Athenaeus, Deipnosophists

§ 13.60 But Apollodorus, in his book on Courtesans, says that there were two women named Phryne, one of whom was nick-named Clausigelos ["Weep-laughter"], and the other Saperdium ["Goldfish"]. But Herodicus, in the sixth book of his Essay on People mentioned by the Comic Poets, says that the one who is mentioned by the orators was called Sestos, because she sifted (ἀποσήθειν) and stripped bare all her lovers;- and that the other was the native of Thespiae. But Phryne was exceedingly rich, and she offered to build a wall round Thebes, if the Thebans would inscribe on the wall, “ Alexander destroyed this wall, but Phryne the courtesan restored it;” as Callistratus states in his treatise on Courtesans. And Timocles the comic poet, in his Neaera, has mentioned her riches; and so has Amphis, in his Curis. And Gryllion was a parasite of Phryne's, though he was one of the judges of the Areopagus; as also Satyrus, the Olynthian actor, was a parasite of Pamphila. But Aristogeiton, in his book against Phryne, says that her proper name was Mnesarete; and I am aware that Diodorus Periegetes says that the oration against her which is ascribed to Euthias, is really the work of Anaximenes. But Poseidippus the comic poet, in his Ephesian Women, speaks in the following manner concerning her: Before our time, the Thespian Phryne was Far the most famous of all courtesans; And even though you're later than her age, Still you have heard of the trial which she stood. She was accused on a capital charge Before the Heliaia, being said To have corrupted all the citizens; But she besought the judges separately With tears, and so just saved herself from judgment.

§ 13.61 And I would have you all to know that Demades, the orator, became the father of Demeas, by a female flute-player who was a courtesan; and once when Demeas was giving himself airs on the speaker's platform, Hypereides stopped his mouth, saying, “Will not you be silent, young man? why, you make more puffing than your mother did.” And also Bion of Borysthenes, the philosopher, was the son of a Lacedemonian courtesan named Olympia; [592] as Nicias the Nicaean informs us in his treatise called The Successions of the Philosophers. And Sophocles the tragic poet, when he was an old man, was a lover of Theoris the courtesan; and accordingly, calling on the favour and assistance of Aphrodite, he says- Hear me now praying, goddess, nurse of youths, And grant that this my love may scorn young men, And their most feeble fancies and embraces; And rather cling to grey-headed old men, Whose minds are vigorous, though their limbs be weak. And these verses are some of those which are at times attributed to Homer. But he mentions Theoris by name, speaking thus in one of his plain choruses For dear to me Theoris is. And towards the end of his life, as Hegesander says, he was a lover of the courtesan Archippe, and he left her the heiress of all his property; but as Archippe cohabited with Sophocles, though he was very old, Smicrines, her former lover, being asked by some one what Archippe was doing, said very wittily, “Why, like the owls, she is sitting on the tombs.”

§ 13.62 But Isocrates also, the most modest of all the orators, had a mistress named Metaneira, who was very beautiful, as Lysias relates in his Letters. But Demosthenes, in his oration against Neaera, says that Metaneira was the mistress of Lysias. And Lysias also was desperately in love with Lagis the courtesan, whose panegyric Cephalus the orator wrote, just as Alcidamas the Elean, the pupil of Gorgias, himself wrote a panegyric on the courtesan Nais. And, in his oration against Philonides, who was under prosecution for an assault, (if, at least, the oration be a genuine one,) Lysias says that Nais was the mistress of Philonides, writing as follows:- “There is then a woman who is a courtesan, Nais by name, whose keeper is Archias; but your friend Philonides states himself to be in love with her.” Aristophanes also mentions her in his Gerytades, and perhaps also in his Plutus [ ], where he says- Is it not owing to you the greedy Lais Does love Philonides? For perhaps here we ought to read Nais, and not Lais. But Hermippus, in his Essay on Isocrates, says that Isocrates, when he was advancing in years, took the courtesan Lagisca to his house, and had a daughter by her. And Strattis speaks of her in these lines: And while she still was in her bed, I saw Isocrates' concubine, Lagisca, Playing her tricks; and with her the flute-maker. And Lysias, in his speech against Lais, (if, at least, the oration be a genuine one,) mentions her, giving a list of other courtesans also, in the following words:- “ Philyra indeed abandoned the trade of a courtesan while she was still young; and Scione, and Hippaphesis, and Theocleia, and Psamathe, and Lagisca, and Antheia, and Aristocleia, all abandoned it also at an early age.”

