Deipnosophistae

Plato, in his Joint Deceiver, representing a father as indignant with his son's tutor, makes him say—

1. A. You've taken this my son, and ruin'd him,
2. You scoundrel; you've persuaded him to choose
3. A mode of life quite foreign to his nature
4. And disposition; taught by your example,
5. He drinks i' the morning, which he ne'er was used to do.
6. B. Do you blame me, master, that your son
7. Has learnt to live?
8. A. But do you call that living?
9. B. Wise men do call it so. And Epicurus
10. Tells us that pleasure is the only good.
11. A. Indeed; I never heard that rule before.
12. Does pleasure come then from no other source?
13. Is not a virtuous life a pleasure now?
14. Will you not grant me that?—Tell me, I pray you,
15. Did you e'er see a grave philosopher
16. Drunk, or devoted to these joys you speak of?
17. B. Yes; all of them.-All those who raise their brows,
18. Who walk about the streets for wise men seeking,
19. As if they had escaped their eyes and hid:
20. Still when a turbot once is set before them,
21. Know how to help themselves the daintiest bits.
22. They seek the head and most substantial parts,
23. As if they were an argument dissecting,
24. So that men marvel at their nicety.

And in his play entitled the Homicide, the same Plato, laughing at one of those gentle philosophers, says—

1. The man who has a chance to pay his court
2. To a fair woman, and at eve to drink
3. Two bottles full of richest Lesbian wine,
4. Must be a wise man; these are real goods.
5. These things I speak of are what Epicurus
6. Tells us are real joys; and if the world
7. All lived the happy life I live myself,
8. There would not be one wicked man on earth.

And Hegesippus, in his Philetairi, says—

1. That wisest Epicurus, when a man
2. Once ask'd him what was the most perfect good
3. Which men should constantly be seeking for,
4. Said pleasure is that good. Wisest and best
5. Of mortal men, full truly didst thou speak:
6. For there is nothing better than a dinner,
7. And every good consists in every pleasure.

But the Epicureans are not the only men who are addicted to pleasure; but those philosophers are so too who belong to what are called the Cyrenaic and the Mnesistratean sects; for these men delight to live luxuriously, as Posidonius tells us. And Speusippus did not much differ from them, though he was a pupil and a relation of Plato's. At all events, Dionysius the tyrant, in his letters to him, enumerating all the instances of his devotion to pleasure, and also of his covetousness, and reproaching him with having levied contributions on numbers of people, attacks him also on account of his love for Lasthenea, the Arcadian courtesan. And, at the end of all, he says this—

Whom do you charge with covetousness, when you yourself omit no opportunity of amassing base gain? For what is there that you have been ashamed to do? Are you not now attempting to collect contributions, after having paid yourself for Hermeas all that he owed?

And about Epicurus, Timon, in the third book of his Silli, speaks as follows:—

1. Seeking at all times to indulge his stomach,
2. Than which there's no more greedy thing on earth.

For, on account of his stomach, and of the rest of his sensual pleasures, the man was always flattering Idomeneus and Metrodorus. And Metrodorus himself, not at all disguising this admirable principle of his, says, somewhere or other,

The fact is, Timocrates, my natural philosopher, that every investigation which is guided by principles of nature, fixes its ultimate aim entirely on gratifying the stomach.

For Epicurus was the tutor of all these men; who said, shouting it out, as I may say,

The fountain and root of every good is the pleasure of the stomach: and all wise rules, and all superfluous rules, are measured alike by this standard.

And in his treatise on the Chief Good, he speaks nearly as follows:

For I am not able to understand what is good, if I leave out of consideration the pleasures which arise from delicately-flavoured food, and if I

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also leave out the pleasures which arise from amatory indulgences; and if I also omit those which arise from music, and those, too, which are derived from the contemplation of beauty and the gratification of the eyesight.

And, proceeding a little further, he says, "All that is beautiful is naturally to be honoured; and so is virtue, and everything of that sort, if it assists in producing or causing pleasure. But if it does not contribute to that end, then it may be disregarded.

