Athenaeus, Deipnosophists

ToposText · Athenaeus · 1,421 sections

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§ 1.1 BOOK I. — EPITOME. Athenaeus is the father of this book, which he addresses to Timocrates. The Sophist at Dinner is its title, and the subject is a banquet given by a wealthy Roman named Larensis, who has summoned as guests the men of his time most learned in their several branches of knowledge. Not one of their excellent sayings has Athenaeus failed to mention. For he has contrived to bring into his book an account of fishes, their uses and names with their derivations; also vegetables of all sorts and animals of every description; historians, poets, philosophers, musical instruments, innumerable kinds of jests; he has also described drinking-cups in all their variety, the wealth of kings, the size of ships, and other matters so numerous that I could not easily mention them all; for the day would fail me if I undertook to enumerate them kind by kind. In short, the plan of the discourse reflects the rich bounty of a feast, and the arrangement of the book the courses of the dinner. Such is the delightful feast of reason which this wonderful steward, Athenaeus, introduces, and then, surpassing even himself, like the Athenian orators, he is so carried away by the ardour of his eloquence that he passes on by leaps and bounds to the further portions of his book.
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§ 1.2 Now the wiseacres assumed to have been present at the banquet are: Masurius, a jurist, who had devoted no slight attention to all kinds of learning; a poet, too, of unique excellence, a man second to none in general culture, who had pursued diligently the complete round of academic studies. For whatever the subject in which he displayed his learning, he made it appear as though that had been his only study, such was the encyclopaedic range in which he had been nurtured from boyhood. He was, as Athenaeus says, a satiric poet not inferior to any of the successors of Archilochus. Present, too, were Plutarch, Leonides of Elis, Aemilianus Maurus, and Zoilus, wittiest of philologians. Of philosophers there were Pontianus and Democritus, both of Nicomedia, excelling all in wide erudition; Philadelphus of Ptolemais, a man not merely bred in philosophic contemplation, but also of tried experience in life generally. Of the Cynics there was one he calls Cynulcus ("dog-catcher"); for not only “two fleet hounds followed” him, like Telemachus going to the Assembly, but many more than were in Actaeon's pack. Of orators there was a company as numerous as that of the Cynics, against whom, as well as all the other speakers, Ulpian of Tyre inveighed. He, through the constant investigation which he carries on at all hours in the streets, public walks, bookshops, and baths, has won a name that distinguishes him better than his own, Ceituceitus (GR: keitai e ou keitai ). This gentleman observed a law peculiar to himself, of never tasting food until he had asked whether or not a word was to be found in literature: is, for example, the word hora ("season") found signifying part of a day? Is methysos ("drunken") found applied to a man? Is metra ("womb") found as the name of a viand, or the compound syagros said of a boar? And among physicians there were Daphnus of Ephesus, pure in character as he was sacred in profession, no amateur in his grasp of the doctrines of the Academy; Galen of Pergamum, who has published more works on philosophy and medicine than all his predecessors, and in the exposition of his art as capable as any of the ancients; also Rufinus of Nicaea. And a musician was there, Alceides of Alexandria. In fact this list, as Athenaeus says, was more like a muster-roll than a list of guests at a banquet.
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§ 1.3 Athenaeus dramatizes the dialogue in imitation of Plato. At any rate it begins thus: “Were you, Athenaeus, present in person at that noble assembly of men now known as Deipnosophists, which has been so much talked of about the town? Or was the account you gave to your friends derived from someone else?” “I was there myself, Timocrates.” “Will you not, then, consent to let us also share in that noble talk you had over your cups? For'to those who thrice wipe the mouth the gods give a better portion,' as, I believe, the poet of Cyrene says. Or are we to inquire of somebody else?”
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§ 1.3a Presently he launches into a eulogy of Larensis and says: “He took pride in gathering about him many men of culture and entertained them with conversation as well as with the things proper to a banquet, now proposing topics worthy of inquiry, now disclosing solutions of his own; for he never put his questions without previous study, or in a haphazard way, but with the utmost critical, even Socratic, acumen, so that all admired the keen observation shown by his questions.” Athenaeus says of him, too, that he had been placed in charge of temples and kings by the most excellent Emperor Marcus, and administered the Greek as well as the national rites of Rome. He calls him also a kind of Asteropaeus, because he excelled all the rest in both tongues, Greek as well as Latin. He says also that Larensis was well versed in the religious ceremonies established by Romulus, who gave his name to Rome, and by Numa Pompilius, and he was learned in political institutions. All this he had acquired unaided, by a study of ancient decrees and ordinances and from a compilation of laws
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§ 1.4 which the jurists no longer teach. They were “already a sealed book” as the comic poet Eupolis says of Pindar's poetry, “because of the decay of popular taste.” In explanation, Athenaeus says that he owned so many ancient Greek books that he surpassed all who have been celebrated for their large libraries, including Polycrates of Samos, Peisistratus the tyrant of Athens, Eucleides, likewise an Athenian, Nicocrates of Cyprus, the kings of Pergamum, Euripides the poet, Aristotle the philosopher, Theophrastus, and Neleus, who preserved the books of the two last named. From Neleus, he says, our King Ptolemy, surnamed Philadelphus, purchased them all and transferred them with those which he had procured at Athens and at Rhodes to his beautiful capital, Alexandria. Therefore one will be inclined to apply to Larensis the words of Antiphanes: “Thou art ever ranged on the side of the Muses and sound reason, when a work of art is put to the test.” Or, as the lyric poet of Thebes sings, “His delight is in the fair flower of the Muses, in wit which makes our unceasing sport about the friendly table.” Again, by his invitations to hospitality he made all feel that Rome was their native land. “For who can suffer from homesickness when in the company of one who keeps his house wide open to his friends?” As the comic poet Apollodorus says: “When a man enters a friend's house, he may, Nicophon, discover his friend's welcome as soon as he enters the door. The janitor smiles at him, the dog wags his tail and comes to him, a slave rises to meet him and promptly sets a chair for him, even though not a word be spoken.”
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§ 1.5 The rest of your rich men ought to be like that. For to those who do not practise such hospitality one may say, “Why are you so niggardly?'Surely thy tents are full of wine; spread a bountiful feast for the elders. It is fitting for thee.'” Such was Alexander the Great in his munificence. Conon, too, after he had defeated the Lacedemonians in the sea-fight off Cnidus and surrounded Peiraeus with a wall, offered a hecatomb — a real one, and not falsely so called — at which he feasted all Athens. And when Alcibiades won first, second, and fourth places at Olympia in a chariot-race — in honour of which even Euripides wrote a hymn of victory — he sacrificed to the Olympian Zeus and entertained the entire assemblage. The same was done at Olympia by Leophron, and Simonides of Cos wrote the hymn. Empedocles of Agrigentum won a horse race at Olympia. Being a Pythagorean and an abstainer from animal food, he made an ox out of myrrh, frankincense, and the most costly spices, and divided it among the people who came to the festival. Again the Chian poet, Ion, when victor with a tragedy at Athens, gave every Athenian a jar of Chian wine. “For what other reason,” wrote Antiphanes, “would a man pray the gods to give him wealth and abundance of means, than that he may help his friends and sow the harvest of gratitude, that sweet goddess? For in drinking and eating we all take the same pleasure; but it needs not rich feasts to quell hunger.” Xenocrates of Chalcedon and Speusippus the Academician and Aristotle wrote on the laws of kings. And again, there was Tellias of Agrigentum, a hospitable man who welcomed all comers, and when five hundred horsemen from Gela once stopped at his house in the winter season, he gave each a tunic and a cloak. “Your dinner-chasing sophist” is a phrase used by Athenaeus.
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§ 1.6 Clearchus says that Charmus the Syracusan had verses and proverbs ready for every dish served at his banquets. Thus, for the fish, “From the salt depths of Aegean am I come.” For the shell-fish called “heralds” he would say, “Hail, ye heralds, messengers of Zeus.” For the lambs' and kids' entrails, “Twisted these, in no wise sound.” For the squid, stuffed with mince-meat, “Wise art thou, wise!” For the boiled dressing made of tiny fish, “Rid me of this mob, won't you?” For the skinned eel, “I draw no veil of clustering curls before me.” Many such persons, he says, attended the dinner given by Larensis, bringing, as it were, contributions to a picnic, their literary lore tied up in rolls of bedding. He says, too, that Charmus, by having something ready to quote for each of the dishes served, as has just been explained, enjoyed the reputation among the Messenians of being highly cultivated. So also Calliphanes, he who was called the son of Voracious, had copied out the beginnings of numerous poems and speeches, and could repeat as many as three or four lines, thus seeking to win repute for wide learning. Many others also had at their tongues' end Sicilian lampreys, eels that float on the water's surface, stomachs of tunnies caught off Pachynum, the young goats of Melos, the fish of Sciathos called “fasters”; and among things of less note, Peloric shells, Lipara sprats, the Mantinean turnip, rape from Thebes, and beets from Ascra. Cleanthes of Tarentum, according to Clearchus, used to recite in verse everything he said at a symposium. So did Pamphilus the Sicel. For example, “Pour me out a draught to drink, and leg of partridge give me.” “A chamber-pot or cake with cheese let some one bring me quickly.” They whose substance is secure, Athenaeus remarks, need not labour with their hands to feed their bellies. Aristophanes uses the expression, “carrying fish-baskets full of decrees.”
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§ 1.7 Archestratus of Syracuse (or was it Gela?) in a work which Chrysippus entitles “Gastronomia,” but which Lynceus and Callimachus call “The Art of High Living,” Clearchus, “The Art of Dining,” others, “The Art of Fine Cookery” — the poem is in epic verse and begins, “Of learning I offer proof to all Hellas ” — says: “Let all dine at a single daintily-furnished table. There should be three or four in all, or at most not more than five. Else we should presently have a tentful of freebooters, robbers of victuals.” He is unaware that in Plato's messroom there were eight and twenty. “For these fellows are always on the lookout for the dinners in town, and shrewdly fly to them without an invitation,” says Antiphanes, who continues: “Men whom the people ought to support from the public treasury; and just as at Olympia, it is said, a special ox is sacrificed for the benefit of the flies, so ought they on all occasions slaughter one first for the benefit of the uninvited.”
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§ 1.8 But “some flowers bloom in summer, and some in the winter season” as the Syracusan poet says. It is not, to be sure, feasible to serve all things at the same time, yet it is easy to talk about them. There have been treatises on banquets by other writers, and in particular by Timachidas of Rhodes, who wrote one in epic verse in eleven, or possibly more, books. There are other works by Numenius of Heracleia, the pupil of the physician Dieuches; Matreas of Pitane, the parodist; and Hegemon of Thasos — his nick-name was “Lentil” — whom some place among the writers of the Old Comedy. Artemidorus, falsely called an Aristophanean, collected words pertaining to cookery. A book called The Banquet by Philoxenus of Leucas is mentioned by the comic poet Plato: A. Here, in this solitary place, I propose to read this book to myself. — B. And what is it, pray? — A. It's a new book on cooking by Philoxenus. — B. Show me what it is like. — A. Listen then:'I will begin with the bulb, and end with the tale of the tunny.' — B. The tunny? Then it is much the best to be stationed right there, in the rear rank! — A.'Smother the bulbs in the ashes, moisten with sauce, and eat as many as you will, for they exalt a man's parts. So much, then, for that. And now I come to the ocean's offspring.' After a little he proceeds:'For them the casserole is not bad, though I think the frying-pan better.' And a little further:'The sea-perch, the turbot, the fish with even teeth and with jagged teeth must not be sliced, else the vengeance of the gods may breathe upon you. Rather, bake and serve them whole, for it is much better so. The wriggling polyp, if it be rather large, is much better boiled than baked, if you beat it until it is tender. But the devil may take the boiled, say I, if I can get two that are baked. As for the red mullet, that will give no strength to the glands. For she is a daughter of the virgin Artemis and loathes the rising passion. Again, the scorpion...' — B. May it creep up and take a bite out of your buttocks!"
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§ 1.9 From this Philoxenus certain flat cakes came to be named “Philoxenei.” Concerning him Chrysippus says: “I remember a certain gourmand, who was so far lost to all feelings of shame before his companions, no matter what happened, that in the public baths he accustomed his hand to heat by plunging it into hot water, and gargled his throat with hot water that he might not shrink from hot food. For they used to say that he had actually won the cooks over to serving the dishes very hot, his object being to eat up everything alone, since nobody else was able to follow his example.” The same story is told also of Philoxenus of Cythera, of Archytas, and several others, one of whom says, in a comedy by Crobylus: “A. I've got fingers that are veritably Idaean against these viands so excessively hot, and I like to give my throat a vapour bath with hot slices of meat. — B. He must be a chimney, not a human being.” And Clearchus says that Philoxenus, having first taken a bath, would go round among the houses in his own city and others as well, followed by slaves carrying oil, wine, fish-paste, vinegar, and other relishes, then he would enter a house, albeit a stranger's, and season whatever was cooking for the rest of the company, put in what was lacking. When all was ready, he would bend over and greedily enjoy the feast. He once landed at Ephesus, and finding the victualler's shop empty inquired the cause. When he learned that everything had been sold out for a wedding, he bathed and went uninvited to the bridegroom's house. And after the dinner he sang the wedding song beginning “Marriage, most radiant deity,” and delighted the whole company. For he was a dithyrambic poet. And the groom said, “ Philoxenus, shall you dine in this way tomorrow also?” “Yes,” said Philoxenus, “if there be no victuals for sale.”
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§ 1.10 Now Theophilus says “Unlike Philoxenus the son of Eryxis; for he, seemingly finding fault with nature's provision for the enjoyment of food, prayed that he might have the neck of a crane. But he might have done much better to wish to become a horse or an ox or a camel or an elephant; for in that case desires and pleasures are much greater and more intense, since their enjoyment is in proportion to the animals' strength.” And Clearchus, speaking of Melanthius, says that he prayed thus: “ Melanthius, it appears, has conceived a better plan than Tithonius. For Tithonius longed for immortality, but now hangs in his chamber, old age having deprived him of all pleasures; whereas Melanthius, loving the delights of food, prayed that he might have the gullet of that long-necked bird, that he might linger long over his pleasures.” The same authority says that Pithyllus, called the gourmand, wore a covering for the tongue made of membrane, and sheathed his tongue besides for greater enjoyment, and, at the end of the feast, he would powder some dried fish skin and purge the tongue. And he is the only gourmand who is said to have eaten food with finger-shields, desiring (the wretch!) to offer it to his tongue as hot as he could. Others call Philoxenus “the fish-lover,” but Aristotle calls him in general “dinner-lover.” He also writes, I believe, as follows: “They deliver claptrap orations wherever crowds collect, wasting the livelong day in jugglers' tricks, and among the adventurers who come from the Phasis or the Borysthenes, though they have never read anything but Philoxenus's Banquet, and that not entire.”
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§ 1.11 Phaenias says that Philoxenus, the poet of Cythera, who was devoted to dainty food, was once dining with Dionysius, and when he saw that a large mullet had been set before Dionysius, while a small one had been served to himself, he took it up in his hands and placed it to his ear. When Dionysius asked him why he did that, Philoxenus answered that he was writing a poem on Galatea and desired to ask the mullet some questions about Nereus and his daughters. And the creature, on being asked, had answered that she had been caught when too young, and therefore had not joined Nereus's company; but her sister, the one set before Dionysius, was older, and knew accurately all he wished to learn. So Dionysius, with a laugh, sent him the mullet that had been served to himself. Moreover, Dionysius was fond of drinking deep in company with Philoxenus. But when Philoxenus was detected in the act of seducing the king's mistress Galatea, he was thrown into the quarries. There he wrote his Cyclops, telling the story of what had happened to him, and representing Dionysius as Cyclops, the flute-girl as the nymph Galatea, and himself as Odysseus.
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§ 1.12 There lived in the days of Tiberius a man named Apicius, an exceedingly rich voluptuary, from whom many kinds of cakes are called Apician. He had lavished countless sums on his belly in Minturnae, a city of Campania, and lived there eating mostly high-priced prawns, which grow bigger there than the largest prawns of Smyrna or the lobsters of Alexandria. Now he heard that they also grew to excessive size in Libya, so he sailed forth without a day's delay, encountering very bad weather on the voyage. When he drew near those regions, fishermen sailed to meet him before he left his ship (for the report of his coming had spread far and wide among the Libyans ), and brought to him their best prawns. On seeing them he asked if they had any that were larger, and on their answering that none grew larger than those they had brought, he bethought himself of the prawns in Minturnae and told the pilot to sail back by the same route to Italy without so much as approaching the shore. Aristoxenus, the Cyrenaic philosopher, practised literally the system of philosophy which arose in his country, and from him a kind of ham specially prepared is called Aristoxenus; in his excess of luxury he used to water the lettuce in his garden at evening with wine and honey, and taking them up in the morning used to say that they were blanched cakes produced by the earth for him.