§ 13.63 But it is reported that Demosthenes the orator had children by a courtesan; at all events he himself, in his speech About the Gold, introduced his children before the court, in order to obtain pity by their means, without their mother; although it was customary to bring forward the wives of those who were on their trial; however, he did this for shame's sake, hoping to avoid calumny. But this orator was exceedingly addicted to amorous indulgences, as Idomeneus tells us. Accordingly, being in love with a youth named Aristarchus, he once, when he was intoxicated, insulted Nicodemus on his account, and struck out his eyes. He is related also to have been very extravagant in his table, and his followers, and in women. Therefore, his secretary once said, [593] “But what can any one say of Demosthenes? For everything that he has thought of for a whole year, is all thrown into confusion by one woman in one night.” Accordingly, he is said to have received into his house a youth named Cnosion, although he had a wife; and she, being indignant at this, went herself and slept with Cnosion.

§ 13.64 And Demetrius the king, the last of all Alexander's successors, had a mistress named Myrrhina, a Samian courtesan; and in every respect but the crown, he made her his partner in the kingdom, as Nicolaus of Damascus tells us. And Ptolemaeus the son of Ptolemaeus Philadelphus the king, who was governor of the garrison in Ephesus, had a mistress named Eirene. And she, when plots were laid against Ptolemaeus by the Thracians at Ephesus, and when he fled to the temple of Artemis, fled with him: and when the conspirators had murdered him, Eirene seizing hold of the bars of the doors of the temple, sprinkled the altar with his blood till they slew her also. And Sophron the governor of Ephesus had a mistress, Danae, the daughter of Leontium the Epicurean was also a courtesan herself. And by her means he was saved when a plot was laid against him by Laodice, and Laodice was thrown down a precipice, as Phylarchus relates in his twelfth book in these words: “ Danae was a chosen companion of Laodice, and was trusted by her with all her secrets; and, being the daughter of that Leontium who had studied with Epicurus the natural philosopher, and having been herself formerly the mistress of Sophron, she, perceiving that Laodice was laying a plot to murder Sophron, revealed the plot to Sophron by a sign. And he, understanding the sign, and pretending to agree to what Laodice was saying to him, asked two days to deliberate on what he should do. And, when she had agreed to that, he fled away by night to Ephesus. But Laodice, when she learnt what had been done by Danae, threw her down a precipice, discarding all recollection of their former friendship. And they say that Danae, when she perceived the danger which was impending over her, was interrogated by Laodice, and refused to give her any answer; but, when she was dragged to the precipice, then she said, that'many people justly despise the Deity, and they may justify themselves by my case, who having saved a man who was to me as my husband, am requited in this manner by the Deity. But Laodice, who murdered her husband, is thought worthy of such honour.'” The same Phylarchus also speaks of Mysta, in his fourteenth book, in these terms: “ Mysta was the mistress of Seleucus the king, and when Seleucus was defeated by the Galatians, and was with difficulty able to save himself by flight, she put off the robes of a queen which she had been accustomed to wear, and assumed the garment of an ordinary servant; and being taken prisoner, was carried away with the rest of the captives. And being sold in the same manner as her handmaidens, she came to Rhodes; and there, when she had revealed who she was, she was sent back with great honour to Seleucus by the Rhodians.”

§ 13.65 But Demetrius Phalereus being in love with Lampito, a courtesan of Samos was pleased when he himself was addressed as Lampito, as Diyllus tells us; and he was also called Charitoblepharos ["Pretty Eyes"]. And Nicarete the courtesan was the mistress of Stephanus the orator; and Metaneira was the mistress of Lysias the sophist; and these women were the slaves of Casius the Elean, with many other such, as Anteia, Stratola, Aristocleia, Phila, Isthmias, and Neaera. But Neaera was the mistress of Xenocleides the poet, and of Hipparchus the actor, and of Phrynion of Paeania, who was the son of Demon and the nephew of Demochares. And Phrynion and Stephanus the orator used to have Neaera in turn, each a day, since their friends had so arbitrated the matter for them; [594] and the daughter of Neaera, whose name was Strymbele, and who was afterwards called Phano, Stephanus gave (as if she had been his own daughter) in marriage to Phrastor of Aegilia; as Demosthenes tells us in his oration against Neaera [ 59' ]. And he also speaks in the following manner about Sinope the courtesan [ 59' ]: “And you punished Archias the hierophant, when he was convicted before the regular tribunals of behaving with impiety, and offering sacrifices which were contrary to the laws of the nation. And he was accused also of other things, and among them of having sacrificed a victim on the festival of Haloa, which was offered by Sinope the courtesan, on the ash altar which is in the courtyard at Eleusis, though it is against the law to sacrifice any victims on that day; and though, too, it was no part of his duty to sacrifice at all, but it belonged to the priestess to do so.”

