Athenaeus, Deipnosophists

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§ 11.90 Then there is the pelica. Callistratus, in his Commentary on the Thracian Women of Cratinus, calls this a κύλιξ. But Crates, in the second book of his treatise on the Attic Dialect, writes thus: — “ Choes, as we have already said, were called pelicae. But the form of this vessel was it first like that of the panathenaica, when it was called pelica; but afterwards it was made of the same shape as the oenochoe, such as those are which are put on the table at festivals, which they formerly used to call olpae, using them for infusing the wine, as Ion the Chian, in his Sons of Eurytus, says — You make a noise, intemperately drawing Superfluous wine from the large casks with olpae. But now a vessel of that sort, which has been consecrated in some fashion or other, is placed on the table at festivals alone. And that which comes into every-day use has been altered in form, being now generally made like a ladle, and we call it choeus.” But Clitarchus says that the Corinthians, and Byzantians, and Cyprians call an oil-cruet, which is usually called lecythus, olpa; and the Thessalians call it prochous. But Seleucus says that the Boeotians call a κύλιξ pelichna; but Euphronius, in his Commentaries, says that they give this name to a choeus.
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§ 11.91 There is the pella. This is a vessel resembling the scyphus, having a wider bottom, into which men used to milk the cattle. Homer says — Thick as beneath some shepherd's thatch'd abode, The pails πέλλαι high foaming with a milky flood, The buzzing flies, a persevering train, Incessant swarm, and chased, return again. But Hipponax calls this pellis; saying, — Drinking from pellides; for there was not A culix there, — the slave had fallen down, And broken it to pieces; showing, I imagine, very plainly that the pellis was not a drinking-cup, but that on this occasion they use it as one, from want of a regular culix. And in another place he says — And they at different times from out the pella Did drink; and then again Arete pledged them. But Phoenix the Colophonian, in his Iambics, interprets this word as identical with the phiala; saying, — For Thales, — honestest of all the citizens, And, as they say, by far the best of men Who at that time were living upon earth, — Took up a golden pellis. And in another part he says — And with one hand he pours from out the pellis, Weak as he was in all his limbs and fingers, A sharp libation of sour vinegar, Trembling, like age, by Boreas much shaken. But Clitarchus, in his Dialects, says that the Thessalians and Aeolians call the milk-pail pelleter; but that it is a drinking-cup which they call pella. But Philetas, in his Miscellanies, says that the Boeotians give the name of pelleter to a culix.
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§ 11.92 There is also the pentaploa. Philochorus mentions this, in the second book of his treatise on Attic Affairs. But Aristodemus, in the third book of his Commentary on Pindar, says that on the third day of the Scira, games are celebrated at Athens, in which the young men run races; and that they run, holding in their hands a branch of the vine loaded with fruit, which is called oschus. And they run from the sanctuary of Dionysos to the sanctuary of Athena Sciras; and he who has gained the victory takes a cup of the species called pentaplous, and feasts with the rest of the runners. But the cup is called pentaplous, as containing five πέντε ingredients; inasmuch as it has in it wine, and honey, and cheese, and meal, and a little oil. There is the petachnum. This is a cup of a flat shape, which is mentioned by Alexis, in his Dropidas; and the passage has been already cited. And Aristophanes also mentions it in his Dramas, where he says — And every one in-doors drinks out of petachna.
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§ 11.93 There is the plemochoe, too. This is an earthenware vessel, shaped like a top, not very steady; and some people call it the cotyliscus, as Pamphilus tells us. But they use it at Eleusis on the last day of the Mysteries, which day they call Plemochoai, from the cups. And on this day they fill two plemochoae, and place one looking towards the east, and the other looking towards the west, saying over them a mystic form of words; and the author of the Pirithous names them (whoever he was, whether Critias the tyrant, or Euripides ), saying, — That with well-omen'd words we now may pour These plemochoae into the gulf below. There is a vessel, too, called the pristis; and that this is a species of cup has been already stated in the discussion on the batiacium.
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§ 11.94 There is the prochytes, too. This is a kind of drinking-cup, as Simaristus says, in the fourth book of his Synonymes. But Ion the Chian, in his Elegies, says — But let the cupbearing maidens fill for us A crater with their silver prochytae; and Philetas, in his Miscellanies, says it is a wooden vessel, from which the countrymen drink: and Alexander also mentions it in his Tigon. And Xenophon, in the eighth book of his Cyropaedia, calls some kinds of culices, prochoides, writing thus (and it is of the Persians that he is speaking): — “But it was a custom among them not to bring prochoides into their banquets, evidently because they think that not drinking too much is good both for the body and the mind. And even now the custom prevails that they do not bring them; but they drink such a quantity of wine that, instead of carrying in their cups, they themselves are carried out, when they can no longer go out themselves in an upright attitude.” There is also the Prusias; and it has been already said that this is an upright kind of cup, and that it derived its name from Prusias king of Bithynia, who was a man very notorious for his luxury and effeminacy; as is mentioned by Nicander the Chalcedonian, in the fourth book of his History of the Events of the Life of Prusias.
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§ 11.95 There are also rheonta; for this was a name given to some cups: and Astydamas mentions them in his Hermes, speaking thus: — First of all were two silver craters large, And fifty phialae, and ten cymbia, And twelve rheonta, two of which were gold, The others silver;-of the gold ones, one Was like a griffin, one like Pegasus. There is also the rhysis. This is called a golden phiala by Theodorus; and Cratinus, in his Laws, says — “Pouring a libation from a rhysis.”
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§ 11.96 There is also the Rhodias. Diphilus, in his Stormer of Walls (but Callimachus calls the play The Eunuch), speaks thus — And they intend to drink more plenteously Than rhodiaca or rhyta can supply. Dioxippus, too, mentions this cup, in his Miser; and so does Aristotle, in his treatise on Drunkenness; and so also does Lynceus the Samian, in his Letters.
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§ 11.97 There is also the rhytum — ῥυτόν. The υ is short, and the word has an acute accent on the last syllable. Demosthenes, in his speech against Midias, speaks of “rhyta, and cymbia, and phialae.” But Diphilus, in his Eunuch, or The Soldier, (and this play is a new edition of his Stormer of Walls,) says — And they intend to drink more plenteously Than rhodiaca or rhyta can supply. And Epinicus, in his Suppostitious Damsels, says — A. And of the large-sized rhyta three are here; Today one will be forced to drink more steadily, By the clepsydra. B. This, I think, will act Both says. A. Why,'tis an elephant! B. Yes, he Is bringing round his elephants. A. A rhytus, Holding two choes, such as e'en an elephant Could hardly drink; but I have drunk it often. B. Yes, for you're very like an elephant. A. There is besides another kind of cup, Its name a trireme; this, too, holds one choeus. And, speaking of the rhytum, he says — A. Bellerophon, on Pegasus's back, Fought and subdued the fire-breathing Chimaera. B. Well, take this cup. But formerly a drinking-horn was also called a rhytum; and it appears that this kind of vessel was first made by Ptolemy Philadelphus the king, to be carried by the statues of Arsinoe: for in her right hand she bears a vessel of this kind, full of all the fruits of the season; by which the makers of it designed to show that this horn is richer than the horn of Amalthea. And it is mentioned by Theocles, in his Ithyphallics, thus — For all the journeymen today Have sacrificed Soteria; And in their company I've drunk this cup, And now I go to my dear king. But Dionysius of Sinope, in his Female Saviour, giving a list of some cups, has also mentioned the rhytus, as I have said before; but Hedylus, in his Epigrams, mentioning the rhytum made by Ctesibius the engineer or machinist, speaks thus — Come hither, all ye drinkers of sheer wine, — Come, and within this shrine behold this rhytus, The cup of fair Arsinoe Zephyritis, The true Egyptian Besa, which pours forth Shrill sounds, what time its stream is open'd wide, — No sound of war; but from its golden mouth It gives a signal for delight and feasting, Such as the Nile, the king of flowing rivers, Pours as its melody from its holy shrines, Dear to the priests of sacred mysteries. But honour this invention of Ctesibius, And come, O youths, to fair Arsinoe's temple. But Theophrastus, in his treatise on Drunkenness, says that the cup called the rhytum is given to heroes alone. Dorotheus the Sidonian, says that the rhyta resemble horns, but are perforated at both ends, and men drink of them at the bottom as they send forth a gentle stream; and that it derives its name from the liquor flowing from them ἀπὸτῆς ῥύσεως
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§ 11.98 There is the sannacra too. Crates, in the fifth book of his treatise on the Attic Dialect, says that it is a drinking-cup which bears this name, but it is a Persian cup. But Philemon, in his Widow, mentioning the batiacia, and jesting on the ridiculousness of the name, says — The sannacra, and hippotragelaphi, And batiacia, and sannacia. There is also the Seleuci; and we have already stated that this cup derives its name from king Seleucus; Apollodorus the Athenian having made the same statement. But Polemo, in the first chapter of his treatise addressed to Adaeus, says these goblets are very like one another, the Seleucis, the Rhodias, and the Antigonis. Then, there is the scallium. This is a small cup ῾κυλίκιον̓, with which the Aeolians pour libations, as Philetas tells us, in his Miscellanies.
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§ 11.99 There is also the scyphus. Now some people form the genitive of this word σκύφος with a ς invariably; but they are mistaken: for sometimes σκύφος is masculine, like λύχνος, and then we form its genitive case without ς but when σκύθος is neuter, then we must decline with the ς, σκύφος σκύφος, like τεῖχος τείχος.. But the Attic writers use the nominative case in both the masculine and neuter genders. And Hesiod, in the second book of his Melampodia, writes the word with a π, σκύπθος — To him came Mares, a swift messenger, Straight from his house; he fill'd a silver cup ῾σκύθος᾿, And brought it in his hand, and gave it to the king. And in another place he says — And then the prophet in his right hand took The chain that held the bull; and on his back Iphiclus laid his hand: and following then, Holding a cup σκύπθος in one hand, in the other Raising a staff, brave Phylacus advanced, And, standing amid the servants, thus he spoke. And in the same manner Anaximander in his Heroology speaks, where he says, “But Amphitryon, when he had divided the booty among his allies, and having the cup ῾σκύπθος᾿ which he had selected for himself,...” And in another place he says — “But Poseidon gives his σκύπθος to Teleboas his own son, and Teleboas to Pteselaus; and he when he received it sailed away.” And in the same manner Anacreon has said — But I, in my right hand holding A σκύπθος full of wine, Drank to the health of the white-crested Erxion. (And in this last line he uses the verb ἐξέπινον instead of προέεπινον For properly speaking προπίνω means to give to some one else to drink before yourself. And so Ulysses, in Homer, — Gave to Arete first the well-fill'd cup. And in the Iliad he says — And first he fill'd a mighty cup of wine, Then pledg'd the hero, Peleus' son divine; for they used, when they had filled their cups, to pledge one another with a friendly address.) Panyasis, in the third book of his Heraclea, says — This wine he pour'd into an ample bowl, Radiant with gold, and then with frequent draughts He drain'd the flowing cup. Euripides, in his Eurystheus, uses the word in the masculine gender — And a long cup σκύφος τε μακρός. And so does Achaeus, in his Omphale — The goblet of the god invites me ῾ὁδὲ σκύθος με τοῦ θεοῦ ῾Ἀλεἶ. And Simonides too, speaking of a cup with handles, says, οὐατόεντα σκύφον. But Ion, in his Omphale, says — There is no wine in the cup οἶνος οὐκ ἔνι ἐν τῷ σκύφεἰ, forming σκύφει regularly from σκύφος, as a neuter noun. And in the same way Epicharmus, in his Cyclops, says — Come, pour the wine into the cup ῾ἐς τὸ σκύφος᾿. And Alexis, in his Leucadia, says — And with his aged lips he drank A mighty cup ῾μέγα σκύφος᾿ of fragrant wine. And Epigenes, in his Bacchea, says — I rejoiced when I received τὸ σκύφος. And Phaedimus, in the first book of his Heraclea, says — A mighty cup ῾εὐρὺ σκύφος᾿ of well-grain'd timber framed, And fill'd with honied wine. And also in Homer, Aristophanes the Byzantian writes — But having filled a cup ῾σκύφος᾿, he gave it him, Having himself drunk from the same. But Aristarchus in this line writes σκύφον, not σκύφος. But Asclepiades the Myrlean, in his treatise on the Nestoris, says that none of those who lived in the city, and none of the men of moderate property, used the scyphus τῷ σκύφει and the cissybium; but only the swine-herds, and shepherds, and men in the fields, as Eumaeus, for instance, Gave him the cup ῾σκύφος᾿ from which he drank himself, Well filled with wine. And Alcman says — And often on the highest mountain tops, When some most tuneful festival of song Is held in honour of the Gods, you hold A golden vessel, — a fine, ample cup ῾σκύφον̓, Such as the shepherds, pasturing their flocks On the high hills, delight in,.................... have made cheese Most delicate and white to look upon. And Aeschylus, in his Perrhaebians, says — Where are my many gifts and warlike spoils, — Where are my gold and silver cups ῾σκυφώματἀ̣ And Stesichorus calls the cup on the board of Pholus the Centaur σκύφειον δέπας, using σκύφειον as synonymous to σκυφοειδές. And he says, when speaking of Hercules — And taking a huge scyphus-shaped cup ῾σκύπφειον δέπας᾿, Holding three measures, to his lips he raised it, Full of rich wine, which Pholus wisely mix'd And gave him; and at one good draught he drank it. And Archippus, in his Amphitryon, has used the word in the neuter gender.
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§ 11.100 But as for the word λάγυνον, they say that that is the name of a measure among the Greeks, as also are the words χοὸς and κοτύλη. And they say that the λάγυνον contains twelve Attic κότυλαι.. And at Patrae they say that there is a regular measure called ἡ λάγυνος. But Nicostratus, in his Hecate, has used the word in the masculine gender, ὁλάγυνος, where he says — A. And yet among the flagons into which We pour'd the wine out of the casks, now tell me What is the measure some of them contain ῾πηλίκοι τινές᾿̣ B. They hold three choes each. And again he says — Bring us the full flagon ῾τὸν μεστὸν λάγυνον̓. And, in the play entitled The Couch, he says — And this most odious flagon's ῾λάγυνος οὗτος᾿ full of vinegar. Diphilus, in his People Saved, says — I have an empty flagon, my good woman, And a full wallet. And Lynceus the Samian, in his letter to Diagoras, says, — “At the time that you sojourned in Samos, O Diagoras, I know that you often came to banquets at my house, at which a flagon was placed by each man, and filled with wine, so as to allow every one to drink at his pleasure.” And Aristotle, in his Constitution of the Thessalians, says that the word is used by the Thessalians in the feminine gender, as ἡ λάγυνος. And Rhianus the epic poet, in his Epigrams, says — This flagon ῾ἥδε λάγυνος᾿ O Archinus, seems to hold One half of pitch from pines, one half of wine; And I have never met a leaner kid: And he who sent these dainties to us now, Hippocrates, has done a friendly deed, And well deserves to meet with praise from all men. But Diphilus, in his Brothers, has used the word in the neuter gender — O conduct worthy of a housebreaker Or felon, thus to take a flagon now Under one's arm, and so go round the inns; And then to sell it, while, as at a picnic, One single vintner doth remain behind, Defrauded by his wine-merchant. And the line in the Geryonis of Stesichorus — A measure of three flagons ῾ἔμμετρον ὡς τριλάγυνον̓ leaves it quite uncertain under what gender the word is to be classed as far as respects that line. But Eratosthenes says that the words πέτασος and στάμνος are also used as feminine nouns by some authors.
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§ 11.101 But the name σκύφος is derived from σκαφὶς, a little boat. And this likewise is a round vessel made of wood, intended to receive milk, or whey; as it is said in Homer — Capacious chargers all around were laid, Full pails ῾σκαφίδες᾿, and vessels of the milking trade. Unless, indeed, σκύφος is quasi σκύθος, because the Scythians were in the habit of drinking more than was decent. But Hieronymus the Rhodian, in his treatise on Drunkenness, says to get drunk is called σκυθίζω;; for that θ is a cognate letter to φ. But at subsequent times scyphi were made of earthenware and of silver, in imitation of the wooden ones. And the first makers of cups of this kind were the Boeotians, who obtained a high reputation for their manufacture; because Hercules originally used these cups in his expeditions. On which account they are called Heracleotici by some people. And they are different from other cups; for they have on their handles what is called the chain of Hercules. And Bacchylides mentions the Boeotian scyphi in these words, (addressing his discourse to Castor and Pollux, and invoking their attendance at a banquet) — Here there are no mighty joints Of oxen slain, — no golden plate, No purple rich embroidery; But there is a cheerful mind, And a sweetly-sounding Muse, And plenty of delicious wine, In cups of Theban workmanship ῾βοιωτίοισιν ἐν σκύφοισιν̓. And next to the Boeotian scyphi, those which had the highest reputation were the Rhodian ones, of the workmanship of Damocrates. And the next to them were the Syracusan cups. But the σκύφος is called by the Epirotes λυρτὸς, as Seleucus reports; and by the Methymnaeans it is called σκύθος, as Parmeno says, in his book on Dialects. And Dercyllidas the Lacedemonian was nicknamed σκύθος, as Ephorus relates in his eighteenth book, where he speaks as follows: — “The Lacedemonians sent Dercyllidas into Asia in the place of Thymbron, having heard that the barbarians were in the habit of doing everything by deceit and trick; on which account they sent Dercyllidas, thinking that he was the least likely of all men to be taken in; for he was not at all of a Lacedemonian and simple disposition, but exceedingly cunning and fierce; on which account the Lacedemonians themselves used to call him σκύθον.”