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§ 1.13 When the Emperor Trajan was in Parthia, many days' journey away from the sea, Apicius caused fresh oysters to be sent to him in packing carefully devised by himself. He was better served than Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, when he desired anchovy, he also living too far away from the sea; for a cook made an imitation of fish and served this to him. At any rate, the cook in Euphron, the comic poet, says: “A. I was a pupil of Soterides, who, when Nicomedes was twelve days' journey from the sea and desired an anchovy in the middle of winter, served it to him — Zeus be my witness! — so that all cried out in wonder. — B. But how could that be? — A. He took a fresh turnip and cut in slices thin and long, shaping it just like the anchovy. Then he parboiled it, poured oil upon it, sprinkled salt to taste, spread on the top exactly forty seeds of black poppy, and satisfied the king's desire in far-away Scythia. And when Nicomedes had tasted the turnip, he sang the praise of anchovy to his friends. The cook and the poet are just alike: the art of each lies in his brain.”
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§ 1.14 Archilochus, the poet of Paros, speaks of Pericles as bursting uninvited into a drinking company “like a Myconian.” It appears that the people of Myconos had a bad name for greed and avarice because they were poverty-stricken and lived on a wretched island; at any rate, the greedy Ischomachus is called Myconian by Cratinus; “How could you, of all persons, be generous, being the son of Ischomachus the Myconian?” A brave man I, among brave men I have come to dine. For common are the goods of friends. But the passage from Archilochus is this: “Though drinking much wine — and that unmixed with water — thou hast not paid the scot... and uninvited, too, thou camest, as an intimate friend might do. Nay, thy belly hath perverted thy heart and soul to shamelessness.” Eubulus, the comic poet, says, I believe: “There are, among our guests invited to dinner, two invincibles, Philocrates and — Philocrates! For I count him, though one, as two (and lusty too); yes, even as three. Once, they say, he had been asked out to dine by some friend who told him to come when the shadow on the dial measured twenty feet. So at dawn he began to measure when the sun was rising, and when the shadow was too long by more than a couple of feet he came to dine, and said that he had arrived a little late because of business engagements — though he had come at daybreak!” Amphis the comic poet says that “whosoever is late at a free dinner you may guess would desert right soon the ranks in battle”; and Chrysippus says, “The goblet which cost nothing thou shalt not neglect.” Again, “The free goblet must not be neglected; nay, it must be pursued.” Antiphanes also says: “That is the life the gods lead, when you can dine at others' expense with no thought of the reckoning.” And again: “My life is blessed indeed! I must ever discover some new device to get a morsel for my jaws.” These jests have I brought from home to the banquet, after careful rehearsal, for I, too, wanted to have my house-rent ready to pay when I came. “For we bards ever sacrifice without smoke.” Yet the notion of eating alone was not unknown among the ancients. Antiphanes: “You eat alone! That's a wilful injury to me.” Ameipsias: “To the devil with you, solitary eater and house-breaker!” The Life of the Heroes in Homer:
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§ 1.15 Homer saw that moderation is the first and most appropriate virtue of the young, harmoniously joining together and enhancing all that is fair; and since he wished to implant it anew from beginning to end so that his heroes might spend their leisure and their endeavour on noble deeds and be helpful to each other and share their goods with one another, he made their way of living frugal and contented. For he considered that passions and pleasures become very strong, and that foremost among them and innate are the desires for eating and drinking, and that they who abide resolutely in frugality are well-disciplined and self-controlled in all the exigencies of life. He has, therefore, ascribed a simple manner of life to all, the same, too, for kings as for subjects, for young as for old, when he says: “And to his side she drew a polished table; and the grave housekeeper brought bread and set it before them.” “And the carver took platters of meat and set them before them.” Now this meat, too, was roasted, and was for the most part beef. Excepting this he never places before them anything, whether at a festival or a wedding or any other gathering. And yet he often makes Agamemnon entertain his chieftains at dinner; no entrees served in fig-leaves, no rare titbit or milk-cakes, or honey-cakes, does Homer serve as choice dainties for his kings, but only viands by which body and soul might enjoy strength. And so after the duel Agamemnon especially “rewarded Ajax with the chine of oxen.” And to Nestor, by this time an old man, and to Phoenix, he gives roast meat, meaning to restrain us from riotous desires. And it was so with Alcinous, whose choice inclined to a luxury life; he feasted the Phaeacians, who lived most luxuriously, and entertained the stranger Odysseus; he shows him the well-appointed house and garden, and then causes the same simple fare to be placed before him. Menelaus, also, when he celebrated the nuptials of his children, at the time when Telemachus came to visit him, “took and set before them the roasted ox -chine, which they had served to him as his own meed of honour.” And Nestor also, though a king who had many subjects, sacrificed cattle to Poseidon at the seaside by the hand of the children most near and dear to him, exhorting them in these words: “Nay then, let one go to the field for a heifer,” and the rest. For that sort of sacrifice, made by men who are devoted and loyal, is holier and more acceptable to the gods. Even the suitors, insolent though they were, and recklessly given over to pleasure, are not represented as eating fish or birds or honey-cakes, for Homer strenuously excludes the tricks of the culinary art, the viands which Menander calls aphrodisiac, and that mentioned in many authors under the name of lastaurokakabos (as Chrysippus says in his work On Pleasure and the Good), the preparation of which is rather elaborate.
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§ 1.16 The Priam of Homer, too, reproaches his sons for consuming what custom prohibits: “Plunderers of lambs and kids belonging to your own countrymen!” Philochorus records that at Athens no one was allowed to taste the flesh of an unshorn lamb, because at one time there had occurred a dearth of these animals. Although Homer describes the Hellespont as teeming with fish, and pictures the Phaeacians as devoted to the sea, and although he knows that in Ithaca there are several harbours and many islands near the shore abounding in fish and wild fowl, and moreover counts the sea's bounty in supplying fish as an element of prosperity, he nevertheless never represents anyone as eating any of these creatures. What is more, he does not place fruit upon the board either, though it was abundant and he mentions it in a delightful passage, representing it as never failing throughout the year: “Pear upon pear,” he says, and all the rest. What is more, he also does not picture the wearing of chaplets or the use of unguents, any more than the burning of incense. On the contrary, his characters are free of all such conventions, and the foremost of them are singled out for freedom and independence. Even to the gods he ascribes a simple regimen of nectar and ambrosia. He pictures human beings as honouring the gods in their diet, denying to them the use of frankincense or myrrh or wreaths or similar luxuries. And even this simple food they do not enjoy greedily, according to him, but like an excellent physician, he forbids satiety, saying, “when they had banished desire for eating and drinking.” And after his heroes had satisfied their appetite some would be off to athletic practice, “amusing themselves with discus and spear,” in sport training themselves for serious work; while others would listen to the harpists as they set to melody and rhythm the deeds of heroes.
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§ 1.17 It is no wonder, therefore, that men nourished in this fashion should be free from the excitements of body and soul. By way, then, of showing that moderate living is healthful, beneficial, and adapted for all, he has portrayed Nestor, wisest of men, as offering wine to the physician Machaon when he was wounded in the right shoulder, although Nestor was a bitter foe of passion; and the wine he gives is Pramneian, too, which we know was heavy and filling. It was no “cure for thirst,” but rather a device for stuffing the belly; at any rate, although Machaon has already drunk, Nestor urges him to continue, saying, “Be seated, and drink.” He then scrapes some goat's milk cheese over the wine and adds an onion as a relish to make him drink more. And yet in another passage Homer says that wine relaxes and enervates bodily vigour. As for Hector, Hecuba, hoping that he will stay in the city the rest of the day, invites him to pour a libation and drink, thinking thereby to excite him to gaiety. But he puts it off and goes forth to action. She insistently praises wine, but he rejects it, though panting for breath when he comes before her. She urges him to pour a libation and drink, but he thinks it unholy when he is covered with the blood of battle. Still, Homer recognizes the usefulness of wine in moderation when he says that he who quaffs too eagerly injures himself. He also understands various degrees of mixing; for Achilles would not have directed that “the purer sort be mixed” had not some sort of mixing been a daily custom. It may be that the poet was not aware that wine is too easily carried off through the pores if there be no admixture of solid food, a fact well known to physicians in practice; at any rate, for patients suffering from cardiac disorders they mix some cereal food and wine together in order to retain its effect. Nestor, however, gives Machaon his wine mixed with meal and cheese; and the poet makes Odysseus combine the advantages derived from food and wine together in the verse, “The man who has had his fill of wine and food.” To a hard drinker he gives the “sweet draught,” as he calls it: “In it stood casks of wine, the old sweet draught.”
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§ 1.18 Homer also represents young girls and women as bathing their guests, Evidently believing that when men have lived honorable and chaste lives, women do not kindle violent passion in them. This is an ancient practice; at any rate, the daughters of Cocalus bathed Minos, as though it were customary, when he came to Sicily. By way of denouncing drunkenness the poet portrays Cyclops, for all his great size, as completely overcome, when drunk, by a small person; likewise the centaur Eurytion; and so he changes the men who visited Circe into lions and wolves because of their self-indulgence, whereas Odysseus is saved because he obeys the admonition of Hermes, and therefore comes off unscathed. But he makes Elpenor, who indulges too freely in wine, and is given to luxury, break his neck by a fall. And Antinous, the very one who says to Odysseus “the sweet wine is affecting thee,” could not abstain from drinking himself; therefore he too was “affected,” and lost his life with the cup still in his hand. Homer also represents the Greeks as drunk when they sailed away, and that is why they fell to quarrelling and were destroyed. He also tells how Aeneas, though most skilled in counsel among the Trojans, because of his outspoken language inspired by drink and because of the boastful threats he had uttered to the Trojans when in his cups, resisted the onslaught of Achilles, and so nearly lost his life. Agamemnon, too, says somewhere of himself, “Since I was undone by yielding to my baleful spirit, or because I was drunken with wine, or because the gods themselves did blast me,” thus putting drunkenness in the same scale with madness. (With this interpretation have these same verses been cited by Dioscurides, disciple of Isocrates.) And Achilles, when reviling Agamemnon, calls him “Heavy with wine, with the eyes of a dog.” Thus spoke “the Thessalian wit,” that is, the wise man of Thessaly.
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§ 1.19 In the matter of meals, the heroes of Homer took first the so-called akratisma, or breakfast, which he calls ariston. This he mentions once in the Odyssey: “ Odysseus and the godlike swineherd kindled a fire and prepared breakfast.” And once in the Iliad: “Quickly they set to work and prepared breakfast.” He calls the morning meal embroma; we call it akratismos, because we eat pieces of bread sopped in unmixed (akratos) wine. So Antiphanes retains the Homeric usage: “While the cook is getting breakfast,” immediately continuing, “Have you time to join me at breakfast?” Cantharus also identifies ariston and akratismos: “A. Let us, then, take breakfast here. — B. Not so; we will breakfast at the Isthmus.” Aristomenes: “I'll get a little breakfast, a bite or two of bread, and then come back.” But Philemon says that the ancients had four meals, akratisma, ariston, hesperisma ("evening meal") and deipnon ("dinner"). Now the akratisma they called breaking the fast, the ariston ("luncheon") they called deipnon, the evening meal dorpestos, the dinner epidorpis. In Aeschylus may be found the proper order of these terms, in the verses wherein Palamedes is made to say: “I appointed captains of divisions and of hundreds over the host, and meals I taught them to distinguish, breakfasts, dinners, and suppers, third.” The fourth meal is mentioned by Homer in these words: “Go thou when thou hast supped,” referring to what some call deilinon, which comes between our ariston and deipnon ("dinner"). So ariston, in Homer, is the meal eaten in the early morning, whereas deipnon is the noon meal which we today call ariston, and dorpon is the evening meal. Perhaps, also, deipnon in Homer is sometimes synonymous with ariston; for of the morning meal he somewhere said: “They then took their deipnon, and after that began to arm for battle;” that is, immediately after sunrise and the deipnon, they go forth to fight.
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§ 1.20 In Homer men feast sitting. Certain authorities also think that a separate table is set before each diner. In the case of Mentes, at any rate, they assert that a “polished table” was placed before him when he visited Telemachus, although the tables had already been set out. But this is not a conclusive settlement of the question; for it is possible that Athena dined from the same table as Telemachus. Throughout the banquet the tables remained before them fully spread, as is still the custom today among many foreign peoples, “completely covered o'er with divers good things,” as Anacreon has it. After the guest withdrew, “the maids carried away much food as well as the table and the cups.” But the banquet in the scene at Menelaus's palace is peculiar. For after eating, the guests converse; then they wash their hands and eat once more, and still later, after their lamentation, they bethink them of supper. The notion that the tables were removed is seemingly refuted by the verse in the Iliad: “He had been eating and drinking, and the table still stood beside him.” Accordingly we must read the line thus: “Eating and drinking still, while the table stood beside him.” Or else we must explain the contradiction by the special circumstances. For how could it have been decent for Achilles, then in mourning, to have a table set before him just as it is for revellers throughout an entire symposium? Loaves of bread were served in baskets, but at dinner only roast meat was known. “ Homer,” observes Antiphanes, “never made broth when he sacrificed oxen, nor did he boil the flesh or the brains, but he roasted even the entrails. So very old-fashioned was he.”
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§ 1.21 Now of the meat, also, portions were equally divided, whence he calls banquets “equal” because of the equality observed. Dinners were called daites from dateisthai, “to divide,” and wine as well as meat was equally apportioned: “By this time we had satisfied our souls with the equal feast.” Again: “Your health, Achilles! Of the equal feast we are in no want.” Hence Zenodotus was convinced that an “equal” feast meant a “goodly feast.” For since food is a necessary good for man, Homer, he asserts, calls it “equal,” using an extended form of the word; for primitive men, who, of course, did not have abundant food, would fall upon it pell-mell as soon as it appeared, and forcibly snatch and wrest it from those who had it, so that in the midst of this disorder bloodshed would actually occur. So it was, probably, that the word atasthalia ("wickedness") came into use, because it was amid festivity (thalia) that men first sinned against one another. But when, through Demeter's bounty, they came to have plenty, they would divide it equally to each, and in this way men came to sup in orderly fashion. Thus, also, comes the conception of “loaf” as a due portion, and of cake divided up into equal portions, and of “goblets” for drinkers challenging in their turn. In fact, these terms arose when men were progressing toward fair dealing. And so the meal is called dais from daiesthai, “divide,” that is, to distribute in equal portions; and the roaster of meat is daitros, or “divider,” because he gave an equal portion to everybody. In fact, it is only of human beings that the poet uses the word dais, but when he comes to beasts, never. But Zenodotus, unaware of the etymology of the word, writes in his edition of Homer, “gave their bodies to be a prey to dogs and a feast (dais) to birds,” dignifying by this name the food of vultures and other birds of prey, although man alone progresses from primitive violence to fair dealing. Hence only man's food can be dais, and his “lot” is what is given to everybody. In Homer the feasters were not in the habit of carrying home anything left over, but after satisfying themselves they left it behind where they had dined. The housekeeper would take and keep it, so that if a stranger arrived she might have something to give him.
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§ 1.22 Now Homer even represents the men of those times as eating fish and birds. In Thrinacia, anyway, Odysseus's companions catch “fishes and fowls and whatever came to their hands, with bended hooks.” For surely the hooks had not been forged in Thrinacia, but must have been brought with them on the voyage, which proves that they had had practice and skill in catching fish. Moreover, the poet compares those companions of Odysseus who had been snatched by Scylla, to fish caught on a long pole and flung out upon the shore. He thus shows a more exact understanding of this art than the authors of systematic poems and treatises on it, I mean Caecalus of Argos, Numenius of Heracleia, Pancrates of Arcadia, Poseidonius of Corinth, and Oppian of Cilicia, who was born a little before us. These make a considerable number of writers on angling in epic verse that we have found, while in prose there are the works of Seleucus of Tarsus, Leonidas of Byzantium, and Agathocles of Atrax. Still, Homer never mentions such food in connexion with banquets, evidently because these viands were not considered appropriate to the heroes of high rank, any more than he mentions the eating of young animals. But they also ate oysters as well as fish, though the eating of them affords little benefit or pleasure, especially as they lie deep at the bottom of the sea, and there is no way of getting them except by diving to the bottom. “Verily, a nimble man he, who diveth easily;” of whom he also says, “Many would he satisfy by diving for oysters.”
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§ 1.23 Before every feaster in Homer a cup is set. In the case of Demodocus, at least, there are furnished a basket, a table, and a cup “for drinking whensoe'er his heart bade him.” And “the mixing-bowls are crowned with the beverage,” that is, they are filled to the brim, so as to be “crowned” with the wine. This they did because they regarded it as a good omen. And “the young men distribute it to all, after the drink-offering has been poured into the cups.” The word “all” refers to the men, not to the cups. At any rate, Alcinous says to Pontonous, “Serve wine to all in the hall,” continuing, “So, then, he measured it out to all, after he had poured the drink-offering into the cups.” There are also special honours at dinner for the bravest. For example, Tydeides is honoured “with meat and full cups,” and Ajax is rewarded “with chines cut the whole length,” and the chieftains also receive the same: “The chine of an ox, which they set before him,” meaning Menelaus. So Agamemnon honours Idomeneus “with full cup,” and Sarpedon is honoured among the Lycians in the same way, and also with meat and a special chair. Drinking a health was accompanied by a hand-clasp. Thus the gods “at the golden cups clasped one another,” that is, gave each other the right hand as they pledged one another; and someone “clasped Achilles,” instead of “gave him the right hand,” i.e. he pledged him while extending the cup in his right hand. They used also to present a part of their own portion to anyone they liked, just as Odysseus cuts off for Demodocus some of the chine which they had served to him.