§ 13.66 Plangon the Milesian was also a celebrated courtesan; and she, as she was most wonderfully beautiful, was beloved by a young man of Colophon, who already had Bacchis of Samos as his mistress. Accordingly, when this young man began to address his solicitations to Plangon, she, having heard of the beauty of Bacchis, wished to make the young man abandon his love for her. When she was unable to effect that, she required as the price of her favours the necklace of Bacchis, which was very celebrated. And he, as he was exceedingly in love, entreated Bacchis not to see him totally overwhelmed with despair; and Bacchis, seeing the excited state of the young man, gave him the necklace. And Plangon, when she saw the freedom from jealousy which was exhibited by Bacchis, sent her back the necklace, but kept the young man: and ever after Plangon and Bacchis were friends, loving the young man in common; and the Ionians being amazed at this, as Menetor tells us in his treatise On Votive Offerings, gave Plangon the name of Pasiphila ["Dear to all"]. And Archilochus mentions her in the following lines As a fig-tree planted on a lofty rock Feeds many crows and jackdaws, so Pasiphila's A willing entertainer of all strangers. That Menander the poet was a lover of Glycera, is well known by everybody; but still he was not well pleased with her. For when Philemon was in love with a courtesan, and in one of his plays called her “excellent,” Menander, in one of his plays, said, in contradiction to this, that there was no courtesan who was good.

§ 13.67 And Harpalus the Macedonian, who robbed Alexander of vast sums of money and then fled to Athens, being in love with Pythionice, spent an immense deal of money on her; and she was a courtesan. And when she died he erected a monument to her which cost him many talents. And as he was carrying her out to burial, as Poseidonius tells us in the twenty-second book of his History, he had the body accompanied with a band of the most eminent artists of all kinds, and with all sorts of musical instruments and songs. And Dicaearchus, in his Essay on the Descent to the Cave of Trophonius, says,- “And that same sort of thing may happen to any one who goes to the city of the Athenians, and who proceeds by the road leading from Eleusis, which is called the Sacred Way; for, if he stops at that point from which he first gets a sight of Athens, and of the temple, and of the citadel, he will see a tomb built by the wayside, of such a size that there is none other near which can be compared with it for magnitude. And at first, as would be natural, he would pronounce it to be the tomb, beyond all question, of Miltiades, or Cimon, or Pericles, or of some other of the great men of Athens. [595] And above all, he would feel sure that it had been erected by the city at the public expense, or at all events by some public decree; and then, again, when he heard it was the tomb of Pythionice the courtesan, what must be his feelings?” And Theopompus also, in his Letter to Alexander, speaking reproachfully of the profligacy of Harpalus, says,- “But just consider and listen to the truth, as you may hear from the people of Babylon, as to the manner in which he treated Pythionice when she was dead; who was originally the slave of Bacchis, the female flute-player. And Bacchis herself had been the slave of Sinope the Thracian, who brought her establishment of harlots from Aigina to Athens; so that she was not only trebly a slave, but also trebly a harlot. He, however, erected two monuments to her at an expense exceeding two hundred talents. And every one marvelled that no one of all those who died in Cilicia, in defence of your dominions and of the freedom of the Greeks, had had any tomb adorned for them either by him or by any other of the governors of the state; but that a tomb should be erected to Pythionice the courtesan, both in Athens and in Babylon; and they have now stood a long time. For a man who ventured to call himself a friend to you, has dared to consecrate a temple and a spot of ground to a woman whom everybody knew to have been common to every one who chose at the same fixed price, and to call both the temple and the altar those of Aphrodite Pythionice; and in so doing, he despised also the vengeance of the Gods, and endeavoured to insult the honours to which you are entitled.” Philemon also mentions these circumstances, in his comedy called The Babylonian, where he says- You shall be queen of Babylon if the Fates Will but permit it. Sure you recollect Pythionice and proud Harpalus. Alexis also mentions her in his Lyciscus.