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§ 11.102 There is the tabaitas also. Amyntas, in the first book of his treatise on the Stations of Asia, speaking of what is called aerial honey, writes as follows: — “They gather it with the leaves, and store it up, making it up in the same manner as the Syrian cakes of fruit, but some make it into balls; and when they are about to use it for food, they break pieces off these cakes into wooden cups, which they call tabaitae, and soak them, and then strain them off and drink the liquor; and the drink is very like diluted honey, but this is much the sweeter of the two.” There is also the tragelaphus. And this is the name given to some cups, as Alexis mentions, in his Coniates — Cymbia, phialae, tragelaphi, culices. And Eubulus, in his Man Glued on, says — But there are five phialae, and two tragelaphi. And Menander, in his Fisherman, says — Tragelaphi, labronii. And Antiphanes, in his Chrysis, says — And for this rich and sordid bridegroom now, Who owns so many talents, slaves, and stewards, And pairs of horses, camels, coverlets, — Such loads of silver plate, such phialae, Triremes, tragelaphi, carchesia, Milkpails of solid gold, vessels of all sorts; For all the gluttons and the epicures Call casks brimful of wine mere simple milkpails. There is also the trireme. And that trireme is the name of a species of drinking-cup Epicurus has shown, in his Suppostitious Damsels; and the passage which is a proof of this has been already quoted. There is also the hystiacum, which is some sort of drinking-cup. Rhinthon, in his Hercules, says — You swallow'd, in one small hystiacum, A cheesecake of pure meal, and groats, and flour.
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§ 11.103 There is the phiale too. Homer, when he says — He placed a phiale upon the board, By both hands to be raised (ἀμφίθετον), untouch'd by fire; and again, when he says — A golden phiale, and doubled fat; is not speaking of a drinking-cup, but of a brazen vessel of a flat shape like a caldron, having perhaps two handles, one on each side. But Parthenius the pupil of Dionysius understands by ἀμφίθετον a phiale without any bottom. But Apollodorus the Athenian, in his short essay on the Crater, says that it means a cup which cannot be firmly placed and steadied on its bottom, but only on its mouth. But some say, that just as the word ἀμφιφορεὺς is used for a cup which can be lifted by its handles on both sides, the same is meant by the expression ἀμφίθετος φιάλη. But Aristarchus says that it means a cup which can be placed on either end, on its mouth or on its bottom. But Dionysius the Thracian says that the word ἀμφίθετος means round, running round (ἀμφιθέων) in a circular form. And Asclepiades the Myrlean says, — “The word φιάλη, by a change of letters, becomes πιάλη, a cup which contains enough to drink (πιεῖνἅλις); for it is larger than the ποτήριον. But when Homer calls it also ἀπύρωτος, he means either that it was wrought without fire, or never put on the fire. On which account he calls a kettle which may be put on the fire ἐμπυριβήτης, and one which is not so used ἄπυρος. And when he says — An ample charger, of unsullied frame, With flowers high wrought, not blacken'd yet by flame, he perhaps means one intended to receive cold water. So that the phiale would in that case resemble a flat brazen vessel, holding cold water. But when he calls it ἀμφίθετος, can we understand that it has two bases, one on each side; or is ἀμφὶ here to be taken as equivalent to περὶ, and then again is περὶ to be taken as equivalent to περιττὸν, so that in fact all that is meant by the epithet is beautifully made; since θεῖναι was often used by the ancients for'to make?' It may also mean,' being capable of being placed either on its bottom or upon its mouth;' and such a placing of cups is an Ionian and an ancient fashion. And even now the Massilians often adopt it, and set their goblets down on their mouths.”
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§ 11.104 But as Cratinus has said, in his Female Runaways — Receive from me these round-bottom'd phialae, Eratosthenes, in the eleventh book of his treatise on Comedy, says that Lycophron did not understand the meaning of the word (βαλανειόμφαλος), for that the word ὀμφαλὸς, as applied to a phiale, and the word θόλος, as applied to a bath, were nearly similar in meaning; and that, in the word, allusion is neatly enough made to the umbilical form. But Apion and Diodorus say, “There are some kinds of phialae of which the boss is similar to a strainer.” But Asclepiades the Myrlean, in his Essays on Cratinus, says — "βαλανειόμφαλοι are the Phialae called, because their bosses and the vaulted roofs of the baths are much alike." And Didymus, saying the same thing, cites the words of Lycophron, which run thus: — “From the bosses in the women's baths, out of which they ladle the water in small cups.” But Timarchus, in the fourth book of his Essay on the Hermes of Eratosthenes, says, — “Any one may suppose that this word contains a secret allusion in it, because most of the baths at Athens, being circular in their shape, and in all their furniture, have slight projections in the middle, on which a brazen boss is placed. Ion, in his Omphale, says — Go quick, O damsels; hither bring the cups, And the mesomphali; — and by μεσόμφαλοι here, he means the same things as those which Cratinus calls βαλανειόμφαλοι, where he says — Receive from me these round-bottom'd phialae. And Theopompus, in his Althaea, said — She took a golden round-bottom'd (μεσόμφαλον) phiale, Brimful of wine; to which Telestes gave The name of acatos; as Telestes had called the phiale an acatos, or boat. But Pherecrates, or whoever the poet was who composed the Persae, which are attributed to him, says, in that play — Garlands to all, and well-boss'd chrysides (ὀμφαλωταὶ χρυσίδες).
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§ 11.105 But the Athenians call silver phialae ἀργυρίδες, and golden ones they call χρυσίδες. And Pherecrates mentions the silver phiale in the following words in his Persae — Here, you sir; where are you now carrying That silver phiale (τὴν ἀργυρίδα τηνδί)? And Cratinus mentions the golden one in his Laws — Making libations with a golden phiale (χρυσίδἰ, He gave the serpents drink. And Hermippus, in his Cercopes, says — He first completely drain'd an ample cup, Golden (χρυσίδα) and round, then carried it away. There was also a kind of cup called the βαλανωτὴ phiale, under the bottom of which were placed golden feet. And Teneus says, that among the offerings at Delos there was a brazen palm-tree, the offering of the Naxians, and some golden phialae, to which he gives the epithet καρυωταί. But Anaxandrides calls cups of this fashion the phialae of Mars. But the Aeolians call the phiale an aracis.
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§ 11.106 There is also the phthois these are wide-shaped Phialae with bosses. Eupolis says — He pledged the guests in phthoides, writing the dative plural φθοῖσι; but it ought to have an acute on the last syllable; like καρσὶ, παισὶ, φθειρσί. There is the philotesia also. This is a kind of κύλιξ, in which they pledged one another out of friendship, as Pamphilus says. And Demosthenes says, ”And he pledged him in the philotesia." And Alexis says — We, in our private and public capacity, Do pledge you now in this philotesian culix. But, besides being the name of a cup, a company feasting together was also called φιλοτήσιον. Aristophanes says — Now does the shadow of the descending sun Mark seven feet:'tis time for supper now, And the philotesian company invites me. But it was from the system of pledging one another at these banquets that the cup got the name of philotesia — as in the Lysistrata — O thou Persuasion, mistress of my soul! And you, O philotesian cup of wine. There are also chonni. Among the Gortynians this is the name given to a species of cup resembling the thericleum, made of brass, which Hermonax says is given by lovers to the objects of their affection. There are also Chalcidic goblets, having their name and reputation perhaps from Chalcis in Thrace.
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§ 11.107 There are also χυτρίδες; Alexis, in his Suppostitious Child, says — I, seeking to do honour to the king, To Ptolemy and to his sister, took Four χυτρίδια of strong, untemper'd wine, And drank them at a draught, with as much pleasure As any one ever swallow'd half-and-half: And, for the sake of this agreement, why Should I not now feast in this splendid light? But Herodotus, in the fifth book of his History, says “that the Argives and Aeginetans made a law that no one should ever use any Attic vessel of any kind in their sacrifices, not even if made of earthenware; but that for the future every one should drink out of the χυτρίδες of the country.” And Meleager the Cynic, in his Symposium, writes as follows — “And in the meantime he proposed a deep pledge to his health, twelve deep χυτρίδια full of wine.”
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§ 11.108 There is also the ψυγεὺς or ψυκτήρ. Plato, in his Symposium, says, — “But, O boy, bring, said he, that psycter hither (for he had seen one which held more than eight cotylae). Accordingly, when' he had filled it, first of all he drank it himself, and then he ordered it to be filled again for Socrates..... as Archebulus was attempting to be prolix, the boy, pouring the wine out at a very seasonable time, overturned the psycter.” And Alexis, in his Colonist, says — A psygeus, holding three full cotylae. And Dioxippus, in his Miser, says — And from Olympicus he then received Six thericlean cups, and then two psycters. And Menander, in his play entitled The Brazier's Shop, says — And, as the present fashion is, they shouted For more untemper'd wine; and some one took A mighty psycter, giving them to drink, And so destroy'd them wretchedly. And Epigenes, in his Heroine, giving a list of many cups, among them mentions the psygeus thus — Now take the boys, and make them hither bring The thericlean and the Rhodian cups; But bring yourself the psycter and the cyathus, Some cymbia too. And Strattis, in his Psychaste — And one man having stolen a psycter, And his companion, who has taken away A brazen cyathus, both lie perplex'd, Looking for a choenix and a cotylis. But Alexis, in his Hippiscus, uses the diminutive form, and calls it a ψυκτηρίδιον, saying — I went to see my friend while at his inn, And there I met a dark-complexion'd man, And told my slaves, for I brought two from home, To put in sight the well-clean'd drinking-cups: There was a silver cyathus, and cups Weighing two drachmas each; a cymbium, Whose weight was four; a ψυκτηρίδιον, Weighing two obols, thinner than Philippides.
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§ 11.109 But Heracleon of Ephesus says, “The cup which we call ψυγεὺς some name the ψυκτηρία, but the Attic writers make jokes upon the ψυγεὺς, as being a foreign name.” Euphorion, in his Woman Restoring, says — But when they call a ψυγεὺς a ψυκτηρίς, And σεύτλιον τεῦλα, and the φακῆ φακεὺς, What can one do? For I rightly said, Give me, I pray, Pyrgothemis, some change For this your language, as for foreign money. And Antiphanes, in his Knights, says — How then are we to live? Our bedclothes are A saddlecloth, and our well-fitting hat Only a psycter. What would you have more? Here is the very Amalthean horn. And in the Carna he declares plainly that, when pouring out wine, they used the psycter for a cyathus. For after he had said — And putting on the board a tripod and cask, And psycter too, he gets drunk on the wine; in the passage following, he represents his man as saying — So will the drink be fiercer: therefore now, If any one should say it is not fit T' indulge in wine at present, just leave out This cask, and this one single drinking-cup, And carry all the rest away at once. But Dionysius the pupil of Tryphon, in his treatise on Names, says — “The ancients used to call the psygeus dinus.” But Nicander of Thyatira says, that woods and shady places dedicated to the gods are also called ψυκτῆρες, as being places where one may cool oneself (ἀναψύξαι). Aeschylus, in his Young Men, says — And gentle airs, in the cool, shady places (ψυκτηρίυις); and Euripides, in his Phaethon, says — The trees, affording a cool shade (ψυκτήρια), Shall now embrace him in their loving arms; and the author of the poem called Aegimius, whether it really was Hesiod, or only Cercops of Miletus, says — There shall my cool shade (ψυκτήριον) be, O king of men.
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§ 11.110 There is also the oidos. This was the name of a drinking-cup, as we are told by Tryphon, in his Onomasticon; a cup given to him who sang the scolia — as Antiphanes shows in his Doubles — A. What will there be, then, for the gods B. Why, nothing, Unless now some one mixes wine for them. A. Stop; take this ᾠδὸς, and abandon all Those other worn-out fashions; sing no more Of Telamon, or Paeon, or Harmodius. There are also the ooscyphia. Now respecting the shape of these cups, Asclepiades the Myrlean, in his Essay on the Nestoris, says that it has two bottoms, one of them wrought on to the bowl of the cup, and of the same piece with it; but the other attached to it, beginning with a sharp point, and ending in a broad bottom, on which the cup stands. There is also the ὠὸν, or egg-cup. Dinon, in the third book of his Affairs of Persia, speaks as follows: — There is also a bread called potibazis, made of barley and roasted wheat; and a crown of cypress leaves; and wine tempered in a golden oon, from which the king himself drinks."
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§ 11.111 Plutarch having said this, and being applauded by every one, asked for a phiala, from which he made a libation to the Muses, and to Mnemosyne their mother, and drank the health of every one present, saying, — As if any one, taking a cup in his hand, being a rich man, were to make a present of it, foaming over with the juice of the vine;" — and drinking not only to the young bridegroom, but also to all his friends; and he gave the cup to the boy, desiring him to carry it round to every one, saying that this was the proper meaning of the phrase κύκλῳ πίνειν, reciting the verses of Menander in his Perinthian Woman — And the old woman did not leave untouch'd One single cup, but drank of all that came. And again, in his Fanatical Woman, he says — And then again she carries round to all A cup of unmix'd wine. And Euripides, in his Cretan Women, says — Farewell all other things, as long As cups of wine go freely round. And then, when Leonidas the grammarian demanded a larger cup, and said, — Let us drink hard (κρατηρίζωμεν), my friends, (for that was the word which Lysanias the Cyrenean says that Herodorus used to apply to drinking parties, when he says, “But when they had finished the sacrifice they turned to the banquet, and to craters, and prayers, and peas;” and the poet, who was the author of the poem called the Buffoons — a play which Duris says that the wise Plato always had in his hands — says, somewhere, ἐκεκρατηρίχημες, for “we had drunk;”) But now, in the name of the gods, said Pontianus, you are drinking in a manner which is scarcely becoming, out of large cups, having that most delightful and witty author Xenophon before your eyes, who in his Banquet says, — “But Socrates, in his turn, said, But it seems to me now, O men, that we ought to drink hard. For wine, in reality, while it moistens the spirit, lulls the griefs to sleep as mandragora does men; but it awakens all cheerful feelings, as oil does fire. And it appears to me that the bodies of men are liable to the same influences which affect the bodies of those things which grow in the ground; for the very plants, when God gives them too much to drink, cannot hold up their heads, nor can they expand at their proper seasons. But when they drink just as much as is good for them, and no more, then they grow in an upright attitude, and flourish, and come in a flourishing state to produce fruit. And so, too, in our case, if we take too much drink all at once, our bodies and our minds rapidly get disordered, and we cannot even breathe correctly, much less speak. But if our slaves bedew us (to use Gorgias -like language) in small quantities with small cups, then we are not compelled to be intoxicated by the wine; but being gently induced, we proceed to a merry and cheerful temperament.”