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§ 1.24 They were also in the habit, as the suitors show, of employing at symposia singers accompanied by the lyre, and dancers. At Menelaus's palace “the divine minstrel sang,” and two tumblers whirled about as leaders in the mirth; this word molpe ("mirth") is for our paidia ("sport"). Yet there was a certain sobriety in the minstrel tribe, who took the place of the philosophers of our time. Agamemnon, for example, leaves a minstrel behind to guard and counsel Clytaemnestra. His business was first to dilate on the virtues of women and inspire emulation for uprightness, and secondly, to furnish pleasant entertainment to divert her mind from low thoughts. Hence Aegisthus could not corrupt the lady until he had murdered the bard on a desert island. This character is found also in the bard who sang under compulsion before the suitors, for he spoke out his detestation of the suitors who beset Penelope. We may say in general that Homer calls all bards “reverend” in men's eyes, “for this is why the Muse hath taught them in the ways of song, and loved the tribe of minstrels.” Demodocus at the Phaeacian court sings of the amours of Ares and Aphrodite, not in approval of such passion, but to deter his hearers from illicit desires, or else because he knew that they had been brought up in a luxurious mode of life and therefore offered for their amusement what was most in keeping with their character. And to the suitors Phemius sings with the same intent the return of the Achaeans. The Sirens also sing to Odysseus the things most likely to please him, reciting what would appeal to his ambition and knowledge. “For we know,” say they, “all other things and all that shall befall upon the fruitful earth as well.”
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§ 1.25 The dances in Homer are, in some cases, performed by tumblers, in others, accompanied by ball-playing, the invention of which is ascribed to Nausicaa by Agallis, the Corcyraean savante, who naturally favoured her own countrywoman. But Dicaearchus credits to the Sikyonians, while Hippasus makes the Lacedemonians pioneers in this as in all gymnastic exercises. Nausicaa is the only one of his heroines whom Homer introduces playing ball. Famous ball-players were Demoteles, brother of Theocritus the Chian sophist; also one Chaerephanes. He, when following a licentious young man, would not converse with him, and moreover prevented the young fellow from inducing his passion. So the young man said, “ Chaerephanes, if you will stop following me you shall have of me everything you desire.” “What!” he replied; “I converse with you?” “Why, then,” said the young man, “do you persist in following me?” To this he answered, “I like to look at you, but I do not approve of your morals.” The folliculus, as it was called (it was apparently a kind of ball), was invented by Atticus of Naples, trainer of Pompeius Magnus, as an aid in physical exercise. The ball-game now called harpastum was formerly called phaininda, which is the kind I like best of all.
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§ 1.26 Great are the exertion and fatigue attendant upon contests of ball-playing, and violent twisting and turning of the neck. Hence Antiphanes: “Damn me, what a pain I've got in my neck!” He describes the game of phaininda thus: “He seized the ball and passed it with a laugh to one, while the other player he dodged; from one he pushed it out of the way, while he raised another player to his feet amid resounding shouts of'out of bounds,''too far,''right beside him,''over his head,''on the ground,''up in the air,''too short,''pass it back in the scrimmage.'” The game was called phaininda either from the players shooting the ball or because, according to Juba the Mauretanian, its inventor was the trainer Phainestius. So Antiphanes: “You went to play phaininda in the gymnasium of Phainestius.” Ball-players also paid attention to graceful movement. Damoxenus, at any rate, says: “A youngster, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, was once playing ball. He came from Cos; that island, it is plain, produces gods. Whenever he cast his eye upon us seated there, as he caught or threw the ball, we shouted together,'What rhythm! what modesty of manner, what skill!' Whatever he said or did, gentlemen, he seemed a miracle of beauty. Never before have I heard of or seen such grace. Something would have happened to me if I had stayed longer; as it is, I feel that I am not quite well.” Even Ctesibius, the philosopher of Chalcis, liked to play ball, and many of King Antigonus's friends would strip for a game with him. Timocrates the Laconian wrote a treatise on ball-playing.
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§ 1.27 But the Phaeacians in Homer also dance without a ball. And they dance rapidly in turn, I suppose (since this is the meaning of “tossing rapidly to and fro”), while others stand by and beat time by snapping the fingers, which is expressed by the verb “snap.” The poet also knows of the practice of dancing with song accompaniment. For Demodocus sang while “boys in their first bloom” danced, and in the Forging of the Arms a boy played the lyre while others opposite him “frisked about to the music and the dance.” Here there is an allusion to the style of the hyporcheme, which became popular in the time of Xenodemus and Pindar. This variety of dance is an imitation of acts which can be interpreted by words. Xenophon, with customary elegance, describes it in the Anabasis as occurring at the symposium held in the house of the Thracian Seuthes. He says: “When they had poured libations and sang the paean, the Thracians rose up to begin the programme, and danced in armour to a flute accompaniment. They leaped high and lightly, and brandished their knives. At the climax one struck the other; and all the audience thought he had received a deadly blow. Down he fell with artful grace, and all the Paphlagonians at the dinner shouted aloud. Then the first dancer despoiled the other of his arms and made his exit with the Sitalcas song, while other Thracians carried off the victim as though he were dead. But he wasn't hurt at all. Following him the Aenianians and Magnesians arose and danced in armour the karpaia, as it is called. The nature of the dance was this: One performer lays aside his arms and begins to sow and plow, often turning around as if in fear; a robber approaches, and when the first dancer sees him he snatches up his arms and fights in front of his oxen, keeping time with the flute music; finally the robber binds the man and drives off the team; but sometimes also the ploughman overcomes the robber, ties his hands behind his back, and drives him alongside the oxen.” Another performer described by Xenophon danced “The Persian,” clashing his wicker shields and alternately squatting and standing up. All this he did in rhythm, with flute accompaniment. He then describes the Arcadians, who rose up in full armour and marched in step to the warlike measures of the flute, neatly adapting themselves to the rhythm while they danced.
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§ 1.28 The Homeric heroes used both flutes and Pan's pipes. Agamemnon, for example, “hears the sound of flutes and pipes.” Homer has not introduced them at symposia, but in the Forging of the Arms he mentions the flutes at the celebration of a wedding, and flutes he ascribes to barbarians; it was among Trojans, at least, that “the sound of flutes and pipes” arose. They poured libations at the conclusion of dinner and offered them to Hermes, not, as in later times, to Zeus Teleios [the Fulfiller]. For Hermes is regarded as the patron of sleep. So they pour the libation to him also when the tongues of the animals are cut out on leaving a dinner. Tongues are sacred to him because he is the god of eloquence. Homer also knows of a variety of meats, for he speaks of “viands of every sort” and “dainties such as Zeus -cherished princes eat.” He is acquainted likewise with all the sumptuousness of our modern world. Of human dwellings, to be sure, the most splendid was the palace of Menelaus, which he conceives of as having virtually the same splendid equipment as Polybius ascribes to the house of a certain Iberian prince, of whom he says that he had emulated the luxury of the Phaeacians, except for the gold and silver bowls, filled with barley wine, which stood within the house. But in describing Calypso's house, Homer causes Hermes to stand in wonder at it. A joyous life is that which he ascribes to the Phaeacians, “for dear to us ever is the banquet and the lyre,” etc.... “These verses,” says Eratosthenes, are written thus:'As for me, I assert that there is no more perfect delight than when merriment reigns and baseness is absent, and feasters in the halls listen to the bard' — meaning by'baseness is absent''senseless folly.' For the Phaeacians could not but be men of good sense, since, as Nausicaa says, the gods loved them."
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§ 1.29 The suitors in Homer amused themselves by playing “draughts before the doors.” They could not have learned the game from the celebrated Diodorus or Theodorus, or the Mitylenaean Leon, whose ancestry was Athenian, and who, according to Phaenias, was never beaten at draughts. Apion of Alexandria says that he actually heard Cteson of Ithaca tell what sort of game the suitors played. “The suitors,” he says, “numbered one hundred and eight, and divided the counters between opposing sides, each side equal in number according to the number of players themselves, so that there were fifty-four on a side. A small space was left between them, and in this middle space they set one counter which they called Penelope; this they made the mark to be thrown at with another counter. They then drew lots, and the one who drew the first took aim. If a player succeeded in pushing Penelope forward, he moved his piece to the position occupied by her before being hit and thrust out, then again setting up Penelope he would try to hit her with his own piece from the second position which he occupied. If he hit her without touching any other player's piece, he won the game and had high hopes of marrying her. Eurymachus had won the greatest number of victories in this game, and looked forward to his marriage with confidence.” In this way, because of their easy life, the suitors' arms were so flabby that they could not even begin to stretch the bow. Even the servants who ministered to them were given over to luxury. Very potent, in Homer, is the scent of unguents. “If it were but shaken in the bronze-floored mansion of Zeus, yet its fragrance went out to earth and heaven.” Homer also knows of couches highly adorned, such as Arete bids spread for Odysseus; and Nestor boasts to Telemachus that he is rich in them.
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§ 1.30 Now among other poets it has sometimes been the practice to trace the extravagance and ease of their own times back to the time of the Trojan War. Aeschylus, for example, represents the Greeks as so indecently drunk that they break the chamber-pots on one another's heads. At any rate, he says: “Here is that knave who poured over me that mirth-provoking missile, the unsavoury pot, and missed not; and on my head it struck and was wrecked and dashed to pieces, breathing upon something different from the breath of fragrant oil-jars.” Sophocles, also, in The Achaeans' Dinner-Guest, says: “But in a burst of anger he threw the unsavoury pot, and missed not: and on my head the vessel was smashed, breathing not of balsam, and the unlovely smell smote me with fright.” Eupolis rebukes the one who first introduced the word “pot” in these terms: “ALCIBIADES: I loathe their Spartan simplicity, and I'd like to buy a frying-pan. B. Many the women, I fancy, who have fallen a prey in our time to their lust. — ALC.... And he who invented tippling in the early morning. — B. Ay, there you have hit on the cause of much lechery among us. — ALC. Well, then, who first said'slave, a chamber-pot!' in the midst of his drinking? — B. Yes, that is a wise and Palamedic conceit of yours.” But in Homer the nobles dine decently in Agamemnon's tent, and though, in the Odyssey, Achilles and Odysseus quarrel and Agamemnon “was secretly glad thereat,” still their disputes were useful when they were debating whether Ilium was to be taken by stratagem or battle. But even when Homer introduces the suitors as drunk, he does not portray such indecent conduct as Sophocles and Aeschylus have done, but merely mentions the hurling of an ox's foot at Odysseus.
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§ 1.31 In their gatherings at dinner the heroes sit instead of reclining, and this sometimes happened at King Alexander's court, according to Duris. Once, at any rate, when he entertained nearly six thousand officers, he seated them on silver stools as well as on couches, spreading purple robes on the seats. Hegesander, too, says that in Macedonia it was not customary for anyone to recline at dinner unless he had speared a wild boar without using a hunting-net. Until then they must eat sitting. Cassander, therefore, at the age of thirty-five continued to sit at meals with his father, being unable to accomplish the feat, though he was brave and a good hunter. And so, with an eye to the seemly, Homer introduced his heroes feasting on nothing else but meat. Moreover, they prepared it for themselves. For it means no ridicule or shame to see them getting a meal and cooking. In fact, they practised self-service from set purpose, and took pride, as Chrysippus says, in the dexterity they possessed in these matters. Odysseus, anyway, asserts that he is skilled as few are “in carving meat and piling up a fire.” And in the scene of the Entreaty Patroclus and Achilles prepare everything. When Menelaus, also, celebrates his children's nuptials, the bridegroom Megapenthes pours the wine. But today we have so far degenerated as to recline when we feast.
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§ 1.32 Only recently, too, have public baths been introduced, for in the beginning they would not even allow them within the city limits. Their evil effect is set forth by Antiphanes: “To hell with the bath! what a condition it has put me in! It has actually turned me into boiled meat. Anybody, I care not who, might take hold of my skin and scrape it off. Such a cruel thing is hot water.” And Hermippus: “So help me Zeus, a good man ought not to get drunk or bathe in hot water as you are doing.” There has also been an increase in the refinements not only of cooks but also of perfumers, so that a body could not be satisfied “even with diving into a tank full of ointment,” as Alexis puts it. All too flourishing, also, are the arts pertaining to the making of sweetmeats and the nice luxuries of sexual commerce, resulting even in the invention of sponge suppositories in the belief that they conduce to more frequent intercourse. Theophrastus says that there are certain stimulants so powerful that they can effect as many as seventy connexions, blood being finally excreted. And Phylarchus says that among the presents which the Indian king Sandrocottus sent to Seleucus there were aphrodisiacs so potent that when placed under the feet of lovers they caused, in some, ejaculations like those of fowls, but in others they inhibited them altogether. Even the perversion of music has increased today, and extravagances in clothes and foot-wear have reached a climax.
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§ 1.33 But Homer, though he is aware of the existence of unguents, never represented his heroes as anointed with them, except when he describes Paris as “glistening with beauty,” precisely as Aphrodite “cleanses the face with beauty.” Further, he does not represent them as wearing chaplets either, and yet by the figurative use of the word in a metaphor he indicates that he knew the chaplet. For he says: “the island round which the endless sea stretched like a crown.” And again: “all about thee the crown (i.e. circle) of war is ablaze.” It is also to be observed that whereas in the Odyssey he represents men as washing their hands before eating, in the Iliad one cannot find them doing that. This is because life in the Odyssey is leisurely, such as men lead who enjoy the luxuries of peace; therefore in this poem they took care of their bodies by baths and ablutions. For the same reason, in such a society they throw jackstones, dance, and play ball. Herodotus is wrong in saying that games were invented in the reign of Atys when there was a famine; for the heroic age antedated his time. But they who lived under the social conditions of the Iliad all but shout, with Pindar, “Hearken, thou Cry of Battle (Alala), Daughter of War (Polemos), prelude to the spears.”
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§ 1.34 Aristonicus of Carystus, Alexander's ball-player, was made a citizen by the Athenians because of his skill, and a statue was erected to him. For in later times the Greeks came to esteem vulgar skill of hand very highly, more than the ideas of the cultivated intellect. The people of Hestiaea, at any rate, and of Oreus, raised a bronze statue in the theatre of the juggler Theodorus, holding a pebble in his hand. Similarly the Milesians erected one of Archelaus the lyre-player, and although there is no statue of Pindar at Thebes, there is one of the singer Cleon, on which is the inscription: “Behold here the son of Pytheas, Cleon, bard of Thebes, who hath placed upon his brow more laurels than any other mortal, and his fame hath reached the skies. Farewell, Cleon; thou hast glorified they native land of Thebes.” According to Polemon, when Alexander razed Thebes to the ground, a refugee placed some money in the hollow cloak of this statue, and when the city was rebuilt he returned and found the money thirty years after. Herodotus, the reciter of mimes, as Hegesander tells us, and Archelaus the dancer, were held in greater esteem than any others at the court of King Antiochus, while his father Antiochus before him had made the sons of Sostratus the flute-players members of his body-guard.
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§ 1.35 Among Romans as well as Greeks the vagabond juggler Matreas of Alexandria was held in esteem. He used to say that he kept a beast which devoured itself; whereas even to this day it is debated what that beast of Matreas was. He also composed Problems in parody of Aristotle's, and read them in public: “Why does the sun go down but not dive?” “Why can sponges drink together but not tipple?” “Why can four-drachma pieces be converted, though they never get angry?” The Athenians yielded to Potheinus the marionette-player the very stage on which Euripides and his contemporaries performed their inspired plays. They even set up a statue of Eurycleides in the theatre along with those of Aeschylus and his rivals. And Xenophon the juggler was also held in admiration. He left behind him a pupil, Cratisthenes of Phlious, who could make fire burn spontaneously and invented many other magical tricks to confound men's understanding. Like him also was the juggler Nymphodorus, who, taking offence at the people of Rhegium, as Duris tells us, was the first to ridicule them for their cowardice. And Eudicus the clown enjoyed a great reputation for his imitation of wrestlers and boxers, according to Aristoxenus. The same authority says that Straton of Tarentum was admired for his imitation of dithyrambs, and the Italian Greek Oinonas for his parodies of songs to the harp. He it was who introduced Cyclops whistling and the stranded Odysseus talking bad Greek. And Diopeithes the Locrian, according to Phanodemus, appearing once in Thebes, tied some bladders full of wine and milk under his belt and then squeezed them, pretending that he drew the liquids from his mouth. For similar feats the impersonator Noemon was also famous. There were celebrated jugglers also at Alexander's court — Scymnus of Tarentum, Philistides of Syracuse, and Heracleitus of Mitylene. There have been, too, famous clowns such as Cephisodorus and Pantaleon, and Xenophon mentions the jester Philip.
