expedition, and some returned home, and others remained with Phorbas, and came to Ialysus, and others proceeded with Periergus, and occupied the district of Cameris. And on this it is said that Periergus uttered curses against Phorbas, and on this account the islands were called Arææ. But Phorbas having met with shipwreck, he and Parthenia, the sister of Phorbas and Periergus, swam ashore to Ialysus, at the point called Schedia. And Thamneus met with them, as he happened to be hunting near Schedia, and took them to his own house, intending to receive them hospitably, and sent on a servant as a messenger to tell his wife to prepare everything necessary, as he was bringing home strangers. But when he came to his house and found nothing prepared, he himself put corn into a mill, and everything else that was requisite, and then ground it himself and feasted them. And Phorbas was so delighted with this hospitality, that when he was dying himself he charged his friends to take care that his funeral rites should be performed by free men. And so this custom continued to prevail in the sacrifice of Phorbas, for [*](From ἀρὰ, a curse.)
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none but free men minister at this sacrifice. And it is accounted profanation for any slave to approach it