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§ 11.112 Now, any one who considers these expressions of the accomplished Xenophon, may understand how it as that the brilliant Plato displayed such jealousy of him. But perhaps the fact may partly be because these men did from the very beginning feel a spirit of rivalry towards one another, each being aware of his own powers; and perhaps they began very early to contend for the preeminence, as we may conjecture not only from what they have both written about Cyrus, but also from other writings of theirs on similar subjects. For they have both written a piece called the Banquet; and in these two pieces, one of them turns out the female flute-players, and the other introduces them; and one, as has been already said, refuses to drink out of large cups, but the other represents Socrates as drinking out of a psycter till morning. And in his treatise concerning the Soul, Plato, reckoning up all who were present, does not make even the slightest mention of Xenophon. And concerning Cyrus, the one says that from his earliest youth he was trained up in all the national practices of his country; but Plato, as if in the express spirit of contradiction, says, in the third book of his Laws, — “But with respect to Cyrus, I consider that, as to other things, he was indeed a skilful and careful general, but that he had never had the very least particle of a proper education, and that he had never turned his mind the least in the world to the administration of affairs. But he appears from his earliest youth to have been engaged in war, and to have given his children to his wives to bring up.” And again, Xenophon, who joined Cyrus with the Ten Thousand Greeks, in his expedition into Persia, and who was thoroughly acquainted with the treachery of Meno the Thessalian, and knew that he was the cause of the murder of Clearchus by Tissaphernes, and who knew also the disposition of the man, how morose and debauched he was, — has given us a full account of everything concerning him. But the exquisite Plato, who all but says, “All this is not true,” goes through a long panegyric on him, who was incessantly calumniating every one else. And in his Polity, he banishes Homer from his city, and all poetry of the theatrical kind; and yet he himself wrote dialogues in a theatrical style, — a manner of writing of which he himself was not the inventor; for Alexamenus the Teian had, before him, invented this style of dialogue, as Nicias of Nicaea and Sotion both agree in relating. And Aristotle, in his treatise on Poets, writes thus: — “Let us not then call those Mimes, as they are called, of Sophron, which are written in metre, Discourses and Imitations; or those Dialogues of Alexamenus of Teos, which were written before the Socratic Dialogues;” — Aristotle, the most learned of all men, stating here most expressly that Alexamenus composed his Dialogues before Plato. And Plato also calumniates Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, saying that he was a sophist in a way consistent with his name. And he also attacks Hippias, and Gorgias, and Parmenides; and in one dialogue, called Protagoras, he attacks a great many; — a man who in his Republic has said, “When, as I think, a city which has been governed by a democracy, feels a thirst far liberty, and meets with bad cupbearers, and so it gets intoxicated by too untempered a draught...”
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§ 11.113 And it is said also, that Gorgias himself, when he read the dialogue to which Plato has given his name, said to his friends, “How well Plato knows how to write iambics!” And Hermippus, in his book on Gorgias, says, — “When Gorgias was sojourning at Athens, after he had offered up at Delphi the golden image of himself which is there now, and when Plato said when he had seen it, The beautiful and golden Gorgias is come among us, Gorgias replied, This is indeed a fine young Archilochus whom Athens has now brought forth.” But others say that Gorgias, having read the dialogue of Plato, said to the bystanders that he had never said any of the things there attributed to him, and had never heard any such things said by Plato. And they say that Phaedo also said the same when he had read the treatise on the Soul, on which account it was well said by Timon, respecting him, — “How that learned Plato invented fictitious marvels!” For their respective ages will scarcely admit of the Socrates of Plato ever having really had a conference with Parmenides, so as to have addressed him and to have been addressed by him in such language. And what is worst of all is, that he has said, though there was not the slightest occasion for making any such assertion, that Zeno had been beloved by Parmenides, who was his fellow-citizen. Nor, indeed, is it possible that Phaedrus should have lived in the time of Socrates, much less that he should have been beloved by him. Nor, again, is it possible that Paralus and Xanthippus, the sons of Pericles, who died of the plague, should have conversed with Protagoras when he came the second time to Athens, as they had died before. And we might mention many other particulars respecting his works to show how wholly fictitious his Dialogues are.
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§ 11.114 But that Plato was ill-natured to everybody is plain from what he says in his dialogue entitled Ion; in which first of all he abuses all the poets, and then all those who have been promoted to the highest dignities by the people, such as Phanosthenes of Andros, and Apollodorus of Cyzicus, and also Heraclides of Clazomenae. And in his Menon he abuses those who have been the greatest men among the Athenians — Aristides and Themistocles; and he extols Meno, who betrayed the Greeks. But in his Euthydemus he attacks this same Meno and his brother Dionysodorus, and calls them men slow to learn any good thing, and contentious people, reproaching them with their flight from Chios, which was their native place, from which they went and settled in Thurii. And, in his essay on Manly Courage, he attacks Melesias, the son of that Thucydides who headed the opposite party to Pericles, and Lysimachus, the son of Aristides the Just, saying that they both fell far short of their fathers' virtues. And as to what he said about Alcibiades, in his Banquet, that is not fit to be produced to light; nor is what he says in the first of the Dialogues which go by his name. For the second Alcibiades is said by some people to be the work of Xenophon; as also the Halcyon is said to be the work of Leon the Academician, as Nicias of Nicaea says. Now, the things which he has said against Alcibiades I will pass over; but I cannot forbear to mention his calling the Athenian people a random judge, guided only by outward appearance. And he praises the Lacedemonians, and extols also the Persians, who are the enemies of all the Greeks. And he calls Cleinias the brother of Alcibiades a madman; and the sons of Pericles he makes out to be fools; and Meidias he calls a man fit for nothing but killing quails; and of the people of the Athenians he says, that it wears a fair mask, but that one ought to strip the mask off, and look at it then; for he says that it will then be seen that it is only clothed with a specious appearance of a beauty which is not genuine.
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§ 11.115 But in the Cimon he does not abstain from accusing Themistocles, and Alcibiades, and Myronides, and even Cimon himself; and his Crito contains an invective against Sophocles; and his Gorgias contains an invective not only against the man from whom it is named, but also against Archelaus, king of Macedon, whom he reproaches not only with his ignoble birth, but also with having killed his master. And this is the very same Plato whom Speusippus represents as having, while he professed to be a great friend of Archelaus assisted Philip to get possession of the kingdom. At all events, Carystius the Pergamene, in his Historical Commentaries, writes as follows: — “ Speusippus, hearing that Philip used calumnious language respecting Plato, wrote something of this sort in his letter to him:'Just as if men did not know that Philip originally obtained the kingdom by the assistance of Plato.' For Plato sent Euphraeus of Oreus to Perdiccas, who persuaded him to apportion a certain district to Philip; and so he, maintaining a force in that country, when Perdiccas died, having all his forces in a state of preparation, seized the supreme power.” But whether all this is true or not, God knows. But his fine Protagoras, besides that it contains attacks on many poets and wise men, also shows up the life of Callias with much greater severity than Eupolis does in his flatterers. And in his Menexenus, not only is Hippias the Elean turned into ridicule, but also Antiphon the Rhamnusian, and Lamprus the musician. And the day would fail me, if I were inclined to go through the names of all those who have been abused by that wise man. Nor indeed do I praise Antisthenes; for he, having abused many men, did not abstain even from Plato himself, but, having given him the odious name of Sathon, he then published a dialogue under this name.
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§ 11.116 But Hegesander the Delphian, in his Commentaries, speaking about the universal ill-nature of Plato towards everybody, writes as follows: — “After the death of Socrates, when a great many of his friends, being present at a banquet, were very much out of spirits, Plato, being present, taking the cup, exhorted them not to despond, as he himself was well able to lead the school; and, so saying, he pledged Apollodorus: and he said, I would rather have taken the cup of poison from Socrates than that pledge of wine from you.' For Plato was considered to be an envious man, and to have a disposition which was far from praiseworthy; for he ridiculed Aristippus when he went to visit Dionysius, though he himself had three times sailed to Sicily, — once for the purpose of investigating the torrents of lava which flow from Mount Aetna, when he lived with the elder Dionysius, and was in danger from his displeasure; and twice he went to visit the younger Dionysius.” And again, though Aeschines was a poor man, and had but one pupil, Xenocrates, he seduced him from him; and he was also detected in instigating the commencement of a prosecution against Phaedo, which, if successful, would have reduced him to slavery; and altogether he displayed the feelings of a stepmother towards all the pupils of Socrates. On which account, Socrates, making a not very unreasonable Conjecture respecting him, said in the presence of several persons that he had had a dream, in which he thought he had seen the following vision. “For I thought,” said he, “that Plato had become a crow, and leaped on my head, and began to scratch my bald place, and to take a firm hold, and so to look about him. I think, therefore,” said he, “that you, O Plato, will say a good many things which are false about my head.” And Plato, besides his ill-nature, was very ambitious and vainglorious; and he said, “My last tunic, my desire of glory, I lay aside in death itself — in my will, and in my funeral procession, and in my burial;” as Dioscorides relates in his Memorabilia. And as for his desire of founding cities and making laws, who will not say that these are very ambitious feelings? And this is plain from what he says in the Timaeus — “I have the same feelings towards my constitution that a painter would have towards his works; for as he would wish to see them possessed of the power of motion and action, so too do I wish to see the citizens whom I here describe.”
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§ 11.117 But concerning the things which he has said in his Dialogues, what can any one say? For the doctrine respecting the soul, which he makes out to be immortal, even after it is separated from the body, and after the dissolution of this latter, was first mentioned by Homer; for he has said, that the soul of Patroclus — Fled to Hades below, Lamenting its untimely fate, and leaving Its vigour and its youth. If, then, any one were to say that this is also the argument of Plato, still I do not see what good we have got from him; for if any one were to agree that the souls of those who are dead do migrate into other natures, and do mount up to some higher and purer district, as partaking of its lightness, still what should we get by that theory? For, as we have neither any recollection of where we formerly were, nor any perception whether we really existed at all, what do we get by such an immortality as that? And as to the book of the Laws composed by him, and the Polity which was written before the Laws, what good have they done us? And yet he ought (as Lycurgus did the Lacedemonians, and as Solon did the Athenians, and Zaleucus the Thurians ), if they were excellent, to have persuaded some of the Greeks to adopt them. For a law (as Aristotle says) is a form of words decided on by the common agreement of a city, pointing out how one ought to do everything. And how can we consider Plato's conduct anything but ridiculous; since, when there were already three Athenian lawgivers who had a great name, — Draco, and Plato himself, and Solon, — the citizens abide by the laws of the other two, but ridicule those of Plato? And the case of the Polity is the same. Even if his Constitution is the best of all possible constitutions, yet, if it does not persuade us to adopt it, what are we the better for it? Plato, then, appears to have written his laws, not for men who have any real existence, but rather for a set of men invented by himself; so that one has to look for people who will use them. But it would have been better for him to write such things as he could persuade men of; and not to act like people who only pray, but rather like those who seize hold of what offers itself to them.
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§ 11.118 However, to say no more on this point, if any one were to go through his Timaeus and his Gorgias, and his other dialogues of the same character, in which he discuss the different subjects of education, and subjects of natural philosophy, and several other circumstances, — even when considered in this light, he is not to be admired on this account; for one may find these same topics handled by others, either better than by him, or at all events not worse. For Theopompus the Chian, in his book Against the School of Plato, says — “We shall find the greater part of his Dialogues useless and false, and a still greater number borrowed from other people; as some of them come from the school of Aristippus, and some from that of Antisthenes, and a great many from that of Bryson of Heraclea.” And as to the disquisitions which he enters into about man, we also seek in his arguments for what we do not find. But what we do find are banquets, and conversations about love, and other very unseemly harangues, which he composed with great contempt for those who were to read them, as the greater part of his pupils were of a tyrannical and calumnious disposition.
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§ 11.119 For Euphraeus, when he was sojourning with king Perdiccas in Macedonia, was not less a king than the other, being a man of a depraved and calumnious disposition, who managed all the companionship of the king in so cold a manner, that no one was allowed to partake of his entertainments unless he knew something about geometry or philosophy; on which account, after Philip obtained the government, Parmenio, having caught him in Oreus, put him to death; as Carystius relates in his Historical Commentaries. And Callippus the Athenian, who was himself a pupil of Plato, having been a companion and fellow-pupil of Dion, and having travelled with him to Syracuse, when he saw that Dion was attempting to make himself master of the kingdom, slew him; and afterwards, attempting to usurp the supreme power himself, was slain too. And Euagon of Lampsacus (as Eurypylus says, and Dicaeocles of Cnidus, in the ninety-first book of his Commentaries, and also Demochares the orator, in his argument in defence of Sophocles, against Philo ), having lent his native city money on the security of its acropolis, and being afterwards unable to recover it, endeavoured to seize on the tyranny, until the Lampsacenes attacked him, and repaid him the money, and drove him out of the city. And Timaeus of Cyzicus (as the same Demochares relates), having given largesses of money and corn to his fellow-citizens, and being on this account believed by the Cyzicenes to be an excellent man, after having waited a little time, attempted to overturn the constitution with the assistance of Aridaeus; and being brought to trial and convicted, and branded with infamy, he remained in the city to an extreme old age, being always, however, considered dishonoured and infamous. And such now are some of the Academicians, who live in a scandalous and infamous manner. For they, having by impious and unnatural means acquired vast wealth by trickery, are at present highly thought of; as Chaeron of Pellene, who was not only a pupil of Plato, but of Xenocrates also. And he too, having usurped the supreme power in his country, and having exercised it with great severity, not only banished the most virtuous men in the city, but also gave the property of the masters to their slaves, and gave their wives also to them, compelling them to receive them as their husbands; having got all these admirable ideas from that excellent Polity and those illegal Laws of Plato.
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§ 11.120 On which account Ephippus the comic poet, in his Shipwrecked Man, has turned into ridicule Plato himself, and some of his acquaintances, as being sycophants for money, showing that they used to dress in a most costly manner, and that they paid more attention to the elegance of their persons than even the most extravagant people among us. And he speaks as follows — Then some ingenious young man rising up, Some pupil of the New Academy, Brought up at Plato's feet and those of Bryso, That bold, contentious, covetous philosopher, — And urged by strong necessity, and able, By means of his small-wages-seeking art, To speak before th' assembly, in a manner Not altogether bad; having his hair Carefully trimm'd with a new-sharpen'd razor, And letting down his beard in graceful fall, Putting his well-shod foot in his neat slipper, Binding his ancles in the equal folds Of his well-fitting hose, and well protected Across the chest with the breastplate of his cloak, And leaning, in a posture dignified, Upon his staff; said, as it seems to me, With mouthing emphasis, the following speech, More like a stranger than a citizen, — “Men of the land of wise Athenians.” And here let us put an end to this part of the discussion, my friend Timocrates. And we will next proceed to speak of those who have been notorious for their luxury.
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§ 12.1 BOOK XII. (tr. Yonge, from Attalus.org) You appear to me, my good friend Timocrates, to be a man of Cyrene, according to the Tyndareus of Alexis — For there if any man invites another To any banquet, eighteen others come; Ten chariots, and fifteen pairs of horses, And for all these you must provide the food, So that'twere better to invite nobody And it would be better for me also to hold my tongue, and not to add anything more to all that has been said already; but since you ask me very earnestly for a discussion on those men who have been notorious for luxury, and on their effeminate practices, you must be gratified.
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§ 12.2 For enjoyment is connected, in the first instance, with appetite; and in the second place, with pleasure. And Sophocles the poet, being a man fond of enjoyment, in order to avoid accusing old age, attributed his impotence in amatory pleasures to his temperance, saying that he was glad to be released from them as from some hard master. But I say that the Judgment of Paris is a tale originally invented by the ancients, as a comparison between pleasure and virtue. Accordingly, when Aphrodite, that is to say pleasure, was preferred, everything was thrown into confusion. And that excellent writer Xenophon seems to me to have invented his fable about Hercules and Arete (Virtue) on the same principle. For according to Empedocles — Mars was no god to them, nor Kydoimos (War-Cry), Nor Zeus the king, nor Kronos old, Nor Poseidon; Cypris was their only queen. Her they propitiate and duly worship With pious images, with beauteous figures Skilfully carved; with fragrant incenses, And holy offerings of unmix'd myrrh, And sweetly smelling frankincense; and many A pure libation of fresh golden honey They pour'd along the floor. And Menander, in his Harp-player, speaking of some one who was very fond of music, says — He was to music much devoted, and Sought ever pleasing sounds to gratify His delicate taste.
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§ 12.3 And yet some people say that the desire of pleasure is a natural desire, as may be proved by all animals becoming enslaved by it; as if cowardice, and fear, and all sorts of other passions were not also common to all animals, and yet these are rejected by all who use their reason. Accordingly, to be very eager in the pursuit of pleasure is to go hunting for pain. On which account Homer, wishing to represent pleasure in an odious light, says that the greatest of the gods receive no advantage from their power, but are even much injured by it, if they will allow themselves to be hurried away by the pursuit of pleasure. For all the anxiety which Zeus, when awake, lavished on the Trojans, was lost in open day, when he abandoned himself to pleasure. And Mars, who was a most valiant deity, was put in chains by Vulcan, who was very powerless, and incurred great disgrace and punishment, when he had given himself up to irrational love; and therefore he says to the gods, when they came to see him in fetters —'hold, on wrong Swift vengeance waits, and art subdues the strong. Dwells there a god on all th' Olympian brow More swift than Mars, and more than Vulcan slow? Yet Vulcan conquers, and the God of arms Must pay the penalty for lawless charms. But no one ever calls the life of Aristides a life of pleasure (ἡδύς), but that is an epithet they apply to Smindyrides the Sybarite, and to Sardanapalus, though as for as glory went, as Theophrastus says in his book on Pleasure, it was a far more splendid one; but Aristides never devoted himself to luxury as those other men did. Nor would any one call the life of Agesilaus the king of the Lacedemonians ἡδύς; but this name they would apply rather to the life of Ananis, a man who, as for as real glory is concerned, is totally unknown. Nor would one call the life of the heroes who fought against Troy ἡδύς; but they would speak in that way much more of the men of the present time; and naturally enough. For the lives of those men were destitute of any luxurious preparation, and, as I might almost say, had no seasoning to them, inasmuch as at that time there was no commercial intercourse between nations, nor were the arts of refinement carried to any degree of accuracy; but the life of men of the present day is planned with entire reference to laziness, and enjoyment, and to all sorts of pastimes.