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§ 1.36 Boundaries. — Athenaeus speaks of Rome as “the populace of the world,” and says that one would not shoot wide of the mark if he called the city of Rome an epitome of the civilized world; so true is it that one may see at a glance all the cities of the world settled there. Most of them he details with their individual traits, such as the “golden” city of Alexandria, the “beautiful” city of Antioch, the “very lovely” city of Nicomedia, and beyond and above these, “the most radiant of all the towns that Zeus created,” meaning Athens. More than one day would fail me if I tried to enumerate all the cities he counts within the heavenly city of Rome — nay, all the days numbered in the year would not be enough, so many are the cities there. Even entire nations are settled there en masse, like the Cappadocians, the Scythians, the Pontians, and more besides. All these, then, the entire populace of the world, he tells us, united in naming the philosopher-dancer of our time “ Memphis,” quaintly comparing his bodily motions with the oldest and most royal of cities. Concerning it Bacchylides says, “ Memphis, untouched by storms, and reedy Nile.” This “ Memphis ” explains the nature of the Pythagorean system, expounding in silent mimicry all its doctrines to us more clearly than they who profess to teach eloquence. Now the first to introduce this “tragic dancing,” as it was called, in the style of Memphis, was Bathyllus of Alexandria, who, as Seleucus says, danced in pantomime.
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§ 1.37 Aristonicus says that this Bathyllus, together with Pylades, who wrote a treatise on dancing, developed the Italian style of dance out of the comic fling called the cordax, the tragic measures called emmeleia, and the satyr rout called sicinnis (whence the satyrs are also called sicinnistae), the inventor of which was a barbarian named Sicinnus. But others say Sicinnus was a Cretan. Now Pylades' dancing was solemn, expressing passion and variety of character, whereas Bathyllus's was more jolly; in fact he composed a kind of hyporcheme. Sophocles, besides being handsome in his youth, became proficient in dancing and music, while still a lad, under the instruction of Lamprus. After the battle of Salamis, at any rate, he danced to the accompaniment of his lyre round the trophy, naked and anointed with oil. Others say he danced with his cloak on. And when he brought out the Thamyris he played the lyre himself. He also played ball with great skill when he produced the Nausicaa. Even the wise Socrates was fond of the “ Memphis ” dance, and was often surprised in the act of dancing it, according to Xenophon. He used to say to his acquaintances that dancing was exercise for every limb. For people used to employ the word “dancing” for any physical motion or excitation. Thus Anacreon: “The fair-haired daughters of Zeus danced with light step.” And Ion: “So unexpected were these things that his heart danced the more.”
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§ 1.38 Hermippus says that Theophrastus used to appear at the Peripatos at the regular hour glistening with oil and exquisitely dressed, and after seating himself he gave free play to every motion and gesture in delivering his discourse. On one occasion, while portraying an epicure, he thrust forth his tongue and licked his lips. Men of the old time were careful to gather up their garments decently, and ridiculed those who were negligent about this. Thus Plato in the Theaetetus speaks of men “who could render any service promptly and smartly, but did not know how to throw their cloaks over their shoulders from left to right, as gentlemen should; nor had they ever grasped the fitting harmony of words so that they could rightly sing of the lives of gods and happy men.” Sappho derides Andromeda thus: “What peasant woman beguiles thy wit — one who know not how to draw her tattered garments over her ankles?” Philetairus: “Cover your shins! Let your cloak down, poor fool, and don't gather it round you above the knee like a boor!” Hermippus says that Theocritus the Chian criticized Anaximenes' method of dressing as ungentlemanly. And Callistratus, also, disciple of Aristophanes, has abused Aristarchus in a book for his failure to dress himself neatly, since even a detail like this supplies the test of man's culture. Wherefore Alexis, also, says: “This is one trait which I regard as worthy of no gentleman — to walk in the streets with careless gait when one may do it gracefully. For this nobody exacts any toll from us, and one need not bestow any honour in order to receive it again from others. Rather, to them who walk with dignity comes full meed of honour, while they who see it have pleasure, and life has its grace. What man who pretends to have any sense would not win for himself such a reward?”
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§ 1.39 Aeschylus, too, besides inventing that comeliness and dignity of dress which Hierophants and Torch-bearers emulate when they put on their vestments, also originated many dance-figures and assigned them to the members of his choruses. For Chamaeleon says that Aeschylus was the first to give poses to his choruses, employing no dance-masters, but devising for himself the figures of the dance, and in general taking upon himself the entire management of the piece. At any rate, it seems that he acted in his own plays. For Aristophanes, certainly (and among the comic poets one may find credible information about the tragedians), makes Aeschylus say of himself: “It was I who gave new poses to the choruses.” And again: “I know about his Phrygians, for I was in the audience when they came to help Priam ransom his son who was dead. They made many gestures and poses, this way and that way and the other.” Telesis, also (or Telestes), teacher of dancing, invented many figures, and with great art illustrated the sense of what was spoken by motions of his arms. Phillis, the musician of Delos, says that the harp-singers of old allowed few movements of the face, but more with the feet, both in marching and in dance steps. Aristocles, therefore, says that Telestes, Aeschylus's dancer, was so artistic that when he danced the Seven against Thebes he made the action clear simply by dancing. They say, too, that the old poets — Thespis, Pratinas, Cratinus, Phrynichus — were called “dancers” because they not only relied upon the dancing of the chorus for the interpretation of their plays, but, quite apart from their own compositions, they taught dancing to all who wanted instruction. Aeschylus wrote his tragedies when drunk, according to Chamaeleon. Sophocles, anyway, reproached Aeschylus with the remark that even if he wrote as he should, he did it unconsciously.
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§ 1.40 National dances are the following: Laconian, Troezenian, Epizephyrian, Cretan, Ionian, and Mantinean; these last were preferred by Aristoxenus because of the motion of the arms. Dancing was held in such esteem and involved such art that Pindar calls Apollo “dancer”: “Dancer, Lord of beauty, Thou of the broad quiver, Apollo!” And Homer, or one of the Homeridae, in the Hymn to Apollo says, “ Apollo, with lyre in hand, harped sweetly the while he stepped forth high and gracefully.” And Eumelus of Corinth (or was it Arctinus?) introduces Zeus as a dancer with the words: “And in their midst danced the father of gods and men.” But Theophrastus says that Andron, the flute-player of Catana, was the first to add rhythmical motions of the body to the playing of the flute; hence, “to do the Sicel ” meant “to dance” among the ancients. After him there was Cleolas of Thebes. Famous dancers also were Bolbus, mentioned by Cratinus and Callias, and Zeno of Crete, a great favourite of Artaxerxes, mentioned by Ctesias. Alexander, too, in his letter to Philoxenus, mentions Theodorus and Chrysippus.
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§ 1.41 Timon of Phlious, the satirist, calls the Museum a bird-cage, by way of ridiculing the philosophers who got their living there because they are fed like the choicest birds in a coop: “Many there be that batten in populous Egypt, well-propped pedants who quarrel without end in the Muses' bird-cage.”.. until these table-orators get over their diarrhoea of words. For their tongue-sickness, I think, has made them forget even the Pythian oracle recorded by Chamaeleon: “Twenty days before the Dog-star rises and twenty thereafter, make Dionysus your physician within the shadows of your house.” Mnesitheus of Athens, also, says that the Pythia directed the Athenians to honour Dionysus as physician. Alcaeus, too, famous poet of Mitylene, says: “Moisten your lungs with wine; for the Dog-star is rising, the weather is oppressive, everything is athirst because of heat;” and elsewhere: “Let us drink, for the Dog-star rises.” And so Eupolis says that Callias is compelled by Protagoras to drink in order that “he may carry his lungs relaxed before the Dog-star rises.” But it is not merely our lungs that grow dry; possibly the heart does also. And yet Antiphanes says: “As for life, tell me, what is it? Drinking, say I. You can see this from the trees on the banks of copious torrents which are wet day and night: how they grow in size and beauty, while those which resist — as though seized with thirst and dryness — are destroyed root and branch.” After they had talked in this manner about the Dog-star, Athenaeus says they had something given them to drink. Now the verb “to wet” is used also of drinking. Antiphanes: “They that eat rich food must wet it.” Eubulus: “I, Sicon by name, have come wet and in my cups. — B. Have you been drinking? — S. Drunk I have, not wisely but too well, by the Zeus of Mende.”
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§ 1.42 The verb “fall back” is properly used of the heart in the meaning “be discouraged,” “be faint-hearted.” Thus in Thucydides, Book I: “When they are defeated they are the last to lose heart.” But Cratinus uses the word of rowers: “Make a splash, and lie back to it!” Xenophon, also in the Oiconomicus: “Why is it that rowers give no trouble to one another? Is it not because they are seated in a regular place, bend forward regularly, and lie back regularly?” But the verb “be laid up” we use of dedicating a statue. Hence those who used it of recumbent objects were ridiculed. So Diphilus, “For a while I lay up there.” To him his companion, offended at the word, says “Stay up there!” Philippides makes a character say: “and at dinner always lying back beside him.” He then adds: “was he entertaining statues?” Both “lie down” and “recline” are used, as in the Symposium of Xenophon and of Plato. Alexis: “What a calamity it is to lie down before dinner. For sleep can never overtake one then, of course, nor can we understand a word a body says. Our senses are too close to the table.” The word “lie back” is to be found, though rarely, in this sense also. A satyr in Sophocles uses the word when burning with passion for Heracles: “Would I might leap right on his neck as he lies back there.” And Aristotle, in the Customs of the Tyrrhenians: “The Tyrrhenians dine in company with their women, lying back under the same robe.” Theopompus: “After that we began to drink, lying down very comfortably at a dinner with three couches, howling at one another the lays of Telamon.” Philonides: “I've been lying down, as you can see, a very long time.” Euripides in the Cyclops: “He fell and lay back, breathing a heavy air from his throat.” Alexis: “After that I bade her throw herself down and lie back beside me.”
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§ 1.43 The word meaning “to eat,” “partake of,” is used of taking a taste. For example, Phoenix says to Achilles: “I refused to taste food with others in the halls.” And in another place: “when they had tasted the entrails.” For since the entrails are not many, a large crowd can take only a taste. And Priam, also, says to Achilles: “Now, at last, I have tasted food.” For it was proper that the man who had but that moment met with misfortune should take only a taste; his grief would not allow him to sate himself. Hence anyone who had not tasted food at all “lay fasting, tasting no food.” Of those who satisfy hunger entirely Homer never uses this word “partake,” but in what plainly denotes complete satisfaction he says “when they had delighted them with food” or “had banished desire for eating.” But later writers use “partake of” even when they refer to fullness. Callimachus: “I should rather sate myself with the story.” Eratosthenes: “The meat which they had taken in the chase they roasted on the ashes and ate up.”
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§ 1.44 “Like a piece of wood glued to another,” is a phrase used by the Theban lyric poet. [24b] Seleucus says that the phrase daita thaleian ("goodly feast") in Homer is really, by a change of letters, diaitan ("mode of living"); to derive it from daisasthai ("divide") is too forced. Carystius the Pergamene records that the women of Corcyra to this very day sing as they play ball. In Homer, too, women as well as men play ball, and men threw the discus and the javelin in a kind of rhythmic form: “They delighted themselves with the cast of discus and spear.” For the element of delight alleviates the difficulty of the throw. The young men also go out to hunt and catch every kind of quarry in order to train themselves for the perils of war, and as a result they were always stronger and healthier, as when “they array themselves as a tower of strength and stand against him with their javelins.” They were also acquainted with bathing, as a refreshment after toil, in various forms; they relaxed their weariness in the sea, which is especially good for the nerves; they loosened the tension of the muscles by tub-baths, then anointed themselves with oil so that, when the water dried, their bodies might not become stiff. For example, the men who returned from the reconnaissance “washed away in the sea the thick sweat from their shins and neck and thighs,” and having in this way refreshed themselves, they went “to the polished tubs and bathed, and smearing themselves with olive oil they sat down to their meal.” There is another method also of relieving fatigue by fomentations on the head: “She mixed it to a pleasant warmth over my head and shoulders.” For tub-baths, by reason of the water entirely enveloping the pores (as when one puts a colander into water), prevent the excretion of sweat. It cannot get through at all, unless one lifts the colander and allows the pores a relief and vent outward. So Aristotle explains in his Physical Problems, when he inquires why persons in sweat do not perspire after they enter warm or cold water, nor again until they emerge from the bath.
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§ 1.45 The heroes had vegetables also served to them at meals. That they are acquainted with the growing of vegetables is clear from the words “beside the farthest line of trimly planted garden-beds.” Moreover, they ate onions, too, though they are full of unhealthy juices: “thereto an onion, as relish to the drink.” Homer also portrays them as devoted to the culture of fruit trees: “For pear on pear waxes old, fig on fig.” Hence he bestows the epithet “beautiful” on fruit-bearing trees: “Beautiful trees grow there — pears, pomegranates, and apples.” But trees which are adapted for timber he calls “tall,” thus distinguishing their use by his epithets: “Where tall trees grew, alder and poplar and pine towering toward heaven.” The use of these fruit trees was older even than the Trojan War. Tantalus, for example, is not released from his hunger for them even after he is dead, seeing that the god who metes out punishment to him dangles fruit of this kind before him (like those who lead dumb beasts by holding tempting branches before them), yet prevents him from enjoying them at the moment when he comes near to realizing his hopes. Odysseus, too, reminds Laertes of what he had given him in his boyhood. “Pear-trees thou gavest to me, thirteen,” etc.
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§ 1.46 That they also ate fish is disclosed by Sarpedon when he compares captivity to the catch of a great seine. Yet Eubulus, with comic wit, says jokingly: “Where has Homer ever spoken of any Achaean eating fish? And flesh too, they only roasted, for he represents nobody as boiling it. Nor did one of them ever see a single courtesan either, but for ten long years they abused each other. Bitter the campaign they saw, for after taking one city they came away with wider posteriors (εὐρυπρωκτότεροι πολύ) than had the city which they captured.” Nor did the heroes allow the air to be free to the birds, for they set springes and nets to catch thrushes and doves. They also trained for bird-shooting, even hanging a dove by a fish-line from the mast of a ship and shooting at it from a distance, as is shown in the Funeral Games. But the poet is silent about the eating of vegetables, fish, and birds because that is a mark of greed, and also because it would be unseemly for the heroes to spend time in preparing them for the battle, since he judges it beneath the level of heroic and godlike deeds. But that they did use boiled flesh he makes clear when he says: “Even as a cauldron boileth... melting the lard of some fatted hog.” Then, too, the ox -foot which was hurled at Odysseus is a proof of the boiling, for nobody ever roasts the foot of an ox. Again, the line, “he took and placed beside them platters of all sorts of meat” shows not merely the variety of meats, such as fowl, pork, kid, and beef, but also that their preparation was varied, not uniform, but attended with ingenious skill. Thus emerged the menus of Sicily and the Sybarites, and presently also the Chian. For we have as much testimony about the Chians, in the matter of fancy cooking, as about the others just mentioned. Timocles says: “The Chians have been by far the best in inventing dainty dishes.” In Homer not merely the young men, but old men like Phoenix and Nestor, consort with women. To Menelaus alone no woman is joined, because he had organized the expedition to recover his lawful wife, who had been carried away.
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§ 1.47 “Old wine, but the flowers of new songs” Pindar extols. And Eubulus says: “Strange that old wine should always be in favour among gay ladies, but not an old man, rather the young one.” Alexis, too, says exactly the same thing, except that he says “high favour” instead of “always.” As a matter of fact old wine is better not only in taste but also for the health. For, first, it aids the digestion of food better; secondly, it is composed of finer particles and is easily assimilated; thirdly, it increases bodily strength; fourthly, it makes the blood red and gives it a comfortable flow; lastly, it induces undisturbed sleep. Homer praises that wine which allows considerable admixture of water, like Maron's, and old wine allows more mixing because it becomes more heating with age. Some even assert that the flight of Dionysus into the sea is a hint that the making of wine had long been known. For wine is sweet when sea water is poured into it. When Homer commends dark wine he often calls it fiery. For it is very potent and has the most lasting effect on the system of the drinker. Theopompus says that dark wine originated among the Chians, and that they were the first to learn how to plant and tend vines from Oinopion, son of Dionysus, who also was the founder of that island-state; and they transmitted it to other peoples. But white wine is weak and thin, while yellow wine digests more easily, having a drying quality.