§ 13.68 But after the death of Pythionice, Harpalus sent for Glycera, and she also was a courtesan, as Theopompus relates, when he says that Harpalus issued an edict that no one should present him with a crown, without at the same time paying a similar compliment to his prostitute; and adds,- “He has also erected a brazen statue to Glycera in Rhossos of Syria, where he intends to erect one of you, and another of himself. And he has permitted her to dwell in the palace in Tarsus, and he permits her to receive adoration from the people, and to bear the title of Queen, and to be complimented with other presents, which are only fit for your own mother and your own wife.” And we have a testimony coinciding with this from the author of the satyric drama called Agen, which was exhibited, on the occasion when the Dionysian festival was celebrated on the banks of the river Hydaspes, by the author, whether he was Python of Catana or Byzantium, or the king himself. And it was exhibited when Harpalus had fled to the sea-shore, after he had revolted; and it mentions Pythionice as already dead; and Glycera, as being with Harpalus, and as being the person who encouraged the Athenians to receive presents from Harpalus. And the verses of the play are as follows:- (A) There is a pinnacle, where never birds Have made their nests, where the long reeds do grow; And on the left is the illustrious temple Raised to a courtesan, which Pallides Erected, but repenting of the deed, Condemned himself for it to banishment. And when some magi of the barbarians Saw him oppressed with the stings of conscience, They made him trust that they could raise again [596] The soul of Pythionice. And the author of the play calls Harpalus Pallides in this passage; but in what follows, he speaks of him by his real name, saying- (B) But I do wish to learn from you, since I well a long way from thence, what is the fate At present of the land of Athens; and How all its people fare! (A) Why, when they said That they were slaves, they plenty had to eat, But now they have raw vegetables only, And fennel, and but little corn or meat. (B) I likewise hear that Harpalus has sent them A quantity of corn no less than Agen, And has been made a citizen of Athens. (A) That corn was Glycera's. But it is perhaps To them a pledge of ruin, not of a courtesan.

§ 13.69 Naucratis also has produced some very celebrated courtesans of exceeding beauty: for instance, Doricha, who became the mistress of Charaxus, the brother of the lovely Sappho, when he went to Naucratis on some mercantile business. Sappho accuses Doricha in her poetry of having stripped Charaxus of a great deal of his property. But Herodotus calls her Rhodopis, being evidently ignorant that Rhodopis and Doricha were two different people; and it was Rhodopis who dedicated those celebrated spits at Delphi, which Cratinus mentions in the following lines-..... [ the quotation is missing ] Poseidippus also made this epigram on Doricha, although he had often mentioned her in his Aesopia, and this is the epigram- Here, Doricha, your bones have long been laid, Here is your hair, and your well-scented robe: You who once loved the elegant Charaxus, And quaffed with him the morning bowl of wine. But Sappho's pages live, and still shall live, In which is many a mention of your name, Which still your native Naucratis shall cherish As long as any ship sails down the Nile. Archedice also was a native of Naucratis; and she was a courtesan of great beauty. “For some how or other,” as Herodotus says [ 2. ], “ Naucratis is in the habit of producing beautiful courtesans.”

§ 13.70 There was also a certain courtesan named Sappho, a native of Eresus, who was in love with the beautiful Phaon, and she was very celebrated, as Nymphis relates in his Voyage round Asia. But Nicarete of Megara, who was a courtesan, was not a woman of ignoble birth, but she was born of free parents, and was very well calculated to excite affection by reason of her accomplishments, and she was a pupil of Stilpon the philosopher. There was also Bilistiche the Argive, who was a very celebrated courtesan, and who traced her descent back to the Atreidae, as those historians relate who have written the history of the affairs of Argolis. There was also a courtesan named Leaena, whose name is very celebrated, and she was the mistress of Harmodius, who slew the tyrant. And she, being tortured by command of Hippias the tyrant, died under the torture without having said a word. Stratocles the orator also had for his mistress a courtesan whose name was Leme, and who was nicknamed Parorama, because she used to let whoever chose come to her for two drachmas, as Gorgias says in his treatise on Courtesans. Now though Myrtilus appeared to be intending to say no more after this, he resumed his subject, and said:- But I was nearly forgetting, my friends, to tell you of the Lyde of Antimachus, [597] and also of her namesake Lyde, who was also a courtesan and the mistress of Lamynthius the Milesian. For each of these poets, as Clearchus tells us in his Tales of Love, being inflamed with love for the barbarian Lyde, wrote poems, the one in elegiac, and the other in lyric verse, and they both entitled their poems Lyde. I omitted also to mention the female flute-player Nanno, the mistress of Mimnermus, and Leontion, the mistress of Hermesianax of Colophon. For he inscribed with her name, as she was his mistress, three books of elegiac poetry, in the third of which he gives a catalogue of love affairs; speaking in the following manner:-

§ 13.71 “Such was she whom the dear son of Oiagrus, [ Orpheus ] armed only with the lyre, brought back from Hades, even the Thracian Agriope. Aye, he sailed to that evil and inexorable place where Charon drags into the common barque the souls of the departed; and over the lake he shouts afar, as it pours its flood from out the tall reeds. Yet Orpheus, though girded for the journey all alone, dared to sound his lyre beside the wave, and he won over gods of every shape; even the lawless Cocytus he saw, raging beneath his banks; and he flinched not before the gaze of the Hound [ Cerberus ] most dread, his voice baying forth angry fire, with fire his cruel eye gleaming, an eye that on triple heads bore terror. Whence, by his song, Orpheus persuaded the mighty lords that Agriope should recover the gentle breath of life.