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§ 12.4 But Plato, in his Philebus, says — " Pleasure is the most insolent of all things; and, as it is reported, in amatory enjoyments, which are said to be the most powerful of all, even perjury has been pardoned by the Gods, as if pleasure was like a child, incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong." And in the eighth book of his Polity, the same Plato has previously dilated upon the doctrine so much pressed by the Epicureans, that, of the desires, some are natural but not necessary, and others neither natural nor necessary, writing thus — " Is not the desire to eat enough for health and strength of body, and for bread and meat to that extent, a necessary desire'? — I think it is. — At all events, the desire for food for these two purposes is necessary, inasmuch as it is salutary, and inasmuch as it is able to remove hunger? — No doubt. — And the desire for meat, too, is a necessary desire, if it at all contributes to a good habit of body? — Most undoubtedly. — What, then, are we. to say? Is no desire which goes beyond the appetite for this kind of food, and for other food similar to it, and which, if it is checked in young people, can be entirely stifled, and which is injurious also to the body, and injurious also to the mind, both as far as its intellectual powers are concerned, and also as to its temperance, entitled to be called a necessary one? — Most certainly not."
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§ 12.5 But Heraclides of Pontus, in his treatise on Pleasure, speaks as follows — “Tyrants and kings, having all kinds of good things in their power, and having had experience of all things, place pleasure in the first rank, on the ground that pleasure makes the nature of man more magnanimous. Accordingly, all those who have honoured pleasure above everything, and who have deliberately chosen to live a life of luxury, have been magnanimous and magnificent people, as, for instance, the Medes and the Persians. For they, of all men, are those who hold pleasure and luxury in the highest honour; and they, at the same time, are the most valiant and magnanimous of all the barbarians. For to indulge in pleasure and luxury is the conduct of freeborn men and of a liberal disposition. For pleasure relaxes the soul and invigorates it. But labour belongs to slaves and to mean men; on which account they are contracted in their natural dispositions. And the city of the Athenians, while it indulged in luxury, was a very great city, and bred very magnanimous men. For they wore purple garments, and were clad in embroidered tunics; and they bound up their hair in knots, and wore golden grasshoppers over their foreheads and in their hair: and their slaves followed them, bearing folding chairs for them, in order that, if they wished to sit down, they might not be without some proper seat, and forced to put up with any chance seat. And these men were such heroes, that they conquered in the battle of Marathon, and they alone worsted the. power of combined Asia. And all those who are the wisest of men, and who have the greatest reputation for wisdom, think pleasure the greatest good. Simonides certainly does when he says — For what kind of human life Can be worth desiring, If pleasure be denied to it? What kingly power even? Without pleasure e'en the gods Have nothing to be envied for. And Pindar, giving advice to Hiero the tyrant of Syracuse, says — Never obscure fair pleasure in your life; A life of pleasure is the best for man. And Homer, too, speaks of pleasure and indulgence in the following terms — How sweet the products of a peaceful reign, — The heaven-taught poet and enchanting strain, The well-fill'd palace, the perpetual feast, A loud rejoicing, and a people blest! How goodly seems it ever to employ Man's social days in union and in joy; The plenteous board high heap'd with cakes divine, And o'er the foaming bowl the laughing wine. And again, he calls the gods ”living at ease." And “at ease” certainly means “without labour;” as if he meant to show by this expression, that the greatest of all evils is labour and trouble in life.
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§ 12.6 On which account Megaclides finds fault with those poets who came after Homer and Hesiod, and have written about Hercules, relating how he led armies and took cities, — who passed the greater part of his life among men in the most excessive pleasure, and married a greater number of women than any other man; and who had unacknowledged children, by a greater number of virgins, than any other man. For any one might say to those who do not admit all this — “Whence, my good friends, is it that you attribute to him all this excessive love of eating; or whence is it that the custom has originated among men of leaving nothing in the cup when we pour a libation to Hercules, if he had no regard for pleasure? or why are the hot springs which rise out of the ground universally said to be sacred to Hercules; or why are people in the habit of calling soft couches the beds of Hercules, if he despised all those who live luxuriously? Accordingly, says he, the later poets represent him as going about in the guise of a robber by himself, having a club, and a lion's hide, and his bow. And they say that Stesichorus of Himera was the original inventor of this fable. But Xanthus the lyric poet, who was more ancient than Stesichorus, as Stesichorus himself tells us, does not, according to the statement of Megaclides, clothe him in this dress, but in that which Homer gives him. But Stesichorus perverted a great many of the accounts given by Xanthus, as he does also in the case of what is called the Orestea. But Antisthenes, when he said that pleasure was a good, added — ”such as brought no repentance in its train."
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§ 12.7 But Ulysses, in Homer, appears to have been the original guide to Epicurus, in the matter of that pleasure which he has always in his mouth; for Ulysses says to Alcinous —................. Thou whom first in sway, As first in virtue, these thy realms obey, How goodly seems it ever to employ Man's social days in union and in joy! The plenteous board high heap'd with cates divine, And o'er the foaming bowl the laughing wine, The well-fill'd palace, the perpetual feast, Are of all joys most lasting and the best. But Megaclides says that Ulysses is here adapting himself to the times, for the sake of appearing to be of the same disposition. as the Phaeacians; and that with that view he embraces their luxurious habits, as he had already heard from Alcinous, speaking of his whole nation — To dress, to dance, to sing, our sole delight, The feast or bath by day, and love by night; for he thought that that would be the only way by which he could avoid failing in the hopes he cherished. And a similar man is he who recommends Amphilochus his son. — Remember thou, my son, to always dwell In every city cherishing a mind Like to the skin of a rock-haunting fish; And always with the present company Agree, but when away you can change your mind. And Sophocles speaks in a like spirit, in the Iphigenia — As the wise polypus doth quickly change His hue according to the rocks he's near, So change your mind and your apparent feelings. And Theognis says — Imitate the wary cunning of the polypus. And some say that Homer was of this mind, when he often prefers the voluptuous life to the virtuous one, saying: And now Olympus' shining gates unfold; The Gods with Zeus assume their thrones of gold; Immortal Hebe, fresh with bloom divine, The golden goblet crowns with purple wine; While the full bowl flows round the Powers employ Their careful eyes on long-contended Troy." And the same poet represents Menelaus as saying: Nor then should aught but death have torn apart From me so loving and so glad a heart. And in another place — We sat secure, while fast around did roll The dance, and jest, and ever-flowing bowl. And in the same spirit Ulysses, at the court of Alcinous, represents luxury and wantonness as the main end of life.
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§ 12.8 But of all nations the Persians were the first to become notorious for their luxury; and the Persian kings even spent their winters at Susa and their summers at Ecbatana. And Aristobulus and Chares say that Susa derives its name from the seasonable and beautiful character of the place: for that what the Greeks call the lily, is called in the Persian language σοΰσον. But they pass their autumns in Persepolis; and the rest of the year they spend in Babylon. And in like manner the kings of the Parthians spend their spring in Rhagae, and their winter in Babylon, and the rest of the year at Hecatompylus. And even the very thing which the Persian monarchs used to wear on their heads, showed plainly enough their extreme devotion to luxury. For it was made, according to the account of Dinon, of myrrh and of something called labyzus. And the labyzus is a sweet-smelling plant, and more valuable than myrrh. And whenever, says Dinon, the king dismounts from his chariot, he does not jump down, however small the height from the chariot to the ground may be, nor is he helped down, leaning on any one's hand, but a golden chair is always put by him, and he gets on that to descend; on which account the king's chairbearer always follows him. And three hundred women are his guard, as Heraclides of Cumae relates, in the first book of his history of Persia. And they sleep all day, that they may watch all night; and they pass the whole night in singing and playing, with lights burning. And very often the king takes pleasure with them in the hall of the Melophori. The Melophori are one of his troops of guards, all Persians by birth, having golden apples (μήλα) on the points of their spears, a thousand in number, all picked men out of the main body of ten thousand Persians who are called the Immortals. And the king used to go on foot through this hall, very fine Sardian carpets being spread in his road, on which no one but the king ever trod. And when he came to the last hall, then he mounted a chariot, but sometimes he mounted a horse; but on foot he was never seen outside of his palace. And if he went out to hunt, his concubines also went with him. And the throne on which he used to sit, when he was transacting business, was made of gold; and it was surrounded by four small pillars made of gold, inlaid with precious stones, and on them there was spread a purple cloth richly embroidered.
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§ 12.9 But Clearchus the Solensian, in the fourth book of his Lives, having previously spoken about the luxury of the Medes, and having said that on this account they made eunuchs of many citizens of the neighbouring tribes, adds, “that the institution of the Melophori was adopted Toy the Persians from the Medes, being not only a revenge for what they had suffered themselves, but also a memorial of the luxury of the bodyguards, to indicate to what a pitch of effeminacy they had come. For, as it seems, the unseasonable and superfluous luxury of their daily life could make even the men who are armed with spears, mere mountebanks.” And a little further on he says — “And accordingly, while he gave to all those who could invent him any new kind of food, a prize for their invention, he did not, while loading them with honours, allow the food which they had invented to be set before them, but enjoyed it all by himself, and thought this was the greatest wisdom. For this, I imagine, is what is called the brains of Zeus and of a king at the same time.” But Chares of Mitylene, in the fifth book of his History of Alexander, says — " The Persian kings had come to such a pitch of luxury, that at the head of the royal couch there was a supper-room laid with five couches, in which there were always kept five thousand talents of gold; and this was called the king's pillow. And at his feet was another supper-room, prepared with three couches, in which there were constantly kept three thousand talents of silver; and this was called the king's footstool. And in his bed-chamber there was also a golden vine, inlaid with precious stones, above the king's bed." And this vine, Amyntas says in his Posts, had bunches of grapes, composed of most valuable precious stones; and not far from it there was placed a golden bowl, the work of Theodoras of Samos. And Agathocles, in the third book of his History of Cyzicus, says, that there is also among the Persians a water called the golden water, and that it rises in seventy springs; and that no one ever drinks of it but the king alone, and the eldest of his sons. And if any one else drinks of it, the punishment is death.
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§ 12.10 But Xenophon, in the eighth book of his Cyropaedia, says — “They still used at that time to practise the discipline of the Persians, but the dress and effeminacy of the Medes. But now they disregard the sight of the ancient Persian bravery becoming extinct, and they are solicitous only to preserve the effeminacy of the Medes. And I think it a good opportunity to give an account of their luxurious habits. For, in the first place, it is not enough for them to have their beds softly spread, but they put even the feet of their couches upon carpets in order that the floor may not present resistance to them, but that the carpets may yield to their pressure. And as for the things which are dressed for their table, nothing is omitted which has been discovered before, and they are also continually inventing something new; and the same is the way with all other delicacies. For they retain men whose sole business it is to invent things of this kind. And in winter it is not enough for them to have their head, and their body, and their feet covered, but on even the tips of their fingers they wear shaggy gloves and finger-stalls; and in summer they are not satisfied with the shade of the trees and of the rocks, but they also have men placed in them to contrive additional means of producing shade.” And in the passage which follows this one, he proceeds to say — “But now they have more clothes laid upon their horses than they have even on their beds. For they do not pay so much attention to their horsemanship as to sitting softly. Moreover, they have porters, and breadmakers, and confectioners, and cup-bearers, and men to serve up their meals and to take them away, and men to lull them to sleep and men to wake them, and dressers to anoint them and to rub them, and to get them up well in every respect.”
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§ 12.11 The Lydians, too, went to such a pitch of luxury, that they were the first to castrate women, as Xanthus the Lydian tells us, or whoever else it was who wrote the History which is attributed to him, whom Artemon of Cassandreia, in his treatise on the Collection of Books, states to have been Dionysius Scytobrachion (Leather-armed); but Artemon was not aware that Ephorus the historian mentions him as being an older man than the other, and as having been the man who supplied Herodotus with some of his materials. Xanthus, then, in the second book of his Affairs of Lydia, says that Adramyttes, the king of the Lydians, was the first man who ever castrated women, and used female eunuchs instead of male eunuchs. But Clearchus, in the fourth book of his Lives, says — “The Lydians, out of luxury, made parks; and having planted them like gardens, made them very shady, thinking it a refinement in luxury if the sun never touched them with its rays at all; and at last they carried their insolence to such a height, that they used to collect other men's wives and maidens into a place that, from this conduct, got the name of Hagneon. and there ravished them. And at last, having become utterly effeminate, they lived wholly like women instead of like men; on which account their age produced even a female tyrant, in the person of one of those who had been ravished in this way, by name Omphale. And she was the first to inflict on the Lydians the punishment that they deserved. For to be governed and insulted by a woman is a sufficient proof of the severity with which they were treated. Accordingly she, being a very intemperate woman herself, and meaning to revenge the insults to which she herself had been subjected, gave the maiden daughters of the masters to their slaves, in the very same place in which she herself had been ravished. And then having forcibly collected them all in this place, she shut up the mistresses with their slaves. On which account the Lydians, wishing to soften the bitterness of the transaction, call the place the woman's contest — the Sweet Embrace. And not only were the wives of the Lydians exposed to all comers, but those also of the Epizephyrian Locrians, and also those of the Cyprians — and, in fact, those of all the nations who devote their daughters to the lives of prostitutes; and it appears to be, in truth, a sort of reminding of, and revenge for, some ancient insult. So against her a Lydian man of noble birth rose up, ono who had been previously offended at the government of Midas; while Midas lay in effeminacy, and luxury, and a purple robe, working in the company of the women at the loom. But as Omphale slew all the strangers whom she admitted to her embraces, he chastised both — the one, being a stupid and illiterate man, he dragged out by his ears; a man who, for want of sense, had the surname of the most stupid of all animals: but the woman...
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§ 12.12 And the Lydians were also the first people to introduce the use of the sauce called caruca; concerning the preparation of which all those who have written cookery books have spoken a good deal — namely, Glaucus the Locrian, and Mithaecus, and Dionysius, and the two Heraclidae (who were by birth Syracusans ), and Agis, and Epaenetus, and Dionysius, and also Hegesippus, and Erasistratus, and Euthydemus, and Criton; and besides these, Stephanus, and Archytas, and Acestius, and Acesias, and Diocles, and Philistion; for I know that all these men have written cookery books. And the Lydians, too, used to speak of a dish which they called candaulus; and there was not one kind of candaulus only, but three, so wholly devoted were they to luxury. And Hegesippus the Tarentine'says, that the candaulus is made of boiled meat, and grated bread, and Phrygian cheese, and aniseed, and thick broth: and it is mentioned by Alexis, in his Woman Working all Night, or The Spinners; and it is a cook who is represented as speaking: — A. And, besides this, we now will serve you up A dish whose name's candaulus. B. I've ne'er tasted Candaulus, nor have I e'er heard of it. A.'Tis a most grand invention, and'tis mine; And if I put a dish of it before you, Such will be your delight that you'll devour Your very fingers ere you lose a bit of it. We here will get some balls of snow-white wool. You will serve up an egg well shred, and twice Boil'd till it's hard; a sausage, too, of honey; Some pickle from the frying-pan, some slices Of new-made Cynthian cheese; and then A bunch of grapes, steep'd in a cup of wine: But this part of the dish is always laugh'd at, And yet it is the mainstay of the meal. B. Laugh on, my friend; but now be off, I beg, With all your talk about candauli, and Your sausages, and dishes, and such luxuries. Philemon also mentions the candaulus in his Passer-by, where he says — For I have all these witnesses in the city, That I'm the only one can dress a sausage, A candaulus, eggs, a thrium, all in no time: Was there any error or mistake in this? And Nicostratus, in his Cook, says — A man who could not even dress black broth, But only thria and candauli. And Menander, in his Trophonius, says — Here comes a very rich Ionian, And so I make a good thick soup, and eke A rich candaulus, amatory food. And the Lydians, when going out to war, array themselves to the tune of flutes and pipes, as Herodotus says; and the Lacedemonians also attack their enemies keeping time to their flutes, as the Cretans keep time to the lyre.