And before Epicurus, Sophocles, the tragic poet, in his Antigone, had uttered these sentiments respecting pleasure—

1. For when a man contemns and ceases thus
2. To seek for pleasure, I do not esteem
3. That such an one doth live; I only deem him
4. A breathing corpse:—he may, indeed, perhaps
5. Have store of wealth within his joyless house;
6. He may keep up a kingly pomp and state;
7. But if these things be not with joy attended,
8. They are mere smoke and shadow, and contribute,
9. No, not one jot, to make life enviable.

And Philetærus says, in his Huntress,—

1. For what, I pray you, should a mortal do,
2. But seek for all appliances and means.
3. To make his life from day to day pass happily?
4. This should be all our object and our aim,
5. Reflecting on the chance of human life.
6. And never let us think about to-morrow,
7. Whether it will arrive at all or not.
8. It is a foolish trouble to lay up
9. Money which may become stale and useless.

And the same poet says, in his Œnopion,—

1. But every man who lives but sparingly,
2. Having sufficient means, I call and think
3. Of all men the most truly miserable.
4. For when you're dead, you cannot then eat eels;
5. No wedding feasts are cook'd in Pluto's realms.

And Apollodorus the Carystian, in his Stirrer-up of Law-suits, says—

1. O men, whoe'er you are, why do you now
2. Scorn pleasant living, and turn all your thoughts
3. To do each other mischief in fierce war?
4. In God's name, tell me, does some odious fate,
5. Rude and unlettered, destitute of all
6. That can be knowledge call'd, or education,
7. Ignorant of what is bad and what is good,
8. Guide all your destiny?—a fate which settles
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9. All your affairs at random by mere chance?
10. I think it must be so: for else, what deity
11. Who bears a Grecian heart, would ever choose
12. To see Greeks by each other thus despoil'd,
13. And falling dead in ghastly heaps of corpses,
14. When she might see them sportive, gay, and jesting,
15. Drinking full cups, and singing to the flute?
16. Tell me, my friend, I pray, and put to shame
17. This most unpolish'd clownish fortune.

And, presently afterwards, he says—

1. Does not a life like this deserve the name
2. Of godlike?—Think how far more pleasant all
3. Affairs would be in all the towns of Greece
4. Than now they are, if we were but to change
5. Our fashions, and our habits, and our principles
6. One little bit. Why should we not proclaim,
7. "Whoe'er is more than thirty years of age,
8. Let him come forth and drink. Let all the cavalry
9. Go to a feast at Corinth, for ten days,
10. Crown'd with chaplets, and perfumed most sweetly.
11. Let all who radishes have got to sell
12. Come in the morning here from Megara.
13. Bid all th' allies now hasten to the bath,
14. And mix in cups the rich Eubœan wine? "—
15. Sure this is real luxury and life,
16. But we are slaves to a most clownish fortune.

The poets say that that ancient hero, Tantalus, was also greatly devoted to pleasure. At all events, the author of the book called The Return of the Atridæ says

that he, when he had arrived among the gods, and had begun to live among them, had leave given him by Jupiter to ask for whatever he wished; and that he, being a man quite insatiable in the gratification of his appetites, asked that it might be granted to him to indulge them to their full extent, and to live in the same manner as the gods. And that Jupiter was indignant at this request, and, according to his promise, fulfilled his prayer; but still, that he might not enjoy what he had before him, but be everlastingly tormented, he hung a stone over his head, on account of which he should be unable to get at any of the things which he had before him.

Some of the Stoics also were addicted to this kind of pleasure At all events, Eratosthenes the Cyrenean, who was a pupil of Ariston the Chian, who was one of the sect of the Stoics, in his treatise which is entitled Ariston, represents his master as subsequently being much addicted to luxury, speaking a follows:

And before now, I have at times discovered him breaking down, as it were, the partition wall between pleasure and virtue, and appearing on the side of pleasure.