§ 13.71.15 Nor did the son of Mene, Musaeus, master of the Graces, cause Antiope to go without her due of honour. And she, beside Eleusis's strand, expounded to the initiates the loud, sacred voice of mystic oracles, as she duly escorted the priest through the Rarian Plain [ὀργειῶνι νόμῳ] to honour Demeter. And she is known even in Hades. I say, too, that Boeotian Hesiod, master of all lore, left his hall and went to the Heliconian village of the Ascraeans, because he was in love; whence, in wooing Eoee, maid of Ascra, he suffered many pangs; and as he sang, he wrote all the scrolls of his Catalogues, ever proceeding from a girl's name first [Ἢ οἵη, ”Or such as her"].

§ 13.71.27 But that bard himself, whom the decree of Zeus forever ordains to be the sweetest divinity among all poets, godlike Homer, languished to thinness, and set Ithaca in the strains of song for love of wise Penelope; for her sake he went, with many sufferings, to that small isle, far from his own wide country; and he celebrated the kin of Icarius, the folk of Amyclas, and Sparta too, ever mindful of his own misfortunes. And Mimnermus, who discovered, after much suffering, [598] the sweet sound and spirit breathed from the languorous pentameter, burned for Nanno; yet oft upon his venerable flute, bound to his lips, he with Hexamyles would hold revel. But he quarreled with Hermobius, the ever cruel, and Pherecles, too, his foe, whom he loathed for the taunts which he hurled against him. Antimachus, too, smitten with love for the Lydian girl Lyde, trod the ground where the Pactolus river flows; and when she died, in his helplessness he placed her in the hard earth, weeping the while, and in his woe he left her there and returned to lofty Colophon; then he filled his pious scrolls with plaints, and rested after all his pain.

§ 13.71.47 As for the Lesbian Alcaeus, you know in how many revels he engaged, when he smote his lyre with yearning love for Sappho. And the bard who loved that nightingale caused sorrow, by the eloquence of his hymns, to the Teian poet. Yea, for the honey-voiced Anacreon contended for her [ Sappho ], whose beauty was supreme among the many women of Lesbos. And at times he would leave Samos, at times again his own city, that nestles against the vine-covered hill, and visit Lesbos, rich in wine; and oft he gazed upon Lectum, the Mysian headland across the Aeolian wave.

§ 13.71.57 How, too, the Attic bee [ Sophocles ] left Colone of the many hillocks, and sang with choruses marshalled in tragedy — sang of Dionysos and of his passion for Theoris and for Erigone, whom Zeus once gave to Sophocles in his old age. I say, too, that that man [ Euripides ] who had ever guarded himself against passion, and had won the hatred of all men by his railings concerning all women, was none the less smitten by the treacherous bow, and could not lay aside his pangs by night; nay, in Macedonia he traversed all the by-ways of Aigeiai in his woe, and became dependent on the steward of Archelaus; until at last Fate found destruction for Euripides, when he met the cruel hounds of Arribius.

§ 13.71.69 “And that poet from Cythera, whom the nurses of Dionysos reared, and the Muses taught to be the most faithful steward of the flute, Philoxenus, — you know how he was racked with pain, and passed through our city to Ortygia; for you have heard of his mighty yearning, which Galateia esteemed less than the very firstlings of the flock. You know also of that bard in whose honour the townsmen of Eurypylus, the men of Cos, raised a bronze statue beneath the plane-tree; he, Philitas, sang his love for the nimble Bittis, versed as he was in all the terms of love and in all its speech. ”Yea, not even all the mortals who ordained for themselves a life austere, seeking to find the dark things of wisdom, those men whom their very craft caused to choke in the shrewd contests of debate, and their dread skill, which bestowed its care upon eloquence, — not even they could turn aside the awful, maddened turmoil of Eros, [599] but they fell beneath the power of that dread charioteer.

§ 13.71.85 Such was the madness for Theano that bound with its spell the Samian Pythagoras; yet he had discovered the refinements of geometric spirals, and had modelled in a small globe the mighty circuit of the enveloping aether. And with what fiery power did Cypris, in her wrath, heat Socrates, whom Apollo had declared to be supreme among all men in wisdom! Yea, though his soul was deep, yet he laboured with lighter pains when he visited the house of Aspasia; nor could he find any remedy, though he had discovered the many cross-paths of logic. “Even the man of Cyrene, keen Aristippus, was drawn by overpowering love beyond the Isthmus, when he fell in love with Lais of Apidane; in his flight he renounced all discourse, and expounded a life of worthlessness.”