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§ 12.13 But Heraclides of Cumae, who wrote the History of Persia, having said in his book entitled The Preparation, that in the country'which produces frankincense the king is independent, and responsible to no one, proceeds as follows: — ” And he exceeds every one in luxury and indolence; for he stays for ever in his palace, passing his whole life in luxury and extravagance; and he does no single thing, nor does he see many people. But he appoints the judges, and if any one thinks that they have decided unjustly, there is a window the highest part of the palace, and it is fastened with a chain: accordingly, he who thinks that an unjust decision has been given against him, takes hold of the chain, and drags the window; and when the king hears it, he summons the man, and hears the eause himself. And if the judges appear to have decided unjustly, they are put to death; but if they appear to have decided justly, then the man who has moved the window is put to death." And it is said that the sum expended every day on the king, and on his wives and friends, amounts to fifteen Babylonian talents.
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§ 12.14 And among the Tyrrhenians, who carry their luxury to an extraordinary pitch, Timaeus, in his first book, relates that the female servants wait on the men in a state of nudity. And Theopompus, in the forty-third book of his History, states, “that it is a law among the Tyrrhenians that all their women should be in common: and that the women pay the greatest attention to their persons, and often practise gymnastic exercises, naked, among the men, and sometimes with one another; for that it is not accounted shameful for them to be seen naked. And that they sup not with their own husbands, but with any one who happens to be present; and they pledge whoever they please in their cups: and that they are wonderful women to drink, and very handsome. And that the Tyrrhenians bring up all the children that are born, no one knowing to what father each child belongs: and the children, too, live in the same manner as those who have brought them up, having feasts very frequently, and being intimate with all the women. Nor is it reckoned among the Tyrrhenians at all disgraceful either to do or suffer anything in the open air, or to be seen while it is going on; for it is quite the custom of their country: and they are so far from thinking it disgraceful, that they even say, when the master of the house is indulging his appetites, and any one asks for him, that he is doing so and so, us'ng the coarsest possible words for his occupation. But when they are together in parties of companions or relations, they act in the following manner. First of all, when they have stopped drinking, and are about to go to sleep, while the lights are still burning, the servants introduce sometimes courtesans, and sometimes beautiful boys, and sometimes women; and when they have enjoyed them, they proceed to acts of still grosser licentiousness: and they indulge their appetites, and make parties on purpose, sometimes keeping one another in sight, but more frequently making tents around the beds, which are made of plaited laths, with cloths thrown over them. And the objects of their love are usually women; still they are not invariably as particular as they might be; and they are very beautiful, as is natural for people to be who live delicately, and who take great care of their persons.” And all the barbarians who live towards the west, smooth their bodies by rubbing them with pitch, and by shaving them; and among the Tyrrhenians there are many shops in which this trade is practised, and many artists whose sole employment it is, just as there are barbers among us. And when the Tyrrhenians go to these men, they give themselves wholly up to them, not being ashamed of having spectators, or of those who may be passing by. And many of the Greeks, and of those who inhabit Italy, adopt this practice, having learnt it from the Samnites and Messapians. But the Tyrrhenians (as Alcimus relates) are so far gone in luxury, that they even make bread, and box, and flog people to the sound of the flute.
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§ 12.15 The tables of the Sicilians also are very notorious for their luxury. “And they say that even the sea in their region is sweet, delighting in the food which is procured from it,” as Clearchus says, in the fifth book of his Lives. And why need we mention the Sybarites, among whom bathing men and pourers of water were first introduced in fetters, in order to prevent their going too fast, and to prevent also their scalding the bathers in their haste? And the Sybarites were the first people to forbid those who practice noisy arts from dwelling in their city; such as blacksmiths, and carpenters, and men of similar trades; providing that their slumbers should always be undisturbed. And it used to be unlawful to rear a cock in their city. And Timaeus relates concerning them, that a citizen of Sybaris once going into the country, seeing the farmers digging, said that he himself felt as if he had broken his bones by the sight; and some one who heard him replied, “I, when I heard you say this, felt as if I had a pain in my side.” And once, at Croton, some Sybarites were standing by some one of the athletes who was digging up dust for the palaestra, and said they marvelled that men who had such a city had no slaves to dig the palaestra for them. But another Sybarite, coming to Lacedemon, and being invited to the pheiditium, sitting down on a wooden seat and eating with them, said that originally he had been surprised at hearing of the valour of the Lacedemonians; but that now that he had seen it, he thought that they in no respect surpassed other men: for that the greatest coward on earth would rather die a thousand times than live and endure such a life as theirs.
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§ 12.16 And it is a custom among them that even their children, up to the age when they are ranked among the ephebes, should wear purple robes, and curls braided with gold. And it is a custom with them also to breed up in their houses little mannikins and dwarfs (as Timaeus says), who are called by some people στίλπωνες; and also little Maltese dogs, which follow them even to the gymnasia. And it was these men, and men like them, to whom Masinissa, king of Mauretania, made answer (as Ptolemaeus relates, in the eighth book of his Commentaries), when they were seeking to buy some monkeys: “Why,- do not your wives, my good friends, produce any offspring?” For Masinissa was very fond of children, and kept about him and brought up the children of his sons,
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§ 12.16b and of his daughters equally, and he had a great many of them; and he brought them all up till they were three years old, and after that he sent them to their parents, having the younger ones to take their places. And Eubulus the comic writer has said the same thing in his Graces:- For is it not, I pray you, better far For one man, who can well afford such acts, To rear a man, than a loud gaping goose, Or sparrow, or ape — most mischievous of beasts? And Athenodorus, in his treatise on Serious Studies and Amusements, says that “ Archytas of Tarentum, who was both a statesman and a philosopher, having many slaves, was always delighted at his entertainments when any of [their children] came to his banquets. But the Sybarites delighted only in Maltese puppy-dogs, and in men which were no men.”
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§ 12.17 The Sybarites used to wear also garments made of Milesian wool, from which there arose a great friendship between the two cities, as Timaeus relates. For of the inhabitants of Italy, the Sybarites gave the preference to the Etruscans, and of foreigners to the Ionians, because they were devoted to luxury. But the cavalry of the Sybarites, being in number more than five thousand, used to go in procession with saffron-coloured robes over their breastplates; and in the summer their younger men used to go away to the caves of the Nymphs of the river Lusias, and live there in all kinds of luxury. And whenever the rich men of that country left the city for the country, although they always travelled in chariots, still they used to consume three days in a day's journey. And some of the roads which led to their villas in the country were covered with awnings all over; and a great many of them had cellars near the sea, into which their wine was brought by canals from the country, and some of it was then sold out of the district, but some was brought into the city in boats. They also celebrate in public numbers of feasts; and they honour those who display great magnificence on such occasions with golden crowns, and they proclaim their names at the public sacrifices and games; announcing not only their general goodwill towards the city, but also the great magnificence which they had displayed in the feasts. And on these occasions they even crown those cooks who have served up the most exquisite dishes. And among the Sybarites there were found baths in which, while they lay down, they were steamed with warm vapours. And they were the first people who introduced the custom of bringing chamber-pots to banquets. But laughing at those who left their countries to travel in foreign lands, they themselves used to boast that they had grown old without ever having crossed the bridges which led over their frontier rivers.
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§ 12.18 But it seems to me, that besides the fact of the riches of the Sybarites, the very natural character of their country,- since there are no harbours on their coasts, and since, in consequence, nearly all the produce of the land is consumed by the citizens themselves,- and to some extent also an oracle of the God, has excited them all to luxury, and has caused them to live in practices of most immoderate dissoluteness. But their city lies in a hollow, and in summer is liable to excess of cold both morning and evening, but in the middle of the day the heat is intolerable, so that the greater part of them believe that the rivers contribute a great deal to the health of the inhabitants;
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§ 12.18b on which account it has been said, that “a man who, living at Sybaris, wishes not to die before his time, ought never to see the sun either rise or set.” And once they sent to the oracle to consult the God (and one of the ambassadors was named Amyris ), and to ask how long their prosperity should last; and the priestess of Delphi answered them: You shall be happy, Sybarite, very happy, And all your time in entertainments pass, While you continue to the immortal gods The worship due: but when you come, at length, To honour mortal man beyond the gods, Then foreign war and intestine sedition Shall come upon you, and shall crush your city. When they had heard this they thought the God had said to them that they should never have their luxury terminated; for that there was no chance of their ever honouring a man more than God. But in agreement with the oracle they experienced a change of fortune, when one of them flogging one of his slaves, continued to beat him after he had sought an asylum in a sanctuary; but when at last he fled to the tomb of his father, he let him go, out of shame. But their whole revenues were dissipated by the way in which they rivalled one another in luxury. And the city also rivalled all other cities in luxury. And not long after this circumstance, when many omens of impending destruction, which it is not necessary to allude to further at present, had given them notice, they were destroyed.
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§ 12.19 But they had carried their luxury to such a pitch that they had taught even their horses to dance at their feasts to the music of the flute. Accordingly the people of Croton, knowing this, and being at war with them, as Aristotle relates in his History of the Constitution of Sybaris, played before their horses the tune to which they were accustomed to dance; for the people of Croton also had flute-players in military uniform. And as soon as the horses heard them playing on the flute, they not only began to dance, but ran over to the army of the Crotonians, carrying their riders with them. And Charon of Lampsacus tells a similar story about the Cardians, in the second book of his Annals, writing as follows:-" The Bisaltae invaded the territory of the Cardians, and conquered them. The general of the Bisaltae was Onaris; and he, while he was a boy, had been sold as a slave in Cardia; and having lived as a slave to one of the Cardians, he had been taught the trade of a barber. And the Cardians had an oracle warning them that the Bisaltae would some day invade them; and they very often used to talk over this oracle while sitting in this barber's shop. And Onaris, escaping from Cardia to his own country, prompted the Bisaltae to invade the Cardians, and was himself elected general of the Bisaltae. But all the Cardians had been in the habit of teaching their horses to dance at their feasts to the music of the flute; and they, standing on their hind feet, used to dance with their fore feet in time to the airs which they had been taught. Onaris then, knowing these things, got a female flute-player from among the Cardians. And this female flute-player coming to the Bisaltae, taught many of their flute-players; and when they had learnt sufficiently, he took them in his army against the Cardians. And when the battle took place, he ordered the flute-players to play the tunes which they had learnt, and which the horses of the Cardians knew. And when the horses heard the flute, they stood up on their hind feet, and took to dancing. But the main strength of the Cardians was in their cavalry, and so they were conquered."
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§ 12.19b And one of the Sybarites, once wishing to sail over to Croton, hired a vessel to carry him by himself, on condition that no one was to splash him, and that no one else was to be taken on board, and that he might take his horse with him. And when the captain of the ship had agreed to these terms, he put his horse on board, and ordered some straw to be spread under the horse. And afterwards he begged one of those who had accompanied him down to the vessel to go with him, saying, “I have already stipulated with the captain of the ship to keep along the shore.” But he replied, “I should have had great difficulty in complying with your wishes if you had been going to walk along the seashore, much less can I do so when you are going to sail along the land.”
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§ 12.20 But Phylarchus, in the twenty-fifth book of his History, (having said that there was a law at Syracuse, that the women should not wear golden ornaments, nor garments embroidered with flowers, nor robes with purple borders, unless they admitted that they were public prostitutes; and that there was another law, that a man should not adorn his person, nor wear any extraordinarily handsome robes, different from the rest of the citizens, unless he meant to confess that he was an adulterer and a profligate: and also, that a freewoman was not to walk abroad when the sun had set, unless she was going to commit adultery; and even by day they were not allowed to go out without the leave of the regulators of the women, and without one female servant following them,)- Phylarchus, I say, states, that “the Sybarites, having given loose to their luxury, made a law that women might be invited to banquets, and that those who intended to invite them to sacred festivities must make preparation a year before, in order that they might have all that time to provide themselves with garments and other ornaments in a suitable manner worthy of the occasion, and so might come to the banquet to which they were invited. And if any caterer or cook invented any peculiar and excellent dish, no other artist was allowed to make this for a year; but he alone who invented it was entitled to all the profit to be derived from the manufacture of it for that time; in order that others might be induced to labour at excelling in such pursuits. And in the same way, it was provided that those who sold eels were not so be liable to pay tribute, nor those who caught them either. And in the same way the laws exempted from all burdens those who dyed the marine purple and those who imported it.”'
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§ 12.21 They then, having carried their luxury and insolence to a great height, at last, when thirty ambassadors came to them from the people of Croton, slew them all, and threw their bodies down over the wall, and left them there to be eaten by beasts. And this was the beginning of great evils to them, as the Deity was much offended at it. Accordingly, a few days afterwards all their chief magistrates appeared to see the same vision on one night; for they thought that they saw Hera coming into the midst of the market-place, and vomiting gall; and a spring of blood arose in her sanctuary. But even then they did not desist from their arrogance, until they were all destroyed by the Crotonians. But Heracleides of Pontus, in his treatise on Justice, says, “The Sybarites having put down the tyranny of Telys and having destroyed all those who had exercised authority, (?) met them and slew them at the altar of the gods. And at the sight of this slaughter the statue of Hera turned itself away, and the floor sent up a fountain of blood, so that they were forced to cover all the place around with brazen tablets, wishing to stop the rising of the blood: on which account they were all driven from their city and destroyed.
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§ 12.21b And they had also been desirous to obscure the glory of the famous games at Olympia; for watching the time when they are celebrated, they attempted to draw over the athletes to their side by the extravagance of the prizes which they offered.”
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§ 12.22 And the men of Croton, as Timaeus says, after they had destroyed the people of Sybaris, began to indulge in luxury; so that their chief magistrate went about the city clad in a purple robe, and wearing a golden crown on his head, and wearing also white sandals. But some say that this was not done out of luxury, but owing to Democedes the physician, who was by birth a native of Croton; and who having lived with Polycrates the tyrant of Samos, and having been taken prisoner by the Persians after his death, was taken to the king of Persia, after Oroetes had put Polycrates to death. And Democedes, having cured Atossa the wife of Darius, and daughter of Cyrus, who had a complaint in her breast, asked of her this reward, to be sent back to Greece, on condition of returning again to Persia; and having obtained his request he came to Croton. And as he wished to remain there, when some Persian laid hold of him and said that he was a slave of the king of Persia, the Crotonians took him away, and having stripped the Persian of his robe, dressed the servant of their chief magistrate in it. And from that time forward, the servant, having on the Persian robe, went round with the chief magistrate to all the altars on the seventh day of every month; not for the sake of luxury or insolence, but doing it for the purpose of insulting the Persians. But after this the men of Croton, as Timaeus says, attempted to put an end to the Assembly at Olympia, by appointing a meeting for games with enormously rich prizes, to be held at exactly the same time as the Olympian games; but some say that the Sybarites did this.
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§ 12.23 But Clearchus, in the fourth book of his Lives, says that the people of Tarentum, after they had acquired strength and power, carried their luxury to such a height, that they used to make their whole body smooth, and that they were the first people who set other nations an example of this smoothness. They also, says he, all wore very beautiful fringes on their garments; such as those with which now the life of woman is refined. And afterwards, being led on by their luxury to insolence, they overthrew a city of the Iapyges, called Carbina, and collected all the boys and maidens, and women in the flower of their age, out of it into the sanctuaries of the Carbinians; and made a spectacle of them, exposing them naked by day for all who chose to come and look at them, so that whoever pleased, leaping, as it were, on this unfortunate band, might satisfy his appetite, with the beauty of those who were there assembled, in the sight of everyone, and above all of the Gods, whom they were thinking of but little. And this aroused the indignation of the Deity, so that he struck all the Tarentines who behaved so impiously in Carbina with his thunderbolts. And even to this day at Tarentum every one of the houses has the same number of pillars before its doors as that of the people who lived there before they were sent to Iapygia. And, when the day comes which is the anniversary of their death, they do not bewail those who perished at those pillars, nor do they offer the libations which are customary in other cases, but they offer sacrifices to Zeus Kataibatis.
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§ 12.24 Now the race of the Iapygians came originally from Crete, being descended from those Cretans who came to seek for Glaucus, and settled in that part of Italy;
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§ 12.24b but afterwards, they, forgetting the orderly life of the Cretans, came to such a pitch of luxury, and from thence to such a degree of insolence, that they were the first people who painted their faces and who worn headbands and false hair, and who clothed themselves in robes embroidered with flowers, and who considered it disgraceful to cultivate the land, or to do any kind of labour. And most of them made their houses more beautiful than the sanctuaries of the gods; and so they say, that the leaders of the Iapygians, treating the Deity with insult, destroyed the images of the gods out of the sanctuaries, ordering their betters to go elsewhere. On which account, being struck from heaven with fire and copper, they gave rise to reports [of their misfortune]; for indeed traces of the copper with which they were stricken down were visible a long time afterwards. And to this very day all their descendants live with shaven heads and in mourning apparel, in want of all the luxuries which previously belonged to them.