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§ 1.48 Concerning Italian wines Galen, who is among the company of our learned author, says: “Falernian is sufficiently aged for drinking after ten years, and good from fifteen to twenty years; any that surpasses this limit induces headache and attacks the nervous system. There are two sorts, the dry and the sweetish. The latter attains this quality whenever south winds blow as the vintage season draws near, causing it also to become darker. Wine that is not made under these conditions is dry and of a yellow colour. Of the Alban wine there are also two sorts, one rather sweet, the other acid; both are at their best after fifteen years. The Sorrentine begins to be good after twenty-five years; since it lacks oil and is very rough, it takes a long time to ripen; even when it is ripe, it is barely wholesome except for those who use it continually. The wine of Rhegium, which contains more oil than that of Sorrentum, is fit to use after fifteen years. The Privernian also can be used then, being thinner than that of Rhegium and not at all likely to go to the head. Similar to this is the Formian, but it quickly matures and is more oily than the other. The Trifolian matures more slowly, and is more earthy than the Sorrentine. The Statan is one of the best kinds, resembling the Falernian, but lighter, and innocuous. The Tiburtine is thin, easily evaporates, and matures in ten years; but it is better when aged. Labican is sweet and oily to the taste, ranking midway between Falernian and Alban; it may be drunk at the earliest after ten years. The Gauran is both rare and excellent, besides being vigorous and rich, containing more oil than the Praenestine or Tiburtine. Marsic is very dry and wholesome. In the neighbourhood of Cyme, in Campania, grows the so-called Ulban, which is light and ready to use after five years. The Anconitan is good, oily... The Buxentine is like the acid variety of Alban, but its effect is wholesome. The Velitern is sweet to the taste and wholesome, but has the peculiar quality of seeming to be mixed; it gives the impression of having another kind mixed with it. The Calenian is light and more healthful than Falernian. The Caecuban is also a generous wine, but overpowering and strong; it matures only after many years. The Fundan is strong, heavy-bodied, and apt to attack head and smooth; hence it is not often drunk at symposia. The Sabine is lighter than all of these, ready to drink after from seven to fifteen years. The Signine is good in the sixth year, but much better when aged. The Nomentan matures quickly and is drinkable after the fifth year; it is neither too sweet nor too thin. The Spoletine wine... is sweet to the taste and of a golden colour. The Aequan is in many respects like the Sorrentine. The Barine is very dry and constantly improves. The Caucine is likewise a generous wine and similar to Falernian. The Venefran is wholesome and light. The Trebellic of Naples is temperate in its effect, wholesome and tasty. The Erbulan is at first dark, but becomes white after a few years; it is very light and delicate. The wine of Marseilles is good; but it is uncommon, rich, and full-bodied. The wine of Tarentum, and in fact all the wines of that latitude, are soft, having no violent effect and no strength; they are sweet and wholesome. The Mamertine, to be sure, grows outside of Italy; in Sicily, where it grows, it is called Iotaline. But it is sweet, light, and vigorous.” Among the Indians a divinity is worshipped — so Chares of Mitylene says — whose name is Soroadeios; it is interpreted in Greek to means wine-maker.
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§ 1.49 The witty Antiphanes catalogues somewhere the special products of each city in this wise: “From Elis comes the cook; from Argos the cauldron, from Phlious wine, from Corinth bedspreads; fish from Sikyon, flute-girls from Aegion, cheese from Sicily... perfumes from Athens, eels from Boeotia.” And Hermippus recounts them thus: “Tell me now, ye Muses that dwell in Olympian mansions, all the blessings (since the time when Dionysus voyaged over the wine-coloured sea) which he hath brought hither to men in his black ship. From Cyrene silphium-stalks and ox -hides, from the Hellespont mackerel and all kinds of salt-dried fish, from Thessaly, again, the pudding and ribs of beef; from Sitalces, an itch to plague the Spartans, from Perdiccas, cargoes of lies in many ships. The Syracusans supply hogs and cheese, and the Corcyraeans — may Poseidon destroy them in their hollow ships, because they are of divided loyalty. All these things, then, come from these places. But from Egypt we get rigged sails and papyrus; from Syria, again, frankincense; while fair Crete sends cypress for the gods. Libya supplies ivory in plenty for trade, Rhodes, raisins and dried figs, which bring pleasant dreams. From Euboea the god brings pears and ”fat apples," from Phrygia slaves, from Arcadia hired soldiers. Pagasae furnishes slaves, and branded rascals at that. The acorns of Zeus and glossy almonds come from Paphlagonia; they are “the ornaments of a feast.” Phoenicia, in its turn, sends the fruit of the plain and the finest wheat flour. Carthage supplies carpets and cushions of many colours."
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§ 1.50 Pindar, in the Pythian ode addressed to Hieron, says: “From Taygetus he brings the Laconian hound for the chase, a creature most keen for coursing. The goats of Scyros excel all others for milking. Arms from Argos, the chariot from Thebes; but in Sicily, land of fair fruits, look for the cunningly wrought car.” But Critias puts it thus: “The cottabos is the chief product of Sicily; we set it up as a mark to shoot at with drops of wine. Next comes the Sicilian cart, the best in lavish beauty.... The throne is Thessalian, a most comfortable seat for the limbs. But the glory of the couch whereon we sleep belongs to Miletus and to Chios, Oinopion's city of the sea. The Etruscan cup of beaten gold is the best, as well as all bronze that adorns the house, whatever its use. The Phoenicians invented letters, preservers of words. Thebes was the first to join together the chariot-box, and the Carians, stewards of the sea, the cargo-bearing clippers; and she that raised her glorious trophy at Marathon invented the potter's wheel and the child of clay and the oven, noblest pottery, useful in house-keeping.” And in fact Attic pottery is held in high esteem. But Eubulus speaks of “ Cnidian jars, Sicilian pans, Megarian casks.” And Antiphanes says: “ Cyprian mustard and juice of convolvulus, Milesian cress and Samothrace onion, kale from Carthage, silphium and thyme from Hymettus, and marjoram from Tenedos.”
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§ 1.51 The Persian king used to drink only Chalybonian wine, which Poseidonius says is also grown at Damascus, in Syria, since the Persians had introduced the culture of the vine there. In Issa, moreover, an island in the Adriatic, Agatharchides says a wine grows which is found by test to be better than all others. Chian and Thasian are mentioned by Epilycus: “ Chian and Thasian strained.” And Antidotus: “Fill a cup of Thasian: for no matter what care gnaws at my heart, once I get a drink of that, my heart is sound again. Asclepius has drenched me...” “Wine of Lesbos,” exclaims Clearchus, “which Maron must have made himself, I think.” “There's not another wine pleasanter to drink than a draught of Lesbian,” says Alexis, [47a] and continues: “In Thasian and Lesbian wine he swills for the rest of the day, and munches sweets.” The same author says:47b “ Dionysos was kind, for he made Lesbian free of duty to all who import that wine here. But if anybody is caught sending so much as a thimbleful to another city, his goods are confiscated.” Ephippus says: “I like the Pramnian wine of Lesbos.... Many the drops of Lesbian that are gulped down eagerly.” Antiphanes: “There is at hand a good relish, very inviting, and Thasian wine and ointment and fillets. For Love dwells where plenty is, but among those who are hard up Aphrodite will not stay.” Eubulus: “Take some Thasian or Chian, or old Lesbian distilling nectar.” He also mentions “Psithian” wine: “He gave me a taste of Psithian, sweet and without water; when I was thirsty he took and smote me on the chest with vinegar.” And Anaxandrides: “a pitcher of Psithian mixed.”
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§ 1.52 The second edition of Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae ("Women celebrating the Thesmophoria") is given the title of “Women who had celebrated the Thesmophoria ” by Demetrius of Troezen. In this play the master of comedy mentions Peparethian wine: “I'll not permit the drinking of Pramnian wine, or Chian, or Thasian, or Peparethian, or any other which will rouse your passion.” Eubulus: “ Leucadian wine is on hand, also some honey liqueur, just drinkable.” From Archestratus, writer on banquets: “After that, when ye have taken full measure from the bowl dedicated to Zeus the Saviour, ye must drink an old wine, with hoary head indeed, whose moist locks are crowned with a white bouquet, grown in Lesbos, which the sea waves encircle. I praise, too, the Bybline wine from the sacred Punic land; yet do I not count it equal with the other. For if you take but a single taste of it, having no acquaintance with it before, you will think it at first more fragrant than Lesbian; for fragrance it retains for a very long time. But to the taste it is far inferior, while Lesbian will seem to you to possess the glory of ambrosia rather than wine. But if any empty-headed swaggering babblers mock me and say that Punic wine is the nicest of all, I pay no attention to them.... The Thasian, to be sure, is also a generous wine to the taste, providing it be old with the fair seasons of many years. I could tell, too, and explain the merits, of the shoots pendant with clusters that grown in other districts; I forget not their names. But they are simply nothing when compared with Lesbian, although some find pleasure in commending what grows in their own country.”
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§ 1.53 Wine of the date-palm is mentioned by Ephippus: “Walnuts, pomegranates, dates and other sweets, and little jars of date wine.” And again: “A cask of date wine was being tapped.” Xenophon also mentions it in the Anabasis. Cratinus mentions Mendaean: “As it is, if he but catch a glimpse of Mendaean wine in its bloom, he tags on and follows it and says,'Oh, how soft and fair! Will it carry three?'” Hermippus, I believe, makes Dionysus mention several varieties: “Because of Mendaean the gods actually wet their soft beds. As for Magnesia's sweet bounty, and Thasian, over which floats the smell of apples, I judge it far the best of all wines excepting Chian, irreproachable and healthful. But there is a wine which they call ”the mellow," and out of the mouth of the opening jars of it there comes the smell of violets, the smell of roses, the smell of hyacinth. A sacred odour pervades the high-roofed dwelling, ambrosia and nectar in one. That is nectar; and of that my friends shall drink in the bountiful feast; but my enemies shall have Peparethan." Phaenias of Eresus says that the Mendaeans sprinkle the grapes on the vines with an aperient, so that the wine becomes a laxative.
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§ 1.54 Themistocles received as a present from the Persian king the city of Lampsacus to supply his wine, Magnesia his bread, Myus his victuals, Percote and Palaescepsis his bedding and clothing. And he bade him, like Demaratus, wear Persian clothes, giving him Gambreium for his raiment in addition to the towns he already had, with the stipulation that he should never again wear Greek clothes. So also Cyrus the Great bestowed upon his friend Pytharchus of Cyzicus seven cities, according to the Babylonian Agathocles — Pedasus, Olympium, Acamantium, Tium, Sceptra, Artypsus, and Tortyre. “But he,” says Agathocles, “proceeded to indulge in insolence and folly, and gathering an army he undertook to rule as tyrant over his country. And the Cyzicenes came out against him and offered resistance, rushing in successive ranks to meet the danger.” Among the people of Lampsacus, Priapus, who is the same as Dionysus, is held in honour and has the by-name Dionysus as well as Thriambus and Dithyrambus. The Mitylenaeans call the sweet wine of their country prodromus; others say protropus.
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§ 1.55 The Icarian wine is also esteemed, as Amphis says: “In Thurii oil, in Gela lentils, wine from Icaros, figs from Cimolos.” In the island of Icaros, says Eparchides, is grown the Pramnian, a variety of wine. It is neither sweet nor rich, but dry, hard, and of extraordinary strength; it is the kind which Aristophanes says the Athenians did not like, when, speaking of the Athenian populace, he says that they liked not the hard, stiff poets any more than they liked Pramnian wine s, which contract the eyebrows as well as the bowels; rather they want wine with delicate bouquet and nectar-distilling ripeness. In Icaros, says Semus, is a rock called Pramnian, and beside it a tall mountain from which comes this Pramnian wine, called by some “medicated.” The name of Icaros in earlier days was Ichthyoessa because of the abundance of fish there, just as the Echinades got their name from sea-urchins, the Sepian promontory from the cuttlefish in the surrounding waters, the Lagussae from the hares thereon, and other islands, Phycussae and Lopadussae, from similar causes. Now the vine which bears the Pramnian of Icaros, Eparchides continues, is called by foreigners “sacred,” but by the natives of Oinoe “ Dionysias.” Oinoe is a city on the island. But Didymus declares that Pramnian gets its name from a vine called Pramnia; others say that it is a special term for all dark wine, while some assert that it may be applied in general to all wine of good keeping qualities, as if the word were paramonion ("enduring"); still others explain it as “assuaging the spirit” (praynonta), since drinkers of it are mild-tempered.
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§ 1.56 Amphis also commends the wine from the city of Acanthus: “A. Where are you from? Tell me. — B. From Acanthus. — A. Then in Heaven's name, how is it that you are so harsh, though fellow townsman of the noblest wine? You carry the very name of your town in your outward address, but have not the inward qualities of your countrymen.” Alexis mentions Corinthian wine as hard: “There was imported wine on hand; for the Corinthian stuff is torture.” He also mentions Euboean: “After drinking a lot of Euboean wine.” Archilochus compares Naxian to nectar, and says, if I remember: “On my spear depends my kneaded barley-cake, on my spear, Ismarian wine; and I drink, leaning on my spear.” Strattis praises the wine of Sciathos: “The dark Sciathian, mixed half-and-half, gurgles forth and invites the wayfarer to drink.” But Achaeus praises the Bibline: “He offered hospitality with a cup of Bibline mead.” It was called thus from a region so named. Philyllius says: “I will furnish Lesbian, mellow Chian, Thasian, Bibline, and Mendaean, and nobody will have a headache.” Epicharmus says that its name is derived from certain mountains called Bibline. But Armenidas says the Biblian country is a part of Thrace, with the special names of Antisare and Oisyme. With good reason, too, Thrace was praised for its fine wines, and in general all the regions near it: “And ships from Lemnos, laden with wine, lay in port.” Hippys of Rhegium says that the wine called “tangled” was known as Biblian, and that Pollis of Argos, who became tyrant of Syracuse, introduced it from Italy. The sweet wine, therefore, which is called Pollian among the Sicilian Greeks, must be this Bibline. An oracle: (In the oracle, Athenaeus tells us, the god spoke of his own accord.) “Drink wine full of lees, for thou dwellest not in Anthedon, nor in holy Hypera, where thou wast wont to quaff wine that was clarified.” Now among the Troezenians, as Aristotle says in his work on their Constitution, there was a vine called Anthedonias and Hypereias, from a certain Anthus and Hyperus; just as there is an Althephias from one Althephius, a descendant of Alpheius.
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§ 1.57 Alcman somewhere speaks of “wine that knows no heat, redolent of its bouquet,” coming from the Five Hills, a place about a mile distant from Sparta; also one from Denthiades, a fortress, another from Oinoun, and others from Onogli and Stathmi. These are farms near Pitane, in Laconia. So he says, “wine from Oinoun, or Denthis, or Carystus, or Onogli, or Stathmi.” As for the Carystian, he means a place near Arcadia. By “no heat” he meant wine which has not been boiled; for they used to drink mulled wine. Polybius declares that an excellent wine is grown in Capua, called “anadendrite,” which has no competitor. Alciphron of Maeander says there is a mountain village near Ephesus, formerly called Leto's village, but now Latoreia from an Amazon of that name; in this Pramnian wine was produced. Timachidas of Rhodes, moreover, mentions a wine in Rhodes which he calls “doctored,” and says it resembles must. “Candied” is the name given to a wine which has been boiled. Polyzelus calls a certain wine “genuine home-brew,” and the comic poet Plato has a name “smoky” for an excellent wine which is made in Beneventum, a town in Italy. “ Amphias ” is the name given to a poor wine by Sosicrates. But the ancients also drank a liqueur made of spices, called trimma ("pounded"). Theophrastus, in his History of Plants, says that Heraea, in Arcadia, produces a wine the drinking of which causes insanity among males, but pregnancy in females. In the region of Cerynia, in Achaea, he further says that there is a kind of vine the wine from which causes pregnant women to miscarry, and if they but eat of the grapes, he declares, they miscarry. Troezenian wine, he says, makes drinkers of it childless. In Thasos, he says, the inhabitants make one wine that produces sleep, another that causes insomnia.
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§ 1.58 Concerning the preparation of perfumed wine, Phaenias of Eresus says: “To fifty pitchers of must is added one of sea water, producing anthosmias, or'bouquet' ”; and again: “Anthosmias is made stronger with the fruit of new vines rather than of old.” Continuing he says: “They trod out the unripe grapes and stored the liquor, which became anthosmias.” Theophrastus says that in Thasos the wine served in the town hall has a wonderful flavour, because it is specially seasoned. “For they place in the wine-jar dough made from spelt, first mixing it with honey, so that the wine gets its fragrance from itself, but its sweetness from the dough.” And further on he says: “If you mix hard and fragrant wine with smooth and odourless wine, as, for instance, Heracleote and Erythraean, the one supplies smoothness, the other fragrance.” Perfumed wine finds mention in Poseidippus: “A strange, thirsty wine is this precious perfumed stuff.” And “Hermes” is a variety of beverage mentioned in Strattis. Chaereas says that a wine grows in Babylon which is known as nectar. “So this, after all, was a true saying, that wine must have not only its portion of water, but also a bit of a jest.” — “Naught that Dionysos gives should be rejected, not even so much as a grape seed,” says the poet of Ceos.