§ 13.72 But in this Hermesianax is mistaken when he represents Sappho and Anacreon as contemporaries. For the one lived in the time of Cyrus and Polycrates; but Sappho lived in the reign of Alyattes, the father of Croesus. But Chamaeleon, in his treatise on Sappho, does assert that some people say that these verses were made upon her by Anacreon:- Eros, the golden-haired god, Struck me with his purple ball, And with his many wiles doth seize And challenge me to sport with him. But she- and she from Lesbos comes, That populous and wealthy isle- Laughs at my hair and calls it grey, And will prefer a younger lover. And he says, too, that Sappho says this to him:- You, O my golden-throned Muse, Did surely dictate that sweet hymn, Which the noble Teian bard, From the fair and fertile isle, Chief muse of lovely womanhood, Sang with his dulcet voice. But it is plain enough in reality that this piece of poetry is not Sappho's. And I think myself that Hermesianax is joking concerning the love of Anacreon and Sappho. For Diphilus the comic poet, in his play called Sappho, has represented Archilochus and Hipponax as the lovers of Sappho. Now it appears to me, my friends, that I have displayed some diligence in getting up this amorous catalogue for you, as I myself am not a person so mad about love as Cynulcus, with his calumnious spirit, has represented me. I confess, indeed, that I am amorous, but I do deny that I am frantic on the subject. And why should I dilate upon my sorrows, When I may hide them all in night and silence? as Aeschylus the Alexandrian has said in his Amphitryon. And this is the same Aeschylus who composed the Messenian epic — a man of great learning.

§ 13.73 [599] Therefore, considering that Eros is a mighty and most powerful deity, and that the golden Aphrodite is so too, I recollect the verses of Euripides on the subject, and say:- Do you not see how great a deity is This Aphrodite? No tongue can tell, No calculation can arrive at all Her power, or her dominions' vast extent; She nourishes you and me and all mankind, And I can prove this, not in words alone, [600] But facts will show the might of this fair goddess. The earth loves rain when the parched plains are dry, And lose their glad fertility of yield From want of moisture. Then the ample heaven, Filled with rain, and moved by Aphrodite's power, Loves to descend to anxious earth's embrace; Then when these two are joined in tender love They are the parents of all fruits to us, They bring them forth, they cherish them; and so The race of man both lives and flourishes. And that most magnificent poet Aeschylus, in his Danaides, introduces Aphrodite herself speaking thus- Then, too, the earth feels love, and longs for wedlock, And rain, descending from the amorous air, Impregnates his desiring mate; and she Brings forth delicious food for mortal man,- Herds of fat sheep, and corn, Demeter's gift; The trees love moisture, too, and rain descends To indulge their longings, I alone the cause.

§ 13.74 And again, in the Hippolytus of Euripides [ ], Aphrodite says:- And all who dwell between the Euxine sea And the Atlantic waves, all who behold The beams of the rising and the setting sun, Know that I favour those who honour me, And crush all those who boast against me. And, therefore, in the case of a young man [ Hippolytus ] who had every other imaginable virtue, this one fault alone, that he did not honour Aphrodite, was the cause of his destruction. And neither Artemis, who loved him exceedingly, nor any other of the gods or demi-gods could defend him; and accordingly, in the words of the same poet [ Euripides ]:- Whoever denies that Eros is the only god, Is foolish, ignorant of all that's true, And knows not him who is the greatest deity Acknowledged by all nations. And the wise Anacreon, who is in everybody's mouth, is always celebrating [ Eros ]. And, accordingly, the admirable Critias also speaks of him in the following manner:- Teos brought forth, a source of pride to Greece, The sweet Anacreon, who with sweet notes twined A wreath of tuneful song in woman's praise, The choicest ornament of revelling feasts, The most seductive charm; the foe of the flute, But lover of the softly moving lyre: O Teian bard, your fame shall never die; Age shall not touch it; while the willing slave Mingles the wine and water in the bowl, And fills the welcome goblet for the guests; While female bands, with many twinkling feet, Lead their glad nightly dance; while many drops, Daughters of these glad cups, the Bromian juice, Fall with good omen on the cottabus dish.