And Apollophanes (and he was an acquaintance of Ariston), in his Ariston (for he also wrote a book with that title), shows the way in which his master was addicted to pleasure. And why need we mention Dionysius of Heraclea? who openly discarded his covering of virtue, and put on a robe embroidered with flowers, and assumed the name of The altered Man; and, although he was an old man, he apostatized from the doctrines of the Stoics, and passed over to the school of Epicurus; and, in consequence, Timon said of him, not without some point and felicity—

1. When it is time to set (δύνειν), he now begins
2. To sit at table (ἡδύνεσθαι). But there is a time
3. To love, a time to wed, a time to cease.

Apollodorus the Athenian, in the third book of his treatise on a Modest and Prudent Man, which is addressed to those whom he calls Male Buffoons, having first used the expression,

more libidinous than the very Inventors themselves (ἄλφησται),

says, there are some fish called ἄλφησται, being all of a tawny colour, though they have a purple hue in some parts. And they say that they are usually caught in couples, and that one is always found following at the tail of the other; and therefore, from the fact of one following close on the tail of the other, some of the ancients call men who are intemperate and libidinous by the same name. But Aristotle, in his work on Animals, says that this fish, which he calls alphesticus, has but a single spine, and is of a tawny colour. And Numenius of Heraclea mentions it, in his treatise on Fishing, speaking as follows:—

1. The fish that lives in seaweed, the alphestes,
2. The scorpion also with its rosy meat.

And Epicharmus, in his Marriage of Hebe, says—

1. Mussels, alphetæ, and the girl-like fish,
2. The dainty coracinus.

Mithæcus also mentions it in his Culinary Art.

There is another fish called Anthias, or Callicthys; and this also is mentioned by Epicharmus, in his Marriage or Hebe:—

1. The sword-fish and the chromius too,
2. Who, as Ananius tells us,
3. Is far the best of all in spring;
4. But th' anthias in the winter.

And Ananius speaks as follows:—

1. For spring the chromius is best;
2. The anthias in winter:
3. But of all fish the daintiest
4. Is a young shrimp in fig leaves.
5. In autumn there's a dainty dish,
6. The meat of the she-goat;
7. And when they pick and press the grapes,
8. Young pigs are dainty eating.
9. Then, too, young puppies you may eat,
10. And hares, and also foxes.
11. But when the grasshopper does sing,
12. Just at the height of summer,
13. Is the best time for mutton fat;
14. Then, too, the sea-born tunny
15. Will many a savoury dish afford,
16. And beats his compeers all
17. With garlic seasoning richly drest;
18. Then, too, the fatted ox
19. Is sweet to eat both late at night,
20. And at a noon-day feast.

And I have quoted this piece of Ananius at length, thinking that it might give some suggestions to the present race of Epicures.

But Aristotle, in his treatise on the Habits of Animals, says—

They say that wherever the anthias is found, there there is no beast or fish of prey ever seen; and accordingly the collectors of sponge use him as a guide, and dive boldly wherever he is found, and call him the sacred fish.

And Dorion also mentions him in his book on Fishes, saying,

Some call the anthias by the name of callicthys, and also by that of callionymus and ellops.

And Icesius, in his treatise on Materials, says that he is called wolf by some authors, and by others callionymus: and that he is a fish of very solid meat, and full of delicious juice, and easy of digestion; but not very good for the stomach. But Aristotle says that the callicthys is a fish with serrated teeth, carnivorous and gregarious. And Epicharmus, in his Muses, enumerates the ellops among the fishes, but passes over the the callicthys or callionymus in silence as being identical with it; and of the ellops he speaks thus,—

1. And then the high-priced ellops.

And the same poet says, subsequently—

1. He was the fish of which great Jupiter
2. Once bought a pair for money, and enjoin'd
3. His slaves to give him one, and Juno t'other.

But Dorion, in his treatise on Fish, says that the anthias and the callicthys are different fish; and also that the callionymus is not the same as the ellops.