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§ 12.25 But the Iberians, although they go about in robes like those of the tragedians, and richly embroidered, and in tunics which reach down to the feet, are not at all hindered by their dress from displaying their vigour in war; but the people of Massilia became very effeminate, wearing the same highly ornamented kind of dress which the Iberians used to wear; but they behave in a shameless manner, on account of the effeminacy of their souls, behaving like women, out of luxury: from which the proverb has gone about, “May you sail to Massilia ”. And the inhabitants of Siris, which place was first inhabited by people who touched there on their escape from Troy, and after them by the Colophonians, as Timaeus and Aristotle tell us, indulged in luxury no less than the Sybarites; for it was a peculiar national custom of theirs to wear embroidered tunics, which they girded up with expensive girdles (μίτραι); and on this account they were called by the inhabitants of the adjacent countries μιτροχίτωνες, since Homer calls those who have no girdles ἀμιτροχίτωνες. And Archilochus the poet marvelled beyond anything at the country of the Sirites, and at their prosperity. Accordingly, speaking of Thasos as inferior to Siris, he says:- For there is not on earth a place so sweet, Or lovely, or desirable, as that Which stands upon the stream of Siris. But the place was called Siris, as Timaeus asserts, and as Euripides says too in his play called Melanippe Captive, from a woman named Siris, but according to Archilochus, from a river of the same name. And the number of the population grew very great in all that region, owing to the luxurious and prosperous character of the country. On which account nearly all that part of Italy which was colonised by the Greeks was called Magna Graecia.
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§ 12.26 “But the Milesians, as long as they abstained from luxury, conquered the Scythians,” as Ephorus says, “and founded all the cities on the Hellespont, and settled all the country about the Euxine Sea with beautiful cities. And they all betook themselves to Miletus. But when they were enervated by pleasure and luxury, all the valiant character of the city disappeared, as Aristotle tells us; and indeed a proverb arose from them, — Once on a time Milesians were brave.” Heraclides of Pontus, in the second book of his treatise on Justice, says, — “The city of the Milesians fell into misfortunes, on account of the luxurious lives of the citizens, and on account of the political factions; for the citizens, not loving equity, destroyed their enemies root and branch. For all the rich men and the populace formed opposite factions (and they call the populace Gergithae ). At first the people got the better, and drove out the rich men, and, collecting the children of those who fled into some threshing-floors, collected a lot of oxen, and so trampled them to death, destroying them in a most impious manner. Therefore, when in their turn the rich men got the upper hand, they smeared over all those whom they got into their power with pitch, and so burnt them alive. And when they were being burnt, they say that many other prodigies were seen, and also that a sacred olive took fire of its own accord; on which account the God drove them for a long time from his oracle; and when they asked the oracle on what account they were driven away, he said — My heart is grieved for the defenceless Gergithae, So helplessly destroy'd; and for the fate Of the poor pitch-clad bands, and for the tree Which never more shall flourish or bear fruit. And Clearchus, in his fourth book, says that the Milesians, imitating the luxury of the Colophonians, disseminated it among their neighbours. And then he says that they, when reproved for it, said one to another, ”Keep at home your native Milesian wares, and publish them not."
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§ 12.27 And concerning the Scythians, Clearchus, in what follows these last words, proceeds to say — " The nation of the Scythians was the first to use common laws; but after that, they became in their turn the most miserable of all nations, on account of their insolence: for they indulged in luxury to a degree in which no other nation did, being prosperous in everything, and having great resources of all sorts for such indulgences. And this is plain from the traccs which exist of it to this day in the apparel worn, and way of life practised, by their chief men. For they, being very luxurious, and indeed being the first men who abandoned themselves wholly to luxury, proceeded to such a pitch of insolence that they used to cut off the noses of all the men wherever they came; and their descendants, after they emigrated to other countries, even now derive their name from this treatment. But their wives used to tattoo the wives of the Thracians, (of those Thracians, that is, who lived on the northern and western frontiers of Scythia,) all over their bodies, drawing figures on them with the tongues of their buckles; on which account, many years afterwards, the wives of the Thracians who had been treated in this manner effaced this disgrace in a peculiar manner of their own, tattooing also all the rest of their skin all over, in order that by this means the brand of disgrace and insult which was imprinted on their bodies, being multiplied in so various a manner, might efface the reproach by being called an ornament. And they lorded it over all other nations in so tyrannical a manner, that the offices of slavery, which are painful enough to all men, made it plain to all succeeding ages what was the real character of " a Scythian command." Therefore, on account of the number of disasters which oppressed them, since every people had lost, through grief, all the comforts of life, and all their hair at the same time, foreign nations called all cutting of the hair which is done by way of insult, αποσκυθίζομαι.
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§ 12.28 And Callias, or Diocles, (whichever was the author of the Cyclopes ), ridiculing the whole nation of the Ionians in that play, says — What has become of that luxurious Ionia, with the sumptuous supper-tablesl Tell me, how does it fare ] And the people of Abydus (and Abydus is a colony of Miletus ) are very luxurious in their way of life, and wholly enervated by pleasure; as Hermippus tells us, in his Soldiers — A. I do rejoice when I behold an army From o'er the sea, — to see how soft they are And delicate to view, with flowing hair, And well-smooth'd muscles in their tender arms. B. Have you heard Abydus has become a man ] And Aristophanes, in his Triphales, ridiculing (after the fashion of the comedians) many of the Ionians, says — Then all the other eminent foreigners Who were at hand, kept following steadily, And much they press'd him, begging he would take The boy with him to Chios, and there sell him: Another hoped he'd take him to Clazomenae; A third was all for Ephesus; a fourth Preferred Abydus on the Hellespont: And all these places in his way did lie. But concerning the people of Abydus, Antiphon, in reply to the attacks of Alcibiades, speaks as follows: — " After you had been considered by your guardians old enough to be your own master, you, receiving your property from their hands, went away by sea to Abydus, — not for the purpose of transacting any private business of your own, nor on account of any commission of the state respecting any public rights of hospitality; but, led only by your own lawless and intemperate disposition, to learn lasciviotis habits and actions from the women at Abydus, in order that you might be able to put them in practice during the remainder of your life."
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§ 12.29 The Magnesians also, who lived on the banks of the Maeander, were undone because they indulged in too much luxury, as Callinus relates in his Elegies; and Archilochus confirms this: for the city of Magnesia was taken by the Ephesians. And concerning these same Ephesians, Democritus, who was himself an Ephesian, speaks in the first book of his treatise on the temple of Artemis at Ephesus; where, relating their excessive effeminacy, and the dyed garments which they used to wear, he uses these expressions: — " And as for the violet and purple robes of the Ionians, and their saffron garments, embroidered with round figures, those are known to every one; and the caps which they wear on their heads are in like manner embroidered with figures of animals. They wear also garments called sarapes, of yellow, or scarlet, or white, and some even of purple: and they wear also long robes called calasires, of Corinthian workmanship; and some of these are purple, and some violet-coloured, and some hyacinth-coloured; and one may also see some which are of a fiery red, and others which are of a sea-green colour. There are also Persian calasires, which are the most beautiful of all. And one may see also," continues Democritus, “the garments which they call actaea; and the actaea is the most costly of all the Persian articles of dress: and this actaea is woven for the sake of fineness and of strength, and it is ornamented all over with golden millet-grains; and all the millet-grains have knots of purple thread passing through the middle, to fasten them inside the garment.” And he says that the Ephesians use all these things, being wholly devoted to luxury.
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§ 12.30 But Duris, speaking concerning the luxury of the Samians, quotes the poems of Asius, to prove that they used to wear bracelets on their arms; and that, when celebrating the festival of Hera, they used to go about with their hair carefully combed down over the back of their head and over their shoulders; and he says that this is proved to have been their regular practice by this proverb- “To go, like a worshipper of Hera, with his hair braided.” Now the verses of Asius run as follows: And they marched, with carefully combed hair To the most holy spot of Hera's temple, Clad in magnificent robes, whose snow-white folds Reached to the ground of the extensive earth, And golden knobs on them like grasshoppers, And golden chaplets loosely held their hair, Gracefully waving in the genial breeze; And on their arms were bracelets, highly wrought,.......... (?) and sang The praises of the mighty warrior. But Heracleides of Pontus, in his treatise on Pleasure,
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§ 12.30b says that the Samians, being most extravagantly luxurious, destroyed the city, out of their meanness to one another, in the same way as the Sybarites destroyed theirs.
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§ 12.31 But the Colophonians (as Phylarchus says), who originally adopted a very rigid course of life, when, in consequence of the alliance and friendship which they formed with the Lydians, they began to give way to luxury, used to go into public with their hair adorned with golden ornaments, as Xenophanes tells us- They learnt all sorts of useless foolishness From the effeminate Lydians, while they Were held in bondage to sharp tyranny. They went into the forum richly clad In purple garments, in numerous companies, Whose strength was not less than a thousand men, Boasting of hair luxuriously dressed, Dripping with costly and sweet-smelling oils. And to such a degree did they carry their dissoluteness and their unseemly drunkenness, that some of them never once saw the sun either rise or set: and they passed a law, which continued even to our time, that the female flute-players and female harpers, and all such musicians and singers, should receive pay from daybreak to midday, and until the lamps were lit; but after that they set aside the rest of the night to get drunk in. And Theopompus, in the fifteenth book of his History, says, “that a thousand men of that city used to walk about the city, wearing purple garments, which was at that time a colour rare even among kings, and greatly sought after; for purple was constantly sold for its weight in silver. And so, owing to these practices, they fell under the power of tyrants, and became torn by factions, and so were undone along with their country.” And Diogenes the Babylonian gave the same account of them, in the first book of his Laws. And Antiphanes, speaking generally of the luxury of all the Ionians, has the following lines in his Dodona:- Say, from what country do you come, what land Call you your home? Is this a delicate Luxurious band of long and soft-robed men From cities of Ionia that here approaches? And Theophrastus, in his essay on Pleasure, says that the Ionians, on account of the extraordinary height to which they carried their luxury, (?) gave rise to what is now known as the golden proverb.
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§ 12.32 And Theopompus, in the eighth book of his History of the Affairs of Philip, says that some of those tribes which live on the sea-coast are exceedingly luxurious in their manner of living. But about the inhabitants of Byzantium and Chalcedon, the same Theopompus makes the following statement:- “But the Byzantians, because they had been governed a long time by a democracy, and because their city was so situated as to be a kind of trading-post, and because the whole people spent the whole of their time in the market-place and about the harbour, were very intemperate, and in the constant habit of feasting and drinking at the taverns. But the Chalcedonians, before they became members of the same city with them, were men who at all times cultivated better habits and principles of life; but after they had tasted of the democracy of the Byzantians, they fell into ruinous luxury, and, from having been most temperate and moderate in their daily life, they became a nation of hard drinkers, and very extravagant.” And, in the twenty-first book of the History of the Affairs of Philip, he says that the nation of the Umbrians (and that is a tribe which lives on the shores of the Adriatic sea) was exceedingly devoted to luxury, and lived in a manner very like the Lydians, and had a fertile country, owing to which they advanced in prosperity.
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§ 12.33 But speaking about the Thessalians, in his fourth book, he says that “they spend all their time among dancing women and flute-playing women, and some spend all the day in dice and drinking, and similar pastimes; and they are more anxious how they may display their tables loaded with all kinds of food, than how they may exhibit a regular and orderly life. But the Pharsalians,” says he, “are of all men the most indolent and the most extravagant.” And the Thessalians are agreed (as Critias says) to be the most extravagant of all the Greeks, both in their way of living and in their apparel; which was a reason why they conducted the Persians into Greece, desiring to copy their luxury and expense. But concerning the Aitolians, Polybius tells us, in the thirteenth book of his History [ 13. ], that on account of their continual wars, and the extravagance of their lives, they became involved in debt. And Agatharchides, in the twelfth book of his Histories, says- “The Aitolians are so much the more ready to encounter death, in proportion as they seek to live extravagantly and with greater prodigality than any other nation.”
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§ 12.34 But the Sicilians, and especially the Syracusans, are very notorious for their luxury; as Aristophanes also tells us, in his Daitaleis, where he says- But after that I sent you, you did not Learn this at all; but only learnt to drink, And sing loose songs at Syracusan feasts, And how to share in Sybaritic banquets, And to drink Chian wine in Spartan cups. But Plato, in his Letters [ 7.326'b ], says- “It was with this intention that I went to Italy and Sicily, when I paid my first visit there. But when I got there, the way of life that I found there was not at all pleasing to me; for twice in the day they eat to satiety, and they never sleep alone at night; and they indulge also in all other such practices as naturally follow on such habits: for, after such habits as these, no man in all the world, who has been bred up in them from his youth, can possibly turn out sensible; and as for being temperate and virtuous, that none of them ever think of.” And in the third book of his Republic [ 404'd ] he writes as follows:- “It seems to me, my friend, that you do not approve of the Syracusan tables, and the Sicilian variety of dishes; and you do not approve either of men, who wish to preserve a vigorous constitution, devoting themselves to Corinthian mistresses; nor do you much admire the delicacy which is usually attributed to Athenian sweetmeats.”
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§ 12.35 But Poseidonius, in the sixteenth book of his Histories, speaking of the cities in Syria, and saying how luxurious they were, writes as follows:- “The inhabitants of the towns, on account of the great fertility of the land, used to derive great revenues from their estates, and after their labours for necessary things used to celebrate frequent entertainments, at which they feasted incessantly, using their gymnasia for baths, and anointing themselves with very costly oils and perfumes; and they passed all their time in their γραμματεῖα, for that was the name which they gave to their public banqueting-rooms, as if they had been their own private houses; and the greater part of the day they remained in them, filling their bellies with meat and drink, so as even to carry away a good deal to eat at home; and they delighted their ears with the music of a noisy lyre, so that whole cities resounded with such noises.” But Agatharchides, in the thirty-fifth book of his Affairs of Europe, says-
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§ 12.528 “The Arycandians of Lycia, being neighbours of the Limyres, having got involved in debt, on account of the intemperance and extravagance of their way of living, and, by reason of their indolence and devotion to pleasure, being unable to discharge their debts, placed all their hopes on Mithridates, thinking that he would reward them with a general abolition of debts.” And, in his thirty-first book, he says that the Zacynthians were inexperienced in war, because they were accustomed to live in ease and opulence.
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§ 12.36 And Polybius, in his seventh book, says, that the inhabitants of Capua in Campania, having become exceedingly rich through the excellence of their soil, fell into habits of luxury and extravagance, exceeding all that is reported of the inhabitants of Croton or Sybaris. “Accordingly,” says he, “they, not being able to bear their present prosperity, called in Hannibal, owing to which act they afterwards suffered intolerable calamities at the hands of the Romans. But the people of Petelia, who kept the promises which they had made to the Romans, behaved with such resolution and fortitude when besieged by Hannibal, that they did not surrender till they had eaten all the hides which there were in the city, and the bark and young branches of all the trees which grew in the city, and till they had endured a siege for eleven months, without any one coming to their assistance; and they did not even then surrender without the permission of the Romans.”
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§ 12.37 And Phylarchus, in the eleventh book of his History, says that Aeschylus says that the Curetes derived their name from their luxurious habits — And their luxurious curls, like a fond girl's, On which account they call'd him κουρετης. And Agathon in his Thyestes says, that “the suitors who courted the daughter of Pronax came sumptuously dressed in all other points, and also with very long, carefully dressed hair. And when they failed in obtaining her hand — At least (say they) we cut and dress'd our hair, To be an evidence of our luxury, A lovely action of a cheerful mind; And thence we gain'd the glory of a name, — To be kouretes, from our well-cut (κουριμος) hair.” And the people of Cumae in Italy, as Hyperochus tells us or whoever else it was who wrote the History of Cumae which is attributed to him, wore golden brocaded garments all day, and robes embroidered with flowers; and used to go to the fields with their wives, riding in chariots. — And this is what I have to say about the luxury of nations and cities.