§ 13.75 But Archytas, who wrote on the theory of music, says — according to Chamaeleon — that Alcman was the original poet of amatory songs, and that he was the first poet to introduce melodies inciting to erotic indulgence, being {by nature eager to pursue} women. On which account he says in one of his odes:- But Eros again, as Aphrodite wills, Descends into my heart, And with his gentle dew refreshes me. He says also that Alcman was immoderately in love with Megalostrate, who was a poetess, and who was able to allure lovers to her by the charms of her conversation. [601] And he speaks thus concerning her:- This gift, by the sweet Muse inspired, That lovely damsel gave, The golden-haired Megalostrate. And Stesichorus, who was in no moderate degree given to amorous pursuits, composed many poems of this kind; which in ancient times were called paideia and paidika. And, in fact, there was such emulation about composing poems of this sort, and so far was any one from thinking lightly of the amatory poets, that Aeschylus, who was a very great poet, and Sophocles, too, introduced the subject of the love [between men] on the stage in their tragedies: the one describing the love of Achilles for Patroclus, and the other, in his Niobe, the mutual love of Niobe's sons (on which account some men have called that tragedy “paederastria”): and all such passages as those are very agreeable to the audiences.

§ 13.76 And Ibycus of Rhegium, also, cries out as follows:- In early spring the gold Cydonian apples, Watered by streams from ever-flowing rivers, Where the pure garden of the Virgins is, And the young grapes, growing beneath the shade Of ample branches, flourish and increase: But Eros, who never rests, gives me no shade, Nor any recruiting dew; but like the north wind Fierce rushing down from Thrace, with rapid fire, Urged on by Cypris, with maddening drought He burns up my heart, and from my earliest youth, Rules over my soul with fierce dominion. And Pindar, who was of an exceedingly amorous disposition, says:- Oh may it ever be to me to love, And to indulge my love, remote from fear; And do not, my mind, pursue a chase Beyond the present number of your years. On which account Timon, in his Silli, says:- There is a time to love, a time to wed, A time to leave off loving; and adds that it is not well to wait until some one else shall say, in the words of this same philosopher- When this man ought to decline (δύνειν) he now begins To follow pleasure (ἡδύνεσθαι). Pindar also mentions Theoxenus of Tenedos, who was much beloved by him; and what does he say about him?- And now (for seasonable is the time) You ought, my soul, to pluck the flowers of love, Which suit your age. And he who, looking on the brilliant light that beams From the sweet countenance of Theoxenus Is not subdued by love, Must have a dark discoloured heart, Of adamant or iron made, And hardened long in the smith's glowing furnace. That man is scorned by bright-eyed Aphrodite. Or else he's poor, and care doth fill his breast; Or else beneath some female insolence He withers, and so drags on an anxious life: But I, like comb of wily bees, Melt under Aphrodite's heat, And waste away while I behold The budding Graces of the youth I love. Surely at Tenedos, persuasion soft, And every grace, abides In the lovely son of Hagesilas.

§ 13.77 And many men used to be as fond of having boys as their favourites as women for their mistresses. And this was a frequent fashion in many very well regulated cities of Greece. Accordingly, the Cretans, as I have said before, and the Chalcidians in Euboea, were very much addicted to the custom of having boy-favourites. Therefore Echemenes, in his history of Crete, says that it was not Zeus who carried off Ganymedes, but Minos. But the before-mentioned Chalcidians say that Ganymedes was carried off from them by Zeus; and they show the spot, which they call Harpagium; and it is a place which produces extraordinary myrtles. And Minos abandoned his enmity to the Athenians, although it had originated in consequence of the death of his son, out of his love for Theseus; and he gave his daughter Phaedra to Theseus for his wife, as Zenis (or Zeneus ) of Chios, tells us in his History of his Native Land.

§ 13.78 [602] But Hieronymus the Peripatetic says that the ancients were anxious to encourage the practice of having boy-favourites, because the vigorous disposition of youths, and the confidence engendered by their association with each other, has often led to the overthrow of tyrants. For in the presence of his favourite, a man would choose to do anything rather than to get the reputation of being a coward. And this was proved in practice in the case of the Sacred Band, as it was called, which was established at Thebes by Epaminondas. Harmodius and Aristogeiton made a deadly attack on the Peisistratidae; and at Acragas in Sicily, the mutual love of Chariton and Melanippus produced a similar result, as we are told by Heracleides of Pontus, in his treatise On Amatory Matters. For when Melanippus and Chariton were informed against as plotting against Phalaris, and were tortured in order to compel them to reveal their accomplices, not only did they not betray them, but they even made Phalaris himself pity them, because of the tortures which they had undergone; so that he dismissed them with great praise. On which account Apollo, being pleased at this conduct, gave Phalaris a respite from death; declaring this to the men who consulted the Pythia as to how they might best attack him. He also gave them an oracle respecting Chariton, putting the pentameter before the hexameter, in the same way as afterwards Dionysius the Athenian did, who was nicknamed the Brazen, in his Elegies; and the oracle runs as follows- Happy were Chariton and Melanippus, Guides in heavenly love to many men. The circumstances, too, that happened to Cratinus the Athenian, are well known. For he, being a very beautiful boy, at the time when Epimenides was purifying Attica by human sacrifices, on account of some old pollution, as Neanthes of Cyzicus relates in the second book of his treatise On Initiation Rites, willingly gave himself up to secure the safety of the woman who had brought him up. And after his death, Aristodemus, his friend, also devoted himself to death, and so the calamities of the country were terminated. And owing to love affairs of this kind, the tyrants (for friendships of this sort were very adverse to their interests) altogether forbade the fashion of making favourites of boys, and wholly abolished it. And some of them even burnt down and razed to the ground the palaestrae, considering them as fortresses hostile to their own citadels; as, for instance, Polycrates the tyrant of Samos did.