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§ 1.59 Among wines one kind is white, another yellow, another dark. As for the white, it is by nature thinnest, diuretic, and heating; while it is a digestive, it makes the head hot; for this wine is heady. Dark wine, if not inclined to be sweet, is very nutritious, also astringent. But the sweet varieties, both of white and yellow wines, are the most nutritious. For sweet wine smooths the tract through which it passes, and by thickening the humours more, tends to incommode the head less. In fact, the quality of sweet wine causes it to remain in the hypochondriac regions and induces salivation, as Diocles and Praxagoras record. And Mnesitheus of Athens says: “While dark wine is most favourable to bodily growth, white wine is thinnest and most diuretic; yellow wine is dry, and better adapted to digesting foods.” Wines which are more carefully treated with sea water do not cause headache; they loosen the bowels, excite the stomach, cause inflations, and assist digestion. Examples are the Myndian and the Halicarnassian. The Cynic Menippus, at any rate, calls Myndus “salt-water drinker.” The wine of Cos also is very highly treated with sea water. The Rhodian, also, has, to be sure, a smaller share of the sea, but most of it is useless. The island wine is naturally well adapted for drinking-bouts and not unsuitable for daily use. Cnidian wine produces blood, is nourishing, and causes easy relaxing of the bowels; but when drunk too copiously it weakens the stomach. The Lesbian has less astringency and is more diuretic. The pleasantest is the Chian, especially the variety known as Ariusian. There are three kinds of it; one dry, another rather sweet, the third, a mean between these two in taste, and called “self-tempered.” Now the dry has a good taste, is nourishing and more diuretic; the sweet is nourishing, satisfying, and laxative; the “self-tempered” is mid-way between them in useful effects. Speaking generally, Chian wine promotes digestion, is nourishing, produces good blood, is very mild, and is satisfying in its rich quality. But the pleasantest wines are the Alban of Italy and the Falernian. But when one of these has age and has been kept a long time it acts like a drug and soon causes stupor. The so-called Adriatic has a pleasant odour, is easily assimilated, and altogether innocuous. But they should be made rather early in the season and set aside in an open space so that the richness peculiar to their nature may evaporate. A very pleasant wine, when old, is the Corcyraean. But the Zacynthian and Leucadian, on account of the admixture of gypsum, are injurious to the brain. The Cilician wine called “Abates” is merely a laxative. Hard waters, like those from springs and rains, suit the Coan, Myndian, Halicarnassian, and all other wines which have been abundantly treated with sea water, provided the water be thoroughly filtered, and have stood for some time. These wines, therefore, may be advantageously used at Athens and Sikyon, where the water is hard. But for wines not treated with sea water, or those which are too astringent, or again for Chian and Lesbian, only the purest waters are suitable. —
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§ 1.60 “O tongue, so long silent, how shalt thou dare relate this deed? Verily there is naught so stern as necessity, for it shall make thee reveal thy masters' secret,” says Sophocles. — “I shall be my own Iolaus and Heracles as well.” — The Mareotan wine — also called Alexandreotic — gets its names from Lake Mareia in Alexandria and the city so named near it. In earlier times the town was important, but today it has dwindled to a village. It took its name from Maron, one of the members of Dionysus's conquering train. The vine is abundant in this region, and its grapes are very good to eat. The wine made from them is excellent; it is white and pleasant, fragrant, easily assimilated, thin, does not go to the head and is diuretic. Even better than this is the Taeniotic ("strip"-) wine, so-called. There is a long strip of land in those parts, and the wines made there are somewhat pale, disclosing an oily quality in them which is dissolved by the gradual mixture of water, like the honey of Attica when water is added. This Taeniotic wine, beside being pleasant, has also an aromatic quality, and is mildly astringent. The vine is as abundant in the Nile valley as its waters are copious, and the peculiar differences of the wines are many, varying with colour and taste. Surpassing all others is the wine of Antylla, a city not far from Alexandria, the revenues from which were assigned by the early kings of Egypt and by the Persians to their wives for pin-money. The wine of the Thebaid, and especially the wine from the city of the Copts, is so thin and assimilable, so easily digested, that it may be given even to fever patients without injury. — “You praise yourself, woman, as Astydamas did.” Astydamas was a tragic poet. —
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§ 1.61 Theopompus of Chios relates that the vine was discovered in Olympia, on the banks of the Alpheius; and that there is a district in Elis a mile away, in which, at the festival of Dionysus, the inhabitants shut up and seal three empty cauldrons in the presence of visitors; later, they open the cauldrons and find them full of wine. But Hellanicus maintains that the vine was discovered first in Plinthine, a city of Egypt. Hence Dio the Academic philosopher says that the Egyptians became fond of wine and bibulous; and so a way was found among them to help those who could not afford wine, namely, to drink that made from barley; they who took it were so elated that they sang, danced, and acted in every way like persons filled with wine. Now Aristotle declares that men who have been intoxicated with wine fall down face foremost, whereas they who have drunk barley beer lie outstretched on their backs; for wine makes one top-heavy, but beer stupefies.
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§ 1.62 That the Egyptians are wine-bibbers is indicated also by the custom, found only among them, of putting boiled cabbage first on their bill of fare at banquets, and it is so served to this day. Many even add cabbage-seed to all remedies concocted against drunkenness. Wherever cabbages grow in a vineyard the wine produced is darker. Hence the Sybarites also, according to Timaeus, used to eat cabbages before drinking. Alexis: “Yesterday you took a drop, and so today you've got a headache. Take a nap, that will stop it. Then have some boiled cabbage brought to you.” And Eubulus somewhere says: “Woman, you must think I am a cabbage, for you try to shift all your headache upon me, so I believe.” That the ancients called the cabbage rhaphanos is attested by Apollodorus of Carystus: “If they think that our calling it a rhaphanos, while you foreigners call it a krambe, makes any difference to us women!” Anaxandrides:'If you will but take a bath and eat a lot of cabbage (rhaphanos), you will disperse your sadness as well as the cloud which is now upon your brow." Nicochares: “Tomorrow we'll make a decoction of acorns instead of cabbages (rhaphanoi) to drive away our headache.” Amphis: “There's no cure for being drunk, it would seem, so potent as the blow of sudden grief. It drives drunkenness away so forcibly that cabbages (rhaphanis) seem ridiculous by comparison.” On the subject of this effect caused by the cabbage, Theophrastus also has written; he alleges that even the growing vine loathes the smell of cabbage.
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§ 2.1 BOOK II. (epitome) [35a] “Most of the day he gives over as a largess to sleep.” But the conversations which you have reported are of such variety of subject that they allowed me no leisure for sleep. Not missing the mark. — Nicander of Colophon says that the word for wine (oinos) is derived from Oineus: “ Oineus squeezed it in hollow cups and called it oinos.” So also Melanippides of Melos: “Wine, my master, named after Oineus.” Hecataeus of Miletus declares that the vine was discovered in Aitolia, and he adds: “ Orestheus, son of Deucalion, went to Aitolia to assume the kingship, and a bitch of his gave birth to a stalk. He ordered that it be buried, and from it sprang a vine with many clusters. For this reason he called his own son Phytius (”Vine-grower"). When his son Oineus was born, he was named after the vines." For the ancient Greeks, Athenaeus explains, called grape-vines oinai. “And the son of Oineus was Aetolus.” But Plato, explaining the etymology in the Cratylus, says that oinos is for oionous, because wine fills our brain with false impressions. Or perhaps it is so called from onesis ("benefit"), since Homer alludes to the derivation of the word somewhat in this way: “Then shalt thou thyself be benefited if thou wilt but drink.” In fact he calls all victuals oneiata ("benefits") because they help us.
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§ 2.2 “In wine, Menelaus, the gods devised the best remedy for mortal men to dissipate care.” The writer of the Cypria, whoever he may be, is authority for this. And Diphilus, the comic poet, says: “O Dionysus, dearest and wisest in the eyes of all men of sense, how kind art thou! Thou alone makest the humble to feel proud, and persuadest the scowler to laugh, the weak to be brave, the cowardly to be bold.” Philoxenus of Cythera speaks of “fair-flowing wine, opening all lips.” And Chaeremon, the tragic poet, says that wine brings to the user “mirth and solemn wisdom, folly and good counsel.” Ion of Chios says: “Child untamed, with face of bull, young and not young, sweet lure to loud-thundering passions, wine that lifts the spirit, ruler of men.” - [36a] “ Mnesitheus said that the gods had revealed wine to mortals, to be the greatest blessing for those who use it aright, but for those who use it without measure, the reverse. For it gives food to them that take it, and strength in mind and body. In medicine it is most beneficial; it can be mixed with liquid drugs and it brings aid to the wounded. In daily intercourse, to those who mix and drink it moderately, it gives good cheer; but if you overstep the bounds, it brings violence. Mix it half and half, and you get madness; unmixed, bodily collapse. Wherefore Dionysus is everywhere called physician.” The Delphic priestess, too, has directed certain persons to call Dionysus “health-giver.”
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§ 2.3 Eubulus makes Dionysus say: “Three bowls only do I mix for the temperate — one to health, which they empty first, the second to love and pleasure, the third to sleep. When this is drunk up wise guests go home. The fourth bowl is ours no longer, but belongs to violence; the fifth to uproar, the sixth to drunken revel, the seventh to black eyes. The eighth is the policeman's, the ninth belongs to biliousness, and the tenth to madness and hurling the furniture. Too much wine, poured into one little vessel, easily knocks the legs from under the drinkers.” And Epicharmus says: “A. After the sacrifice, a feast... after the feast, drinking. — B. Fine, in my humble opinion! — ”A. Yes, but after drinking comes mockery, after mockery filthy insult, after insult a law-suit, after the law-suit a verdict, after the verdict shackles, the stocks, and a fine." Panyasis, the epic poet, ascribes the first toast to the Graces, the Seasons, and Dionysus, the second to Aphrodite and Dionysus again, the third, however, to Violence and Ruin. He says: “The first portion fell to the lot of the Graces and the merry Seasons, and to noisy Dionysus, the very gods who inspired the round. For the next following the Cyprus -born goddess and Dionysus drew the lot. Here men get the greatest good from drinking wine. If a man, content with that, goes back home from the still pleasant feast, he can never meet with any harm. But if he persist to the full measure of the third round and drink to excess, there rises the bitter doom of Violence and Ruin, with evils to men in their train. So then, good sir (for thou hast a proper measure of sweet drink), go to thy wedded wife and let thy companions rest. For I fear, when that third sweet round is quaffed, that Violence may excite wrath in thy heart and crown a goodly entertainment with an evil end. Nay, obey, and cease from too much drinking.” And continuing the subject of wine immoderately used, Panyasis says: “After that the doom of Ruin and overcome follows close upon the victim.” According to Euripides, “the revel brings blows, insult, and outrage,” whence some declare that Dionysus and Hybris ("Violence") were born at the same time.
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§ 2.4 Alexis says somewhere: “Man is, in a way, much like wine in his nature; young wine, like the young man, is bound to boil up at first and do violence; but when it has lost its ferment it grows hard, and after passing the crisis of all these conditions I speak of, and having had this top froth skimmed from the surface, it is at last fit to use; it settles down again and always thereafter is pleasant to all.” And according to the poet of Cyrene, “There is wine, which has the strength of fire when it enters into men; it swells them as the north or south wind swells the Libyan sea, and brings to light the hidden things in the deep; so wine drives the wits from men in complete upheaval.” But in another passage Alexis says just the opposite: “Man is not at all like wine in his nature; for when he has grown old he loses his flavour, whereas the oldest wine is what we strive to get. The one bites, the other makes us merry.” And Panyasis says: [37a] “Wine is as great a boon to earthly creatures as fire. It is loyal, a defender from evil, a companion to solace every pain. Yea, wine is the desired portion of the feast and of merry-making, of the tripping dance and of yearning love. Therefore, thou shouldst receive and drink it at the feast with glad heart, and when satisfied with food thou shouldst not sit still like a child, filled to over-flowing, oblivious of the mirth.” And again: “But wine is the best gift of gods to men, sparkling wine; every song, every dance, every passionate love, goes with wine. It drives all sorrows from men's hearts when drunk in due measure, but when taken immoderately it is a bane.”
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§ 2.5 Timaeus of Tauromenium says that in Agrigentum there is a house which is called the “trireme” from the following circumstance. A party of young fellows were drinking in it, and became so wild when overheated by the liquor that they imagined that they were sailing in a trireme, and that they were in a bad storm on the ocean. Finally they completely lost their sense, and tossed all the furniture and bedding out of the house as though upon the waters, convinced that the pilot directed them to lighten the ship because of the raging storm. Well, a great crowd gathered and began to carry off the jetsam, but even then the youngsters did not cease from their mad actions. The next day the military authorities appeared at the house and made complaint against the young men when they were still half-seas over. To the questions of the magistrates they answered that they had been much put to it by a storm and had been compelled to throw into the sea the superfluous cargo. When authorities expressed surprise at their insanity, one of the young men, though he appeared to be the eldest of the company, said to them, “Ye Tritons, I was so frightened that I threw myself into the lowest possible place in the hold and lay there.” The magistrates, therefore, pardoned their delirium, but sentenced them never to drink too much, and let them go. They gratefully promised... “If,” said he, “we ever make port after this awful tempest, we shall rear altars in our country to you, as Saviours in visible presence, side by side with the sea gods, because you appeared to us so opportunely.” This is why the house was called the “trireme.”
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§ 2.6 Philochorus says that drinkers not only reveal what they are, but also disclose the secrets of everybody else in their outspokenness. Hence the saying, “wine is truth also,” and “wine revealeth the heart of man.” Hence also the tripod as prize of victory in the festival of Dionysus. For of those who speak the truth we say that they “speak from the tripod,” and it must be understood that the mixing-bowl is Dionysus's tripod. For in ancient times there were two sorts of tripods, both of which came to be termed cauldrons. The one called “bath-pourer” was also made to stand over a fire. Thus Aeschylus: “This was contained in the household cauldron, tripod-mounted, which ever keeps its station above the fire.” [38a] The other is the so-called krater ("mixing-bowl"). Homer: “seven tripods, unspoiled by fire.” In these they used to mix their wine, and this is “the veritable tripod of truth.” Wherefore the tripod is proper to Apollo because of its prophetic truth, while to Dionysus it is proper because of the truth of wine. Now Semos of Delos says: “Bronze tripod; not the Pythian, but rather what is now termed cauldron. Of these some were not intended for fire, and in them they mixed wine; others were pitchers for the bath, in which they heated water, and they were made to stand over a fire. Of these latter some had handles, but having three feet as a base they were called tripods.” Ephippus says somewhere: “A. Too much wine makes you babble too much. — B. Ay, but they say that men in their cups speak the truth.” And Antiphanes: “One may hide all else, Pheidias, but not these two things — that he is drinking wine, and that he has fallen in love. Both of these betray him though his eyes and through his words, so that the more he denies, the more they make it plain.”
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§ 2.7 Philochorus has this: “ Amphictyon, king of Athens, learned from Dionysus the art of mixing wine, and was the first to mix it. So it was that men came to stand upright, drinking wine mixed, whereas before they were bent double by the use of unmixed. Hence he founded an altar of Dionysus Orthos in the shrine of the Seasons; for these make ripe the fruit of the vine. Near it he also built an altar to the Nymphs to remind devotees of the mixing; for the Nymphs are said to be the nurses of Dionysus. He also instituted the custom of taking just a sip of unmixed wine after meat, as a proof of the power of the good gratitude, but after that they might drink mixed wine, as much as each man chose. They were also to repeat over this cup the name of Zeus Soter (savior) as a warning and reminder to drinkers that only when they drank in this fashion would they surely be safe.” Plato in the second book of the Laws says that the use of wine is designed to promote health. From the condition produced by wine they liken Dionysus to a bull or a leopard, because they who have indulged too freely are prone to violence. Alcaeus: “Sometimes drawing for themselves honey-like sweetness, sometimes, again, what is sharper than caltrops.” There are some drinkers who become full of rage, like a bull. Euripides: “Insolent bulls, driving rage into their horns.” Some, also, become like wild beasts in their desire to fight, whence the likeness to a panther.
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§ 2.8 Rightly, then, Ariston of Ceos says that the pleasantest drink is that which has its share both of sweetness and of fragrance. Wherefore, he says, certain peoples in the neighbourhood of the Lydian Olympus prepare “nectar” by mixing in the same portion wine, honey, and sweet-smelling flowers. [39a] Now I am aware that Anaxandrides declares that nectar is not a drink, but a food of the gods: “I eat nectar, chewing it well, and I drink now and then ambrosia; I am a minister to Zeus, and I can boast of gossiping when I like with Hera, or sitting beside Kypris.” Alcman also says the gods “eat nectar.” Sappho, too: “There stood a mixing-bowl filled with ambrosia, while Hermes grasped the pitcher to serve the gods.” Homer, however, know of nectar only as a drink of the gods; and Ibycus declares in exaggerated praise that ambrosia has ninefold the sweetness of honey, when he says that honey is the ninth part of ambrosia in sweetness.
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§ 2.9 “No man who is fond of drinking is base. For the twice-mothered Bromius delights not in the company of wicked men or untutored ways,” says Alexis; and he adds that wine “makes all fond of talk who drink it too freely.” The author of the epigram on Cratinus says: "'Wine,' I aver,'is a mighty horse to the witty bard, but you that drink water can never produce anything good.' Thus spoke Cratinus, O Dionysus, and breathed not of one wine-skin, but reeked of every cask. Therefore his halls teemed with chaplets, and he had a brow like thine, yellow with the ivy berry." Polemon says that in Munychia honours are paid to a hero Acratopotes ("Drinker of unmixed wine"), and that among the Spartans statues of heroes named Matton ("Kneader") and Ceraon ("Mixer") have been set up by certain cooks in the public mess. In Achaea, also, Deipneus, who got his name from deipna ("dinners"), is held in honour. “From dry food no jests will grow nor impromptu verses” — nor yet, again, will conceit or boasting of spirit. Rightly, therefore, the line, “whither are gone the boasts ye uttered in Lemnos, when ye ate much flesh and drank goblets brimming with wine,” is bracketed by the scholar Aristarchus in his notes, because it represents the Greeks as boasting after eating meat. For boasting, ridicule, and jests spring not from every kind of heartiness and fullness, but only from that which alters the spirit so completely that it inclines to illusion, which happens only through wine.