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§ 12.38 But of individual instances I have heard the following stories Ctesias, in the third book of his History of Persia, says, that all those who were ever kings in Asia devoted themselves mainly to luxury] and above all of them, Ninyas did so, the son of Ninus and Semiramis. He, therefore, remaining indoors and living luxuriously, was never seen by any one, except by his eunuchs and by his own women. And another king of this sort was Sardanapalus, whom some call the son of Anacyndaraxes, and others the son of Anabaxarus. And so, when Arbaces, who was one of the generals under him, a Mede by birth, endeavoured to manage, by the assistance of one of the eunuchs, whose name was Sparamizus, to see Sardanapalus; and when he with difficulty prevailed upon him, with the consent of the king himself, — when the Mede entered and saw him, painted with vermilion and adorned like a woman, sitting among his concubines carding purple wool, and sitting among them with his feet up, wearing a woman's robe, and with his beard carefully scraped, and his face smoothed with pumice-stone (for he was whiter than milk, and pencilled under his eyes and eyebrows; and when he saw Arbaces, he was just putting a little more white under his eyes), most historians, among whom Duris is one, relate that Arbaces, being indignant at his countrymen being ruled over by such a monarch as that, stabbed him and slew him. But Ctesias says that he went to war with him, and collected a great army, and then that Sardanapalus, being dethroned by Arbaces, died, burning himself alive in his palace, having heaped up a funeral pile four plethra in extent, on which he placed a hundred and fifty golden couches, and a corresponding number of tables, these, too, being all made of gold. And he also erected on the funeral pile a chamber a hundred feet long, made of wood; and in it ho had couches spread, and there he himself lay down with his wife, and his concubines lay on other couches around. For ho had sent on his three sons and his daughters, when he saw that his affairs were getting in a dangerous state, to Nineveh, to the king of that city, giving them three thousand talents of gold. And he made the roof of this apartment of large stout beams, and then all the walls of it he made of numerous thick planks, so that it was impossible to escape out of it. And in it he placed ten millions of talents of gold, and a hundred millions of talents of silver, and robes, and purple garments, and every kind of apparel imaginable. And after that he bade the slaves set fire to the pile; and it was fifteen days burning. And those who saw the smoke wondered, and thought that he was celebrating a great sacrifice; but the eunuchs alone knew what was really being done. And in this way Sardanapalus, who had spent his life in extraordinary luxury, died with as much magnanimity as possible.
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§ 12.39 But Clearchus, relating the history of the king of Persia, says that — “in a very prudent manner he proposed prizes for any one who could invent any delicious food. For this is what, I imagine, is.meant by the brains of Zeus and the king. On which account,” continues he, “ Sardanapalus was the most happy of all monarchs, who during his whole life preferred enjoyment to everything else, and who, eveu after his death, shows by his fingers, in the figure carved on his tomb, how much ridicule all human affairs deserve, being not worth the snap of his fingers which he makes anxiety about other things.” However, Sardanapalus does not appear to have lived all his life in entire inaction; for the inscription on his tomb says — Sardanapalus The king, and son of Anacyndaraxes, In one day built Anchiale and Tarsus; But now he's dead. And Amyntas, in the third book of his Account of the Posts, says that at Nineveh there is a very high mound, which Cyrus levelled with the ground when he besieged the city, and raised another mound against the city; and that this mound was said to have been erected by Sardanapalus the son of King Ninus; and that on it there was said to be inscribed, on a marble pillar and in Chaldaic characters, the following inscription, which Choerilus translated into Greek, and reduced to metre. And the inscription is as follows — I was the king, and while I lived on earth, The time that men do live on earth was brief, And liable to many sudden changes, Reverses, and calamities. Now others Will have th' enjoyment of my luxuries, Which I do leave behind me. For these reasons I never ceased one single day from pleasure. But Clitarchus, in the fourth book of his History of Alexander, says that Sardanapalus died of old age after he had lost the sovereignty over the Syrians. And Aristobulus says — " In Anchiale, which was built by Sardanapalus, did Alexander, when he was on his expedition against the Persians, pitch his camp. And at no great distance was the monument of Sardanapalus, on which there was a marble figure putting together the fingers of its right hand, as if it were giving a fillip. And there was on it the following inscription in Assyrian characters — Sardanapalus The king, and son of Anacyndarases, In one day built Anchiale and Tarsus. Eat, drink, and love; the rest's not worth e'en this, — by “this” meaning the fillip he was giving with his fingers.
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§ 12.40 But Sardanapalus was not the only king who was very luxurious, but so was also Androcotus the Phrygian. For he also used to wear a robe embroidered with flowers; and to adorn himself more superbly than a woman, as Mnaseas relates, in the third book of his History of Europe. But Clearchus, in the fifth book of his Lives, says that Sagaus the king of the Mariandyni used, out of luxury, to eat, till he arrived at old age, out of his nurse's mouth, that he might not have the trouble of chewing his own food; and that he never put his hand lower than his navel; on which account Aristotle, laughing at Xenocrates the Chalcedonian, for a similar preposterous piece of laziness, says — His hands are clean, but sure his mind is not. And Ctesias relates that Annarus, a lieutenant of the king of Persia, and governor of Babylon, wore the entire dress and ornaments of a woman; and though he was only a slave of the king, there used to come into the room while he was at supper a hundred and fifty women playing the lyre and singing. And they played and sang all the time that he was eating. And Phoenix of Colophon, the poet, speaking of Ninus, in the first book of his Iambics, says — There was a man named Ninus, as I hear, King of Assyrians, who had a sea Of liquid gold, and many other treasures, More than the whole sand of the Caspian sea. He never saw a star in all his life, But sat still always, nor did wish to see one; He never, in his place among the Magi, Roused the sacred fire, as the law bids, Touching the God with consecrated wand; He was no orator, no prudent judge, He never learned to speak, or count a sum, But was a wondrous man to eat and drink And love, and disregarded all besides: And when he died he left this rule to men, “Where Nineveh and his monument now stands: — ” Behold and hear, whether from wide Assyrians You come, or else from Media, or if You're a Choraxian, or a long-hair'd native Of the lake country in Upper India, For these my warnings are not vain or false: I once was Ninus, a live breathing man, Now I am nothing, only dust and clay, And all I ate, and all I sang and jested, And all I loved.. But now my enemies have come upon me, They have my treasures and my happiness, Tearing me as the Bacchae tear a kid; And I to Hades, not taking with me gold, Or horses, or a single silver chariot; Once I did wear a crown, now I am dust.
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§ 12.41 But Theopompus, in the fifteenth book of his Philippica, says that “ Straton the king of Sidon surpassed all men in luxury and devotion to pleasure. For as Homer has represented the Phaeacians as living feasting and drinking, and listening to harp-players and rhapsodists. so also did Straton pass the whole of his life; and so much the more devoted to pleasure was he than they, that the Phaeacians, as Homer reports, used to hold their banquets in the company of their own wives and daughters; but Straton used to prepare his entertainments with flute-playing and harp-playing and lyre-playing women. And he sent for many courtesans from Peloponnesus, and for many musicians from Ionia, and for other girls from every part of Greece; some skilful in singing and some in dancing, for exhibitions of skill in which they had contests before himself and his friends; and with these women he spent a great deal of his time. He then, delighting in such a life as this, and being by nature a slave to his passions, was also especially urged on by rivalry with Nicocles. For he and Nicocles were always rivalling one another; each of them devoted all his attention to living more luxuriously and pleasantly than the other. And so they carried their emulation to such a height, as we have heard, that when either of them heard from his visitors what was the furniture of the other's house, and how great was the expense gone to by the other for any sacrifice, he immediately set to work to surpass him in such things. And they were anxious to appear to all men prosperous and deserving of envy. Not but what neither of them continued prosperous throughout the whole of their lives, but were both of them destroyed by violent deaths.” And Anaximenes, in his book entitled the Reverses of Kings, giving the same account of Straton, says that he was always endeavouring to rival Nicocles, who was the king of Salamis in Cyprus, and who was exceedingly devoted to luxury and debauchery, and that they both came to a violent end.
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§ 12.42 And in the first book of his Philippica, Theopompus, speaking of Philip, says — " And on the third day he comes to Onocarsis, which was a strong place in Thrace, having a large grove kept in beautiful order, and full of every resource for living pleasantly, especially during the summer. For it was one of the places which had been especially selected by Cotys, who, of all the kings that ever lived in Thrace, was the most eager in his pursuit of pleasure and luxury. And going round all the country, wherever he saw any place shaded with trees and well watered with springs, he made it into a banqueting place. And going to them whenever he chose, he used to celebrate sacrifices to the gods, and there he would stay with his lieutenants, being a very happy and enviable man, until he took it into his head to blaspheme Athena, and to treat her with contempt." And the historian goes on to say, that Cotys once prepared a feast, as if Athena had married him; and prepared a bedchamber for her, and then, in a state of intoxication, he waited for the goddess. And being already totally out of his mind, he sent one of his body-guards to see whether the goddess had arrived at the bedchamber. And when he came there, and went back and reported that there was nobody there, he shot him and killed him. And he treated a second in the same way, until a third went, and on his return told him that the goddess had been a long time waiting for him. And this king, being once jealous of his wife, cut her up with his own hands, beginning at her legs.
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§ 12.43 But in the thirteenth book of his Philippica, speaking of Chabrias the Athenian, he says — " But he was unable to live in the city, partly on account of his intemperance, and partly because of the extravagant habits of his daily life, and partly because of the Athenians. For they are always unfavourable to eminent men; on which account their most illustrious citizens preferred to live out of the city. For instance, Iphicrates lived in Thrace, and Conon in Cyprus, and Timotheus in Lesbos, and Chares at Sigeum, and Chabrias himself in Egypt." And about Chares he says, in his forty-fifth book — “But Chares was a slow and stupid man, and one wholly devoted to pleasure. And even when he was engaged in his military expeditions, he used to take about with him female flute-players, and female harp-players, and a lot of common courtesans. And of the money which was contributed for the purposes of the war, some he expended on this sort of profligacy, and some he left behind at Athens, to be distributed among the orators and those who propose decrees, and on those private individuals who had actions depending. And for all this the Athenian populace was so far from being indignant, that for this very reason he became more popular than any other citizen; and naturally too: for they all lived in this manner, that their young men spent all their time among flute-players and courtesans; and those who were a little older than they, devoted themselves to gambling, and profligacy of that sort; and the whole people spent more money on its public banquets and entertainments than on the provision necessary for the well-doing of the state. But in the work of Theopompus, entitled, ”Concerning the Money of which the Temple at Delphi was pillaged," he says — “ Chares the Athenian got sixty talents by means of Lysander. And with this money he gave a banquet to the Athenians in the Agora, celebrating a triumphal sacrifice in honour of their victory gained in the battle which took place against the foreign troops of Philip.” And these troops were commanded by Adaeus, surnamed the Cock, concerning whom Heraclides the comic poet speaks in the following manner — But when he caught the dunghill cock of Philip Crowing too early in the morn, and straying, He kill'd him; for he had not got his crest on. And having kill'd this one, then Chares gave A splendid banquet to the Athenian people; So liberal and magnificent was he. And Duris gives the same account.
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§ 12.44 But Idomeneus tells us that the Peisistratidae also, Hippias and Hipparchus, instituted banquets and entertainments; on which account they had a vast quantity of horses and other articles of luxury. And this it was that made their government so oppressive. And yet their father, Peisistratus, had been a moderate man in his pleasures, so that he never stationed guards in his fortified places, nor in his gardens, as Theopompus relates in his twenty-first book, but let any one who chose come in and enjoy them, and take whatever he pleased. And Cimon afterwards adopted the same conduct, in imitation of Peisistratus. And Theopompus mentions Cimon in the tenth book of his History of the Affairs of Philip, saying — " Cimon the Athenian never placed any one in his fields or gardens to protect the fruit, in order that any of the citizens who chose might go in and pick the fruit, and take whatever they wanted in those places. And besides this, he opened his house to every one, and made a daily practice of providing a plain meal for a great number of people; and all the poor Athenians who came that way might enter and partake of it. He also paid great attention to all those who from day today came to ask something of him; and they say that he used always to take about with him one or two young men bearing bags of money. And lie ordered them to give money to whoever came to him to ask anything of him. And they say that lie also often contributed towards the expense of funerals. And this too is a thing that he often did; whenever he met any citizen badly clad, he used to order one of the young men who were following him to change cloaks with him. And so by all these means he acquired a high reputation, and was the first of all the citizens." But Peisistratus was in many respects very oppressive; and some say that that statue of Dionysos which there is at Athens was made in his likeness.
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§ 12.45 And Heraclides of Pontus, in his treatise on Pleasure, says that Pericles, nicknamed the Olympian, after he got rid of his wife out of his house, and devoted himself to a life of pleasure, lived with Aspasia, the courtesan from Megara, and spent the greater part of his substance on her. And Themistocles, when the Athenians were not yet in such a state of intoxication, and had not yet begun to use courtesans, openly filled a chariot with prostitutes, and drove early in the morning through the Ceramicus when it was full. But Idomeneus has made this statement in an ambiguous manner, so as to leave it uncertain whether he means that he harnessed the prostitutes in his chariot like horses, or merely that he made them mount his four-horsed chariot. And Possis, in the third book of his History of the Affairs of Magnesia, says, that Themistocles, having been invested with a crowned magistracy in Magnesia, sacrificed to Athena, and called the festival the Panathenaea. And he sacrificed also to Dionysus Choopotes, and celebrated the festival of the Choeis there. But Clearchus, in the first book of his treatise on Friendship, says that Themistocles had a triclinium of great beauty made for him, and said that he should be quite contented if he could fill that with friends.
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§ 12.46 And Chamaeleon of Pontus, in his Essay on Anacreon, having quoted these lines — And Periphoretus Artemon Is loved by golden-hair'd Eurypyle, says that Artemo derived this nickname from living luxuriously, and being carried about (περιφέρεσθαι) on a couch. For Anacreon says that he had been previously very poor, and then became on a sudden very luxurious, in the following verses — Having before a poor berberium cloak, And scanty cap, and his poor ears With wooden earrings decorated, And wearing round his ribs a newly-bought Raw ox -hide, fitter for a case For an old-fashion'd shield, this wretch Artemon, who long has lived With bakers' women, and the lowest of the low, Now having found a new style of life, Often thrusts his neck into the yoke, Or beneath the spear doth crouch; And many a weal he can display, Mark'd on his back with well-deserved scourge; And well pluck'd as to hair and beard. But now he mounts his chariot, he the son Of Cyca, and his golden earrings wears; And like a woman bears An ivory parasol o'er his delicate head.
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§ 12.47 But Satyrus, speaking of the beautiful Alcibiades, says: It is said that when he was in Ionia, he was more luxurious than the Ionians themselves. And when he was in Thebes he trained himself, and practised gymnastic exercises, being more of a Boeotian than the Thebans themselves. And in Thessaly he loved horses and drove chariots; being fonder of horses than the Aleuadae: and at Sparta he practised courage and fortitude, and surpassed the Lacedemonians themselves. And again, in Thrace he out-drank even the Thracians themselves. And once wishing to tempt his wife, he sent her a thousand Darics in another man's name: and being exceedingly beautiful in his person, he cherished his hair the greater part of his life, and used to wear an extraordinary kind of shoe, which is called Alcibias from him. And whenever he was a choregus, he made a procession clad in a purple robe; and going into the theatre he was admired not only by the men, but also by the women: on which account Antisthenes, the pupil of Socrates, who often had seen Alcibiades, speaks of him as a powerful and manly man, and impatient of restraint, and audacious, and exceedingly beautiful through all his life. And whenever he went on a journey he used four of the allied cities as his maid-servants. For the Ephesians used to put up a Persian tent for him; and the Chians used to find him food for his horses; and the people of Cyzicus supplied him with victims for his sacrifices and banquets; and the Lesbians gave him wine, and everything else which he wanted for his daily food. And when he came to Athens from Olympia, he offered up two pictures, the work of Aglaophon: one of which represented the priestesses of Olympia and Delphi crowning him; and in the other Nemea was sitting, and Alcibiades on her knees, appearing more beautiful than any of the women. And even when on military expeditions he wished to appear beautiful; accordingly he had a shield made of gold and ivory, on which was carved Love brandishing a thunderbolt as the ensign. And once having gone to supper at the house of Anytus, by whom he was greatly beloved, and who was a rich man, when one of the company who was supping there with him was Thrasyllus, (and he was a poor man,) he pledged Thrasyllus in half the cups which were set out on the side-board, and then ordered the servants to carry them to Thrasyllus's house; and then he very civilly wished Anytus good night, and so departed. But Anytus, in a very affectionate and liberal spirit, when some one said what an inconsiderate thing Alcibiades had done;' No, by Zeus,' said he,' but what a kind and considerate thing; for when he had the power to have taken away everything, he has left me half.'"
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§ 12.48 And Lysias the orator, speaking of his luxury, says — “For Axiochus and Alcibiades having sailed to the Hellespont, married at Abydus, both of them marrying one wife, Medontias of Abydus, and both cohabited with her. After this they had a daughter, and they said that they could not tell whose daughter she was; and when she was old enough to be married, they both cohabited with her too; and when Alcibiades came to her, he said that she was the daughter of Axiochus, and Axiochus in his turn said she was the daughter of Alcibiades.” And he is ridiculed by Eupolis, after the fashion of the comic writers, as being very intemperate with regard to women; for Eupolis says in his Flatterers — A. Let Alcibiades leave the women's rooms. B. why do you jest Will you not now go home and try your hand On your own wife? And Pherecrates says — For Alcibiades, who's no man (άντιρ) at all, Is, as it seems, now every woman's husband (άνηρ). And when he was at Sparta he seduced Timaea, the wife of Agis the king. And when some people reproached him for so doing, he said, “that he did not intrigue with her out of incontinence, but in order that a son of his might be king at Sparta; and that the kings might no longer be said to be descended from Hercules, but from Alcibiades:” and when he was engaged in his military expeditions, he used to take about with him Timandra, the mother of Lais the Corinthian, and Theodote, who was an Athenian courtesan.
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§ 12.49 But after his banishment, having made the Athenians masters of the Hellespont, and having taken more than five thousand Peloponnesians prisoners, he sent them to Athens; and after this, returning to his country, he crowned the Attic triremes with branches, and mitres, and fillets. And fastening to his own vessels a quantity of ships which he had taken, with their beaks broken off, to the number of two hundred, and conveying also transports full of Lacedemonian and Peloponnesian spoils and arms, he sailed into the Piraeus: and the trireme in which he himself was, ran up to the very bars of the Piraeus with purple sails; and when it got inside the harbour, and when the rowers took their oars, Chrysogonus played on a flute the trieric air, clad in a Persian robe, and Callippides the tragedian, clad in a theatrical dress, gave the word to the rowers. On account of which some one said with great wit — " Sparta could never have endured two Lysanders, nor Athens two Alcibiadeses." But Alcibiades was imitating the Medism of Pausanias, and when he was staying with Pharnabazus, he put on a Persian robe, and learnt the Persian language, as Themistocles had done.
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§ 12.50 And Duris says, in the twenty-second book of his History,- “ Pausanias, the king of Lacedemon, having laid aside the national cloak of Lacedemon, adopted the Persian dress. And Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, adopted a theatrical robe and a golden tragic crown with a clasp. And Alexander, when he became master of Asia, also adopted the Persian dress. But Demetrius outdid them all; for the very shoes which he wore he had made in a most costly manner; for in its form it was a kind of buskin, made of most expensive purple wool; and on this the makers wove a great deal of golden embroidery, both before and behind; and his cloak was of a brilliant tawny colour; and, in short, a representation of the heavens was woven into it, having the stars and twelve signs of the Zodiac all wrought in gold;
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§ 12.50b and his head-band was spangled all over with gold, binding on a purple broad-brimmed hat (causia) in such a manner that the outer fringes hung down the back. And when the Demetrian festival was celebrated at Athens, Demetrius himself was painted on the proscenium, sitting on the Oecumene.” And Nymphis of Heracleia, in the sixth book of his treatise on his Country, says- “ Pausanias, who defeated Mardonius at Plataea, having transgressed the laws of Sparta, and given himself up to pride, when staying near Byzantium, dared to put an inscription on the bronze krater which is there consecrated to the gods established at the entrance of the strait, (and the bowl is in existence to this day,) as if he had dedicated it himself; putting this inscription on it, forgetting himself through his luxury and arrogance:- Pausanias, the general of broad Greece, Offered this bowl to the royal Poseidon, A fit memorial of his deathless valour, Here in the Euxine sea. He was by birth A Spartan, and Cleombrotus' son, Sprung from the ancient race of Heracles.”
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§ 12.51 “ Pharax the Lacedemonian also indulged himself in luxury,” as Theopompus tells us in the fourteenth book of his History, “and he abandoned himself to pleasure in so dissolute and unrestrained a manner, that by reason of his intemperance he was more often taken for a Sicilian, than for a Spartan by reason of his place of birth.” And in his fifty-second book he says that “ Archidamus the Lacedemonian, having abandoned his national customs, adopted foreign and effeminate habits; so that he could not endure the way of life which existed in his own country, but was always, by reason of his intemperance, anxious to live in foreign countries. And when the Tarentines sent an embassy about an alliance, he was anxious to go out with them as an ally; and being there, and having been slain in the wars, he was not thought worthy even of a burial, although the Tarentines offered a great deal of money to the enemy to be allowed to take up his body.” And Phylarchus, in the tenth book of his Histories, says that Isanthes was the king of that tribe of Thracians called Crobyzi, and that he surpassed all the men of his time in luxury; and he was a rich man, and very handsome. And the same historian tells us, in his twenty-second book, that Ptolemaeus the Second, king of Egypt, the most admirable of all princes, and the most learned and accomplished of men, was so beguiled and debased in his mind by his unseasonable luxury, that he actually dreamed that he should live for ever, and said that he alone had found out how to become immortal. And once, after he had been afflicted by the gout for many days, when at last he got a little better, and saw through his window-blinds some Egyptians dining by the river-side, and eating whatever it might be that they had, and lying at random on the sand, “O wretched man that I am,” said he, “that I am not one of those men!”
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§ 12.52 Now Callias and his flatterers we have already sufficiently mentioned. But since Heracleides of Pontus, in his treatise on Pleasures, speaks of him, we will return to the subject and quote what he says:- “When first the Persians made an expedition against Greece, there was, as they say, an Eretrian of the name of Diomnestus, who became master of all the treasures of the general; for he happened to have pitched his tent in his field, and to have put his money away in some room of his house. But when the Persians were all destroyed,
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§ 12.52b then Diomnestus took the money without any one being aware of it; but when the king of Persia sent an army into Eretria the second time, ordering his generals utterly to destroy the city, then, as was natural, all who were at all well off carried away their treasures. Accordingly those of the family of Diomnestus who were left, secretly removed their money to Athens, to the house of Hipponicus, the son of Callias, who was surnamed Ammon; and when all the Eretrians had been driven out of their city by the Persians, this family remained still in possession of their wealth, which was great. So Hipponicus, who was the descendant of that man who had originally received the deposit, begged the Athenians to grant him a place in the Acropolis, where he might construct a room to store up all this money in, saying that it was not safe for such vast sums to remain in a private house. And the Athenians did grant him such a place; but afterwards, he, being warned against such a step by his friends, changed his mind. Callias, therefore, became the master of all this money, and lived a life of pleasure, (for what limit was there to the flatterers who surrounded him, or to the troops of companions who were always about him? and what extravagance was there which he did not think nothing of?) However, his voluptuous life afterwards reduced him so low, that he was compelled to pass the rest of his life with one barbarian old woman for a servant, and he lacked even the most basic necessities, and so he died. But who was it who got rid of the riches of Nicias of Pergase, or of Ischomachus? was it not Autoclees and Epiclees, who preferred living with one another, and who considered everything second to pleasure? and after they had squandered all this wealth, they drank hemlock together, and so perished.”
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§ 12.53 But, concerning the luxury of Alexander the Great, Ephippus the Olynthian, in his treatise on the Deaths of Alexander and Hephaestion, says that “he had in his park a golden throne, and couches with silver feet, on which he used to sit and transact business with his companions.” But Nicobule says, that “while he was at supper all the performers and athletes made an effort to entertain the king; and at his very last banquet, Alexander, remembering an episode in the Andromeda of Euripides, recited it in a declamatory manner, and then drank a cup of unmixed wine with great eagerness, and compelled all the rest to do so too.” And Ephippus tells us that “ Alexander used to wear even the sacred vestments at his banquets; and sometimes he would wear the purple robe, and slit sandals, and horns of Ammon, as if he had been the god; and sometimes he would imitate Artemis, whose dress he often wore while driving in his chariot; having on also a Persian robe, but displaying above his shoulders the bow and javelin of the goddess. Sometimes also he would appear in the guise of Hermes; at other times, and indeed almost every day, he would wear a purple cloak, and a tunic shot with white, and a hat (causia) which had a royal diadem attached to it. And when he was in private with his friends he wore the sandals of Hermes, and the petasus on his head, and held the caduceus in his hand. Often also he wore a lion's skin, and carried a club, like Heracles.” What wonder then is it, if in our time the emperor Commodus, when he drove abroad in his chariot, had the club of Heracles lying beside him, with a lion's skin spread at his feet, and liked to be called Heracles, when even Alexander, the pupil of Aristotle, represented himself as like so many gods, and even like Artemis? And Alexander used to have the floor sprinkled with exquisite perfumes and with fragrant wine;
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§ 12.53b and myrrh was burnt before him, and other kinds of incense; and all the bystanders kept silence, or spoke only words of good omen, out of fear. For he was a very violent man, with no regard for human life; for he appeared to be a man of a melancholic constitution. And on one occasion, at Ecbatana, he offered a sacrifice to Dionysus, and everything was prepared in a most lavish manner for the banquet, and Satrabates the satrap, feasted all the soldiers. “But when a great multitude was collected to see the spectacle,” says Ephippus, “there were on a sudden some arrogant proclamations published, more insolent even than Persian arrogance was wont to dictate. For, as different people were publishing different proclamations, and proposing to make Alexander large presents, which they called crowns, one of the keepers of his armoury, going beyond all previous flattery, having previously arranged the matter with Alexander, ordered the herald to proclaim that Gorgus, the keeper of the armoury, presents Alexander, the son of Ammon, with three thousand pieces of gold; and will also present him, when he lays siege to Athens, with ten thousand complete suits of armour, and with an equal number of catapults and all weapons required for the war.
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§ 12.54 And Chares, in the tenth book of his History of Alexander, says- ”When he took Dareius prisoner, he celebrated a marriage-feast for himself and his companions, having had ninety-two bedchambers prepared in the same place. There was a house built capable of containing a hundred couches; and in it every couch was adorned with wedding paraphernalia to the value of twenty minae, and was made of silver itself; but his own bed had golden feet. And he also invited to the banquet which be gave, all his own private friends, and those he arranged opposite to himself and the other bridegrooms; and his forces also belonging to the army and navy, and all the ambassadors which were present, and all the other strangers who were staying at his court. And the apartment was furnished in the most costly and magnificent manner, with sumptuous garments and cloths, and beneath them were other cloths of purple, and scarlet, and gold. And, for the sake of solidity, pillars supported the tent, each twenty cubits long, plated all over with gold and silver, and inlaid with precious stones; and all around these were spread costly curtains embroidered with figures of animals, and with gold, having gold and silver curtain-rods. And the circumference of the court was four stades. And the banquet took place, beginning at the sound of a trumpet, at that marriage feast, and on other occasions whenever the king offered a solemn sacrifice, so that all the army knew it. And, this marriage feast lasted five days. And a great number both of barbarians and Greeks brought contributions to it; and also some of the Indian tribes did so. And there were present some wonderful conjurors — Scymnus of Tarentum, and Philistides of Syracuse, and Heracleitus of Mytilene; after whom also Alexis of Tarentum, the rhapsodist, exhibited his skill. There came also harp-players, who played without singing,- Cratinus of Methymna, and Aristonymus the Athenian, and Athenodorus of Teos. And Heracleitus of Tarentum played on the harp, accompanying himself with his voice, and so did Aristocrates the Theban. And of flute-players accompanied with song, there were present Dionysius of Heracleia, and Hyperbolus of Cyzicus. And of other flute-players there were the following, who first of all played the Pythian melody, and afterwards played with the choruses,- Timotheus, Phrynichus, Caphesias, Diophantus, and also Evius the Chalcidian. And from this time forward, those who were formerly called Dionysius -flatterers, were called Alexander -flatterers, on account of the extravagant liberality of their presents, with which Alexander was pleased. And there were also tragedians who acted,- Thessalus, and Athenodorus, and Aristocritus;
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§ 12.54b and of comic actors there were Lycon, and Phormion, and Ariston. There was also Phasimelus the harp-player. And the crowns sent by the ambassadors and by other people amounted in value to fifteen thousand talents.
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§ 12.55 But Polycleitus of Larissa, in the eighth book of his History, says that Alexander used to sleep on a golden couch, and that flute-playing men and women followed him to the camp, and that he used to drink till daybreak. And Clearchus, in his treatise on Lives, speaking of Dareius who was dethroned by Alexander, says, “The king of the Persians offered prizes to those who could invent pleasures for him, and by this conduct allowed his whole empire and sovereignty to be subverted by pleasures. Nor was he aware that he was defeating himself till others had wrested his sceptre from him and had been proclaimed in his place.” And Phylarchus, in the twenty-third book of his History, and Agatharchides of Cnidus, in the tenth book of his History of Asia, say that the companions also of Alexander gave way to the most extravagant luxury. And one of them was a man named Agnon, who used to wear golden studs in his sandals and shoes. And Cleitus, who was surnamed The White, whenever he was about to transact business, used to converse with every one who came to him while walking about on a purple carpet. And Perdiccas and Craterus, who were fond of athletic exercises, had men follow them with hides fastened together, so as to cover a place an entire stade in extent; and then they selected a spot within the encampment which they had covered with these skins as an awning; and under this they practised their gymnastics. They were followed also by numerous beasts of burden, which carried sand for the use of the palaestra. And Leonnatus and Menelaus, who were very fond of hunting, had curtains brought after them calculated to enclose a space a hundred stades in circumference, with which they fenced in a large space and then practised hunting within it. And as for the golden plane-trees, and the golden vine — having on it bunches of grapes made of emeralds and Indian carbuncles, and all sorts of other stones of the most costly and magnificent description, under which the kings of Persia used often to sit when transacting business,- the expense of all this, says Phylarchus, was far less than the daily sums squandered by Alexander; for he had a tent capable of containing a hundred couches, and fifty golden pillars supported it. And over it were spread golden canopies wrought with the most superb and costly embroidery, to shade all the upper part of it. And first of all, five hundred Persian Melophori stood all round the inside of it, clad in robes of purple and apple-green; and besides them there were bowmen to the number of a thousand, some clad in garments of a fiery red, and others in purple; and many of them had blue cloaks. And in front of them stood five hundred Macedonian Argyraspides; and in the middle of the tent was placed a golden chair, on which Alexander used to sit and transact business, his body-guards standing all around. And on the outside, and round the tent, was a troop of elephants regularly equipped, and a thousand Macedonians, in Macedonian uniform; and then ten thousand Persians: and the number of those who wore purple amounted to five hundred, to whom Alexander gave this clothing for them to wear. And though he had such a numerous retinue of friends and servants, still no one dared to approach Alexander of his own accord; so great was his dignity and the veneration with which they regarded him. And at that time Alexander wrote letters to the cities in Ionia, and to the Chians first of all, to send him a quantity of purple;
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§ 12.55b for he wished all his companions to wear purple robes. And when his letter was read among the Chians, Theocritus the philosopher being present, said that now he understood the verse in Homer [ Il 5' ] — He fell by purple death and mighty fate.
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§ 12.56 And Poseidonius, in the twenty-eighth book of his History, says that “ Antiochus the king, who was surnamed Grypus, when he was celebrating the games at Daphne, gave a magnificent banquet; at which, first of all, a distribution of entire joints took place, and after that another distribution of geese, and hares, and antelopes all alive. There were also,” says he, “distributed golden crowns to the feasters, and a great quantity of silver plate, and of servants, and horses, and camels. And every one was expected to mount a camel, and drink; and after that he was presented with the camel, and with all that was on the camel, and the boy who stood by it.” And in his fourteenth book, speaking of his namesake Antiochus, who made war upon Arsaces, and invaded Media, he says that “he made a feast for a great multitude every day; at which, besides the things which were consumed, and the heaps of fragments which were left, every one of the guests carried away with him entire joints of beasts, and birds, and fishes which had never been carved, all ready dressed, in sufficient quantities to fill a wagon. And after this they were presented with a quantity of honey-cakes, and chaplets, and crowns of myrrh and frankincense, with turbans as long as a man, made of strips of gold brocade.
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§ 12.57 But Clytus, the pupil of Aristotle, in his History of Miletus, says that ” Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, collected everything that was worth speaking of everywhere to gratify his luxury, having assembled dogs from Epirus, and goats from Scyros, and sheep from Miletus, and swine from Sicily." And Alexis, in the third book of his Samian Annals, says that “ Samos was adorned by Polycrates with the productions of many other cities; as he imported Molossian and Lacedemonian dogs, and goats from Scyros and Naxos, and sheep from Miletus and Attica. He also,” says he, “sent for artists, promising them enormous wages. But before he became tyrant, having prepared a number of costly couches and goblets, he allowed any one the use of them who was preparing any marriage-feast or extraordinary entertainment.” And after hearing all these particulars we may well admire the tyrant, because it was nowhere written that he had sent for any women or boys from any other countries, although he was of a very amorous nature, and was a rival in love of Anacreon the poet; and once, in a fit of jealousy, he cut off all the hair of the object of his passion. And Polycrates was the first man who called the ships which he had built Samians, in honour of his country. But Clearchus says that “ Polycrates, the tyrant of the effeminate Samos, was ruined by the intemperance of his life, imitating the effeminate practices of the Lydians; on which account, in opposition to the place in Sardis called the beautiful Ancon, he prepared a place in the chief city of the Samians, called Laura; he made those famous Samian flowers in opposition to the Lydian. And the Samian Laura was a narrow street in the city, full of common women, and of all kinds of food calculated to gratify intemperance and to promote enjoyment, with which things he actually filled Greece.

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.