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§ 2.10 Wherefore Bacchylides says: “A sweet compelling impulse issues from the cups and warms the heart; and hope of love fulfilled speeds through the brain when mingled with the gifts of Dionysus, sending the thoughts of men to topmost heights. Soon it breaks down even the battlements of cities, and every man dreams of being a monarch. With gold, yes, and with ivory, his house glitters; wheat-laden ships carry over the shining sea mighty wealth from Egypt. Thus does the drinker's heart leap with fancies.” [40a] Sophocles, too, says that “to be full of wine is the solvent of pain,” while other poets declare that “wine is the fruit of the glebe that makes the heart merry”; and the prince of poets makes Odysseus say: “If a man hath had his fill of wine and food, though he fight all day, yet is his heart brave within him,” et cetera.
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§ 2.11 Simonides ascribes the same origin to wine and to literature. Inspired by wine, both comedy and tragedy were invented in Icarium, a village of Attica, at the very time of the vintage (tryge). Hence comedy was at first called trygoedia. “The vine, antidote to sorrow, was given to mortals; without wine Love lives not, and every other joy of mortals dies,” says Euripides in the Bacchae. And Astydamas also says: “He revealed to mortals that cure for sorrow, the vine, mother of wine.” — “If a man fill himself too continually he loses thought, but if he drink moderately he becomes full of ideas,” says Antiphanes. “I have drunk not to the clouding of my reason, but just so much that I can still surely distinguish the syllables with my tongue,” says Alexis. Seleucus maintains that in old times it was not the custom to indulge in too much wine or in any other luxury, except in honour of the gods. Hence they named their carousals either thoinai or thaleiai or methai — the first, because they thought it their duty to take wine for the gods' sake, the second because they gathered and came together to grace the gods. This, namely, is the meaning of daita thaleian ("bountiful feast"). As for the term methe ("drunkenness") Aristotle says that the verb methyo ("get drunk") comes from the use of wine after sacrifice.
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§ 2.12 “Sacrificing but meagre offerings in rites to the gods, albeit more pious than they who offer oxen,” says Euripides. In this way he indicates that the word “rite” means “festival.” Homer, too, has these lines: “As for me, I say that no more precious rite could be celebrated than when mirth possesseth the whole people.” Further, we call by the name of “mystic rites” those festivals which are still more important and are accompanied by certain traditional mysteries, deriving the name from the large sums expended upon them. For telein means to spend generously, and those who spend much are called polyteleis, those who spend little, euteleis. Alexis says: “The prosperous should live ostentatiously, and so make plain the god's bounty. For the god who had bestowed these blessings thinks that a man should feel grateful to him for what he has done. But when men try to hide their fortune, alleging that they are but indifferently well off, the god sees that they are ungrateful and are living meanly, and at the first opportunity he seizes and wrests from them all that he has given before.”
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§ 2.13 All this is said by way of oenologizing, or talking about wines; gulping down, as it were, all the names of wines. He who has been accustomed from his earliest upbringing to drink water takes no pleasure in the cup. “Pleasant it is, at the feast and the bounteous banquet, for men to enjoy themselves with stories after they are satisfied with eating,” says Hesiod in the epic tale of Melampus. It has not occurred to any of you to speak about waters, although from its mixture with water the wine is drawn for drinking. And yet the grandiloquent Pindar has said that “of all things water is best.” [41a] The divine Homer knows that it is very nourishing, in the lines where he speaks of a grove “of poplars nurtured by water.” He also praises its clearness: “Four fountains gushed with water white.” Whatever flows lightly and is of unusual value he calls desirable. Thus he speaks of the Titaresius, which “flows into the Peneius,” as desirable. He also mentions water fit for cleansing in a passage which Praxagoras of Cos accepts with approval... Homer speaks of it as “good”; “It flows past, good for cleansing even very soiled garments.” Moreover, he distinguishes fresh water from “broad”; in speaking of the Hellespont, he uses the term “broad.” But of fresh water he says: “We stayed our ships near a well of fresh water.”
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§ 2.14 He also knows the good qualities of hot water in the treatment of wounds. For he makes of this a fomentation to apply to Eurypylus when he was wounded. And yet if one had merely to check the flow of blood, cold water would have been suitable, since it hardens and contracts the flesh; but for dulling pain Homer causes Eurypylus to be bathed with hot water, since it is potent for soothing. In Homer, too, the word liaros means hot. This he makes quite clear in the passage about the sources of the Scamander: “The one,” he says, “flows with hot water, and about it smoke rises up as from a blazing fire.” Must not this be hot, when from it a fiery vapour and hot smoke rise into the air? But concerning the other spring he says that in summer “it flows like hail or chilling snow or ice which forms from water.” And just as he is wont to say of fresh wounds that the warm blood flows round them, so, in the case of Agamemnon, he says “while yet the blood welled up warm from his wound (employing the word thermos), but, on the other hand, of the stag which flees after being shot, he says (changing the word toliaros), ”while the blood is warm and his limbs are strong to move." But Athenians call what is warm metakeras ("lukewarm"), according to Eratosthenes: “diluted,” he says, “and lukewarm.”
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§ 2.15 Regarding other waters, Homer calls those which flow from rocks “dark,” meaning “unfit for use.” He prefers to all others the water of springs and those which flow through fertile and rather deep soil, as Hesiod does also: “A spring perpetual and ever flowing, which has not been fouled.” And Pindar says: “Ambrosial water, honeyed delight, flows from the fair spring of Tilphossa.” This Tilphossa is a spring in Boeotia, from which, Aristophanes says, Teiresias drank; but not being able to bear its coldness because of his age he died. Theophrastus, in his work On Waters, says that Nile water is very fertilizing and fresh. Hence it loosens the drinker's bowels, since it contains a soda ingredient. In his work On Plants he says that in some places water occurs which promotes conception, as in Thespiae, whereas in Pyrrha it produces sterility. He also says that some fresh waters are sterile or not very favourable to conception, like that in Pheta or in Pyrrha. [42a] And once, when droughts had occurred in the Nile valley, the flow of water became poisonous and many Egyptians died. He further says that many bitter waters as well as salt water and entire rivers change their character; such is the river in Caria on the banks of which stands a shrine to Zenoposeidon. The reason is that many thunderbolts fall in that region.
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§ 2.16 Other waters, again, are like solids, and have a considerable density, like the water of Troezen, for it is no sooner tasted than it becomes a mouthful. The waters near the mines of Mt. Pangaion weigh in the winter time ninety-six drachms to the half pint, while in summer they weigh forty-six. Cold weather contracts it and gives it greater density. Hence, also, water flowing in water-clocks does not correctly give the hours in winter, but makes them too long, since the flow is slower on account of its density. He asserts the same even of Egypt, where the climate is milder. But salty water is more earthy and requires longer boiling than sea water, as sea water is naturally warmer and not affected in the same way. Of salty waters the only one that is hard is the water of Arethusa. Inferior, also, are the heavier, the harder, and the colder waters for the same reasons: they are more difficult to boil partly because of the large content of solids and partly because of their excess of cold. On the other hand, those which heat quickly are light and healthful. In Crannon there is a water, slightly warm, which retains warmth in the wine mixed with it for two or three days. Running waters, including those drawn from an aqueduct, are as a rule better than standing water, and when aerated are still softer. For this reason even snow water is thought to be good, because the more potable element is drawn to the surface and this is broken up by the air; it is, therefore, even better than rain water, and water obtained from ice, also, is better because it is lighter; the proof is that ice itself is lighter than water in general. But cold waters are hard because they are more solid, and whatever is corporeal is warmer when heated and colder when cooled. For the same reason water on the mountains is better to drink than water in the plains, because it is mixed less with solid matter. This solid matter also causes the shades of colour in water. For example, the water in the lake at Babylon is red for several days, while that of the Borysthenes at certain periods is violet-coloured, although it is extremely light. The proof: when the north wind blows the river rises higher than the Hypanis because of its lightness.
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§ 2.17 In many places there are springs which are rather good to drink from and have a winy flavour, like the one in Paphlagonia, to which the natives are said to resort for tippling. Others, however, among the Sicani of Sicily, are salty as well as acid. In the dominion of Carthage there is a well in which the water at the top is like oil, but of a darker hue; they skim this off in globules and use it for sheep and cattle. Among other peoples also occur springs with a similar oiliness, like the one in Asia, about which Alexander wrote word that he had discovered a well of oil. Among the naturally warm waters some are fresh, as those in Cilician Aegae, in the neighbourhood of Pagasae, [43a] in the Trojan Larissa, in Magnesia, Melos, and Lipara; in Prusa, also, near the Mysian Olympus, are the so-called royal waters. But the waters in Asia near Tralles and the Characometes river, as well as those near the city of Nysa, are so oily that persons who bathe in them do not need oil. Similar, too, are those in the village of Dascylum. Those in Carura are drying and very warm, while those near the village of Men, in Phrygia, are rougher and contain more soda, as are those also in the village of Leon, as it is called, in Phrygia. The water near Dorylaion is very pleasant to drink; a noteworthy fact, since the water of Baiae or Baium harbour in Italy is quite undrinkable.
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§ 2.18 When I had weighed the water from the Corinthian spring Peirene, as it is called, I found it to be lighter than any other in Greece. For I have no faith in the comic poet Antiphanes, when he says that Attica, besides excelling other places in many respects, has also the best water. His words are: “A. What products, Hipponicus, our country bears, excelling all in the whole world! Honey, wheat-bread, figs. — B. Figs, to be sure, it bears in plenty. — A. Sheep, wool, myrtle-berries, thyme, wheat, and water. Such water! You'd know in a minute you were drinking the water of Attica.” Eubulus, writer of comedies, says that Chaeremon the tragic poet called water the river's “body”: “After we had passed the boundaries of the sheepfolds and had crossed the water, body of the river.” In fact, every faculty in us is nourished by water. In Tenos there is a spring with the water of which wine will not mix. And Herodotus, Book IV, says that the Hypanis as it issues from its sources is a thin stream of fresh water for a space of five days' journey, but after four more days of travelling it becomes bitter, because a bitter spring empties into it. Theopompus says that near the Erigon river is an acid water, and they who drink it become as intoxicated as those who drink wine.
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§ 2.19 Moreover, Aristobulus of Casandria says that in Miletus there is a spring called Achilles' Well, the main stream of which is very sweet, but the surface is salty; with the water of this spring, so the Milesians say, the hero purified himself after he had killed Trambelus, king of the Leleges. They also assert that the water of Cappadocia, which is abundant and very good, never goes stale even though it has no outlet, unless it be that it flows underground. King Ptolemy, in the seventh book of his Commentaries, says that “as we drew toward Corinth, approaching by the so-called Contoporeia to where the ascent of the ridge is made,” there was a spring sending forth a stream colder than snow; many refused to drink from it, expecting it to be frozen, but he adds that he himself drank of it. and Phylarchus says that they who have drunk of the spring of Cleitor cannot bear the smell of wine. Clearchus remarks that water is described as “white,” just as milk is, but wine, like nectar, is said to be “red,” honey and oil are “yellow,” while the juice squeezed from mulberries is “black.” Eubulus says that water makes those who drink nothing else fertile in devices, “whereas wine clouds our thinking.” Ophelion, too, has the same verses.
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§ 2.20 [44a] This much he said, speaking “to water,” as lawyers do; and after a brief pause he resumed. Amphis, the comic poet, somewhere says: “So it turns out that there is reason in wine after all, while some who drink only water are silly fools.” And Antiphanes: “With wine drive out wine, with bugle-call the bugle, the bawler with the herald, ache with ache, noise with noise, the strumpet with threepence, presumption with presumption, Callistratus with a cook, faction with faction, a fight with fighting, a boxer with black eyes, trouble with trouble, lawsuit with lawsuit, a woman with a woman.” The ancients used the expression “unmixed” even of water. Thus Sophron: “unmixed water into the cup.”
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§ 2.21 Phylarchus says that Theodorus of Larissa, who always maintained an hostile attitude toward King Antigonus, drank nothing but water. He also says that all Iberians are water-drinkers, although they are the richest men in the world; he says that their parsimony leads them to eat only once a day, though they wear the most sumptuous clothes. And Aristotle (or was it Theophrastus?) records that a man named Philinus never used any other drink or food but milk all his life. Pythermus registers Glaucon among the tyrants of Peiraeus as a water-drinker also. Hegesander of Delphi says that Anchimolus and Moschus, sophists of Elis, drank water all their lives, and though they ate nothing but figs they enjoyed as robust a physique as anyone else; but their sweat was so ill-smelling that everybody avoided them at the public baths. Matris of Thebes, also, ate nothing but a few myrtle-berries as long as he lived, abstaining, too, from wine and everything else except water. Another water-drinker was Lamprus the musician, concerning whom Phrynichus says: “And the pipes struck up their dirge while Lamprus lay a-dying among them — a water-drinking mortal he, a mincing charlatan surpassing them all, dry bones of the Muses, nightmare to nightingales, a hymn of Hades.” Machon, another comic poet, mentions a water-drinker named Moschion.
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§ 2.22 Aristotle, in his work on Drunkenness, maintains that some persons have stayed free from thirst while eating salty food; one of these was Archonides of Argos. Mago of Carthage crossed the desert three times, eating dry meal and having nothing to drink. Polemon the Academic began when he was thirty years old to drink only water, and kept it up until his death, according to Antigonus of Carystus. So, too, of Diocles of Peparethus, Demetrius of Skepsis says that he drank cold water to the end of his life. A credible witness in his own case is the orator Demosthenes, who says that for a time he drank only water. Pytheas, at any rate, also says: “Why, you may see with your own eyes how utterly opposed in mode of life are the popular leaders of the day, Demosthenes and Demades. The one drinks water and spends his nights in study, so they say, while the other is a bawd, gets drunk every day, and with belly protruding rants at us in meetings of the Assembly.” And Euphorion of Chalcis writes somewhat in this strain: “Lasyrtas the Lasionian felt no need at all of drink with his food, as other men do, yet he urinated like everyone else. [45a] And many persons eagerly undertook to watch him, but they desisted without discovering how the matter really stood. For in the hot summer weather they beset him closely for as much as thirty days, and although they observed that he did not abstain from any salt food, they were constrained to believe him when he said that he had a perfectly good bladder. To be sure, he did use liquids, nevertheless he had no real need of them with his food.” “It is pleasant,” says Antiphanes, “to change to different food, and when one is stuffed too often with common viands the mere taste of something new affords redoubled pleasure.”
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§ 2.23 The king of the Persians, as Herodotus tells us in the first book, has drinking-water brought to him from the Choaspes, which flows by Susa; that is the only water he drinks. Of this water, which has first been boiled, a very large number of four-wheeled wagons drawn by mules convey a supply in silver jars and follow in his train. Ctesias of Cnidus also tells how this water for the king is boiled and how it is put into the vessels and transported for his use, adding that it is very light and pleasant. When, too, the second king of Egypt, surnamed Philadelphus, gave his daughter Berenice in marriage to Antiochus, king of Syria, he took care to send her Nile water, for he wanted his daughter to drink of this river only. So writes Polybius. Heliodorus says that Antiochus Epiphanes, whom Polybius calls Epimanes ("the Mad") on account of his crazy doings, mixed wine in the well of Antioch. The same thing was done by the Phrygian Midas, according to Theopompus, when he desired to catch Silenus by making him drunk. The spring, says Bion, is midway between the Maedi and the Paeonians, and is called Inna. But Staphylus declares that Melampus was the first to invent the mixing of wine with water. Pleistonicus also remarks that water is a better aid to digestion than wine.
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§ 2.24 Those who drink toasts too constantly come to have an unnatural condition of the stomach; it is much more apt to go wrong, and often causes corruption in the food taken. He, therefore, who would enjoy health should have recourse to suitable exercises to provoke abundant perspiration, and also to baths, in order to moisten and soften the body; then he should drink the best water obtainable, in winter and spring as hot as he can bear it, in summer cold, in order not to weaken the stomach before it must act; he should also drink in quantities proportioned to the amount of food, that the water may be absorbed in the system before the wine, and thus prevent the wine from being distributed in full force and so attack and eat away the walls of the vascular organs. But if any of us find this irksome, let him take before dinner some warm sweet wine diluted, preferably what is called protropos (the sweet Lesbian ), which is good for the stomach. Wine that is rather sweet does not make the head heavy, as Hippocrates says in his book On Diet — a work which some entitle Acute Diseases, others On Barley Gruel, and others still Refutation of Cnidian Principles. He says: “Sweet wine is less apt to cause headache than that of more vinous power; it attacks the brain less violently, and traverses the digestive tract more easily than the other.” We should not drink like the Carmani, of whom Poseidonius says: “These people, namely, eager to prove their friendship in their drinking bouts, open the veins of the forehead, and mixing the blood which streams down in their wine, they imbibe it, [46a] in the belief that to taste each other's blood is the highest proof of friendship. After this peculiar mode of drinking the wine, they smear the head with perfume, preferably of rose, but failing that, of quince, in order to repel the effects of the draught and not be injured by the fumes from the wine; if quince perfume is not at hand, they use orris or nard.” Appropriately, therefore, Alexis says: “He anoints his nostrils with perfume; a highly important element of health is to put good odours to the brain.”
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§ 2.25 One should, however, avoid the richer unguents and drink water which is light and transparent in appearance, light, too, in actual weight and free from solid matter. Good water is that which heats and cools in a reasonable time, and when poured into a bronze or silver vessel does not tarnish it. Hippocrates also says: “Water which heats and cools quickly is always lighter in weight.” Waters which cook vegetables slowly are poor. Such are those which contain soda or salt. In his treatise On Waters, Hippocrates calls good water “potable.” Stagnant waters are bad, such as those in ponds and marshes. Even among spring waters the majority are too hard. And Erasistratus says: “Some persons approve waters by their weight without proper testing. Witness, for example, the water of the Amphiaraus spring compared with that of Eretria. The one is bad, the other good, but there is no difference in their weight whatever.” Hippocrates in his work On Places says that all waters are best which issue from high elevations and deep-soiled hills. For they are clear and fresh, and may be mixed with only a little wine; in winter, also, they are tepid, in summer, cool. He particularly recommends those whose streams issue toward the rising sun, more especially toward the quarter where it rises in summer. For then they must necessarily be sparkling, fragrant, and light. Diocles says that water is useful for digestion; it does not cause flatulence, it is moderately cooling, clears the vision, does not oppress the head in the least, and produces activity of mind and body. Praxagoras, too, says the same, but he commends rain water, whereas Evenor prefers cistern water, and further says that the water from the Amphiaraus spring is superior in comparison with that of Eretria.
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§ 2.26 That water is, beyond dispute, nourishing, is proved by the fact that some animals, like the cicadae, feed on that alone. Many other liquids are also nourishing, such as milk, barley-water, and wine. Children at the breast, at any rate, are sufficiently nourished by milk, and many tribes live by milk-drinking. There is also a story that Democritus of Abdera, having decided because of his years to give up life, cut down his food from day today; but when the holy days of the Thesmophoriae drew near, the women of his family entreated him not to die during the festival, since they desired to observe it. So he yielded, and bade them set before him a dish of honey; and the man survived the requisite number days although he ate only what was served of honey; when the days were over and the honey was removed, he died. But Democritus was always fond of honey, and when someone asked him how he might live a healthy life he replied, “by wetting his inside with honey, his outside with oil.” [47a] So also the food of the Pythagoreans was a wheat loaf with honey, according to Aristoxenus, who says that those who eat this for luncheon are always exempt from sickness. And Lycus says that the Cyrnians (they dwell near Sardinia ) are long-lived because they always eat honey, which is very abundant in their country.
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§ 2.27 — Notice the expression “all reserving the inquiry” for “putting it off.” — The word anestis is identical with nestis ("fasting"), by redundant use of a, like stachys and astachys ("ear of grain"). It is found in Cratinus: “Surely you are not the first uninvited guest to come to dinner hungry.” The expression “sharp-set” is in Diphilus:"I like to see the sharp-set with their cloaks off, eager always to find out everything before the proper time." And Antiphanes: “A. One malady that he has is this: he is always ravenously hungry. — B. The fellow he means is an out-and-out Thessalian.”And Eubulus: “ Zethus he bade go and dwell on Thebes' sacred soil; because, it would appear, they sell bread cheaper there, and he was sharp-set. But the very musical Amphion he told to emigrate to glorious Athens, where the sons of the Cecropidae luxuriously — starve, gulping down the breezes and feeding on hopes.”
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§ 2.28 The compound “one-meal-man” is found in Alexis: “When you see an ordinary citizen eating one meal a day, or a poet who has lost his desire for songs and lyrics, then you may be sure the first has lost one half of his life, the other, one half of his art; and both are scarcely alive.” Plato: “not eating one meal every day, but sometimes dining twice a day.” They used to call sweetmeats nogaleumata. Araros: “Festive indeed are these sweetmeats (nogaleumata). Alexis: ”In Thasian wines he soaks himself the rest of the day, and munches sweetmeats." Antiphanes: “Grapes, pomegranates, dates, and other sweetmeats.” Philonides uses the word apositos ("abstaining from food"). Crobylus has autositos in the phrase “a parasite bringing his own food.” “Unbreakfasted,” says Eupolis in a compound word (anaristeton). “Eating-in-spite-of-himself” is another compound (ananko-sitos) in Crates and also in Nicostratus: “A lad... with hair cut bowl-fashion and clad in riding-cloak you bring home on occasion to eat against his will.” Alexis used the word “luncheon-dinner” (aristo-deipnon): “With these dishes we can get up a short and sweet luncheon-dinner.”
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§ 2.29 (47e) After these words we arose and took new places on the couches according to each man's desire, without waiting for the generalissimo of the dinner-forces to act as usher. Besides the triclinia-dining-rooms with three couches, there were in ancient times rooms with four, seven, [47f] nine, and even higher numbers. Antiphanes: “Gathering you, when you numbered only three, in a three-couch dining-room.” Phrynichus: “There was a beautiful room with seven couches, and another still with nine.” Eubulus: “A. Set the heptaclinium ('room with seven couches'). — B. Here you have it. — A. Then bring five Sicilian couches. — B. Any other orders? — A. Yes, five Sicilian cushions.” Amphis:"Are you never going to spread the couches in the triclinium?" [48a] Anaxandrides: “A triclinium was quickly made ready and the concert of old men began.” — “Open, then, the guest-chambers and sweep the rooms, strew couches and set a mighty fire ablaze, take down the mixing-bowl and mix our best vintage.”
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§ 2.30 “But nowadays,” says the philosopher Plato, “people make a distinction regarding the manufacture of bedding, according to whether it is intended to put over us or under us.” So the like-named comic poet says: “Then they lie down, luxuriously decked, on beds with ivory feet, with coverings dyed in purple, and blankets of Sardis red.” Now the weaving of many-coloured textures reached its height when the Cyprians Acesas and Helicon became the chief artists in the profession; they were celebrated weavers. Helicon was the son of Acesas, according to Hieronymus. In Delphi, at any rate, there is an inscription upon a certain work of art which reads: “Made by Helicon of Salamis, son of Acesas, upon whose handiwork the queenly Pallas breathed ineffable charm.” An artist comparable to him was the Egyptian Pathymias. — “For I have long been frisking where the bed-clothes smell of rose leaves, bathing in dripping unguents,” says Ephippus. Aristophanes: “You, that revel all night long in perfumed bedding, fondling the mistress!” And Sophron has “high-priced wraps, figured with birds.” The most admirable Homer says that the bed-clothes under the body were “smooth,” that is, white, not dyed or embroidered whereas the upper coverings were “fair robes of purple colour.”
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§ 2.31 The Persians were the first, according to Heracleides, to institute the so-called “bed-makers,” in order to secure beauty and softness in the coverings. Now Timagoras (or Entimus from Gortyn in Crete ), as Phaenias the Peripatetic tells us, once went up to visit the Great King, emulating Themistocles. In his honour Artaxerxes bestowed upon him a tent of extraordinary beauty and size, and a silver-footed bedstead; he also sent rich coverings and a slave to spread them, alleging that the Greeks did not know how to make a bed. This Cretan was even bidden to a breakfast of the king's relatives, since he had caught the king's fancy; this was an honour never accorded to any Greek before or since, being exclusively reserved for kinsmen. Certainly the Athenian Timagoras never enjoyed the honour, though he had done obeisance to the king and had been received by him with special favour; but some of the food served to the king was merely sent to him from the table. To the Spartan Antalcidas he sent his own chaplet after dipping it in perfume. But for Entimus he not only did all this, but also invited him to breakfast en famille. The Persians took umbrage at this, because they felt that the honour was being vulgarized, and also because new expedition against Greece was impending. But the king sent Entimus a silver-footed bed with its coverings, a tent with gaily-coloured canopy, a silver throne, a gilded sun-shade, twenty gold saucers set with jewels, one hundred large saucers of silver and silver mixing-bowls, one hundred concubines and one hundred slaves, [49a] and six thousand pieces of gold, beside all that was given to him for his daily necessities.
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§ 2.32 Tables occur with ivory feet and tops of maple. Thus Cratinus: “With gay plumes and glistening spangles there await us here radiant lasses and three-legged tables made of maple.” When a Cynic called the four-legged table a tripod, Ulpian, one of the guests at the savant's dinner, took exception and said: “Today'I am going to have business on my hands after a period of idleness.' For where does he get his word'tripod'?... unless, of course, he counts Diogenes' staff along with his legs and calls him a tripod, when everybody else call what are here set before us four-legged tables.” Yet Hesiod, in The Marriage of Ceyx — for even though it is true that the grammarian tribe would divorce these verses from the poet, I think they are ancient — calls four-legged tables tripods. And even the highly gifted Xenophon writes, in Book Seven of the Anabasis: “Tripods were brought in for all, and these, numbering about a score, were laden with meat piled high.” And he goes on: “The tables were always placed with particular care opposite the foreign guests.” Antiphanes: “When the tripod had been removed and we were washing our hands.” Eubulus: “A. Here are five tripods for you, and again five. — B. I shall turn into a tax-gatherer with all these fives!” Epicharmus: “A. What is this? — B. A tripod, of course. — A. Why, then, has it four legs? It isn't a tripos but rather, I think, a tetrapos. B. Well, its name is tripos, though to be sure it has four legs. — A. Then it must have been an Oidipos once — it's his own riddle you're thinking of.” Aristophanes: “A. Bring us in a table with three legs, let it not have four. — B. Of course; where should I get a three-legged table with four legs?” —
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§ 2.33 It was a custom at banquets, after the diner had taken his place on the couch, to hand him at once a tablet containing a list of what had been prepared, so that he might know what fare the chef intended to provide. — Damsons. — Many old writers mention the great and famous city of Damascus. Now in the territory of the Damascenes there is a very large quantity of the so-called cuckoo-apples, cultivated with great skill. Hence this fruit gets the special name of “damson,” excelling the same kind grown in other countries. These, then, are plums, mentioned, among others, by Hipponax: “They wore a chaplet of plums and mint.” Alexis: “A. Now look you! I've seen a vision, I think, which portends victory. — B. Tell it. — A. Attention, then. In the stadium methought one of the contestants, stripped for the fray, came up and crowned me with a circling chaplet of plums. — FB. Great Heracles! — A. Ripe, they were.” And again: “Have you ever seen a sweetbread nicely broiled, or a baked stuffed spleen, or a basket of ripe plums? That is how his face looks.” Nicander: “The apple which they call the cuckoo's.” But Clearchus the Peripatetic says that the Rhodians and the Sicilian Greeks call plums sloes, as does also the Syracusan Theocritus: [50a] “Young trees weighted to the ground with sloes. And again: ”As much as an apple is sweeter than a sloe." But this fruit, though smaller round than a plum, is the same in taste, but slightly more acrid. Seleucus in his Dialect Lexicon says that ela, cuckoo-apples, and madrya are the same kind of plum. Madrya is for malodrya ("apple-fruit"); brabyla are so called because, being laxative, they “eject the food”; and ela is for mela ("apples"), according to Demetrius Ixion in his Etymology. But Theophrastus says: coccymelea ('plum-tree') and spodias ('bullace') — the latter is a kind of wild plum-tree;" while Araros calls both the plum-tree and its fruit coccymelon. Diphilus of Siphnos says that these are fairly juicy, perishable, easily excreted, but of little value as food.
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§ 2.34 Cherries. — Theophrastus on Plants “The cherry is a tree of peculiar character and large growth; it even attains a height of twenty-four cubits. Its leaf is similar to that of the medlar, but is tough and broader; its bark is like the linden's, the blossom is white, resembling the pear and the medlar, composed of tiny flowers, and waxy. The fruit is red, shaped like a persimmon, but in size like a bean. But the stone of the persimmon is hard, while that of the cherry is brittle.” And again: “crataegus ('thorn'), called by others crataegonus; this has an elongated leaf like that of the medlar but is larger, broader, and more oblong; but it has no fissure as the medlar leaf has. The tree does not grow to be either very tall or very thick; the wood is vari-coloured, yellowish and hard. The bark is as smooth as medlar. It has a single root, generally descending deep. The fruit is round like that of the wild olive; as it ripens it becomes yellow and then darkens; it has the flavour and the juiciness of a medlar, whence it may rather be regarded as a wild medlar.” From this description, Athenaeus remarks, the scholar appears to means what we call today the cherry.
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§ 2.35 Asclepiades of Myrlea, mentioning a kind of bush-cherry, spoke of it thus: “In the country of the Bithynians grows the bush-cherry, the root of which is not large, nor, for that matter, is the tree, but equal in size to the rose-bush; its fruit, in all other respects, resembles the cherry, but it causes drowsiness, as of wine, to those who eat too much, and makes the head ache.” The author thinks, from this description, that Asclepiades is speaking of the arbutus. For not only does the tree bearing this fruit correspond to this description, but it is also true that whoever eats more than seven berries of it gets a headache. Aristophanes: “On the mountains, without cultivation, the arbutus-trees used to grow in plenty for their enjoyment.” Theopompus: “They eat myrtle-berries and ripe fruit of the arbutus-tree.” Crates: “The ripe loveliness of her breasts is as the apple or the arbutus-berry.” Amphis: “The mulberry-tree, look you, bears mulberries, the ilex acorns, the strawberry-tree arbutus.” Theophrastus: “The strawberry-tree, which bears the edible arbutus-berry.” Concerning a satyr-play called Agen it is disputed whether the author is Python of Catana (or Byzantium ) or King Alexander himself. Larensis, our author's host, says: “There are many things which you Greeks have appropriated as if you alone had given them names or were the first to discover them; but you are unaware that Lucullus, [51a] the Roman general who conquered Mithridates and Tigranes, was the first to import into Italy this tree from Cerasus, a city in Pontus. And he is the one who called the fruit cerasus ('cherry') from the name of the city, as our Roman historians record.” But a certain Daphnus contradicted him: “Why! Many years before Lucullus a man of note, Diphilus of Siphnos, who flourished in the time of King Lysimachus, one of Alexander's successors, mentioned cherries in these words:'Cherries are wholesome, juicy, but afford little nourishment; they are especially wholesome when eaten uncooked. The red Milesian varieties are superior, being diuretic.'”
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§ 2.36 Mulberries. — Although all other peoples without exception call them by this name (sycamina), the Alexandrians call them mora. Now sycamina are not the fruit of the Egyptian fig-tree, called by some sycomora ("fig-mulberries"). In these latter the natives make a slight incision with a knife, and leave them on the tree. Fanned by the breeze, they grow ripe and fragrant in three days, especially when the winds are from the West, and they are then edible; so much so that the mild coolness they contain makes them fit to be made into a poultice with oil of roses and applied to the stomachs of fever patients, affording no little comfort to the ailing. But this fruit is produced on the Egyptian mulberry directly from the wood, and not from fruit-stalks. Mulberries are called mora also by Aeschylus in The Phrygians, where he says of Hector: “That poor devil was softer than a mulberry.” And in The Cretan Women, of the blackberry: “It is loaded down at one and the same time with berries white, black, and vermilion.” Sophocles: First you will see a white, flowering stalk, then a round mulberry that has turned red." And Nicander in the Georgics explains that it appears earlier than other fruits, and he always calls the mulberry-tree morea, as the Alexandrians do: “Then there is the fruit of the mulberry-tree, which is a delight to little boys, and is the first to proclaim the pleasant fruit season to mortals.”
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§ 2.37 Phaenias of Eresus, disciple of Aristotle, calls the fruit of the wild mulberry moron, and even it is very sweet and pleasant when ripe. He writes: “The thorny moron, when its mulberry-like cluster has withered, contains spermatic divisions like... salty, and these clefts crumble apart and have a pleasing flavour.” But habryna is the name given by Parthenius to mulberries, which some call mora, while the Salaminians call these same berries batia. Demetrius Ixion says that sycamina and mora, which are the same, are derived from sycon ameina ("better than figs") and haimoroa ("flowing blood"). Diphilus, the physician of Siphnos, writes as follows: “Mulberries, also called mora, are juicy, but give little nourishment; they are wholesome and easily digested. A peculiarity of the unripe ones is that they expel worms.” Pythermus, as quoted by Hegesander, [52a] records that in his time the mulberries bore no fruit for twenty years, and an epidemic of gout broke out so widespread that even boys, girls, eunuchs, and women, to say nothing of men, caught the disease; and a herd of goats also was so affected by the pest that two-thirds of the animals succumbed to the same calamity.

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by Charles Burton Gulick (1868-1962). Composed ca. 228 CE. Licence: public domain. Source.