§ 13.79 But among the Spartans, as Hagnon the Academic philosopher tells us, unmarried girls are treated like boy-favourites. The great lawgiver Solon has said- Admiring pretty legs and rosy lips;- and Aeschylus and Sophocles have openly made similar statements; the one saying, in the Myrmidons - You paid not due respect to modesty, Led by your passion for too frequent kisses;- and the other, in his Colchian Women, speaking of Ganymedes, says- Inflaming with his beauty mighty Zeus. I am not ignorant that the story which is told about Cratinus and Aristodemus is stated by Polemon Periegetes, in his Replies to Neanthes, to be a mere invention. But you, O Cynulcus, believe that all these stories are true, let them be ever so false. And you take the greatest pleasure in all such poems which speak of boys and favourites of that kind... The fashion of making favourites of boys was first introduced among the Greeks from Crete, as Timaeus informs us. But others say that Laius was the originator of this custom, when he was received in hospitality by Pelops; and that he took a great fancy to Pelops' son, Chrysippus, whom he put into his chariot and carried off, [603] and fled with to Thebes. But Praxilla the Sikyonian says that Chrysippus was carried off by Zeus. And the Celts, too, although they have the most beautiful women of all the barbarians, still make great favourites of boys; so that some of them often go to rest with two lovers on their beds of hide. And the Persians, according to the statement of Herodotus, learnt from the Greeks to adopt this fashion.

§ 13.80 Alexander the king was also very much in the habit of giving in to this fashion. Accordingly, Dicaearchus, in his treatise On the Sacrifice at Troy, says that he was so much under the influence of Bagoas the eunuch, that he embraced him in the sight of the whole theatre; and that when the whole theatre shouted in approval of the action, he repeated it. And Carystius, in his Historical Commentaries, says,- “ Charon of Chalcis had a boy of great beauty, who was a great favourite of his: but when Alexander, on one occasion, at a great entertainment given by Craterus, praised this boy very much, Charon bade the boy go and salute Alexander: and he said,'Not so, for he will not please me so much as he will vex you.' For though the king was of a very amorous disposition, still he was at all times sufficiently master of himself to have a due regard to decorum, and to the preservation of appearances. And in the same spirit, when he had taken as prisoners the daughters of Dareius, and his wife, who was of extraordinary beauty, he not only abstained from offering them any insult, but he took care never to let them feel that they were prisoners at all; but ordered them to be treated in every respect, and to be supplied with everything, just as if Dareius had still been in his palace; on which account, Dareius, when he heard of this conduct, raised his hands to the Sun and prayed that either he might be king, or Alexander.” But Ibycus states that Talus was a great favourite of Rhadamanthus the Just. And Diotimus, in his Heracleia, says that Eurystheus was a great favourite of Heracles, on which account he willingly endured all his labours for his sake. And it is said that Argynnus was a favourite of Agamemnon; and that they first became acquainted from Agamemnon seeing Argynnus bathing in the Cephisus. And afterwards, when he was drowned in this river, (for he was continually bathing in it,) Agamemnon buried him, and raised a temple on the spot to Aphrodite Argynnis. But Licymnius of Chios, in his Dithyrambics, says that it was Hymenaeus of whom Argynnus was a favourite. And Aristocles the harp-player was a favourite of King Antigonus: and Antigonus of Carystus, in his Life of Zenon, writes of him in the following terms: “ Antigonus the king used often to go to sup with Zenon; and once, as he was returning by daylight from some entertainment, he went to Zenon's house, and persuaded him to go with him to sup with Aristocles the harp-player, who was an excessive favourite of the king's.”

§ 13.81 Sophocles, too, had a great fancy for having boy-favourites, equal to the addiction of Euripides for women. And accordingly, Ion the poet, in his book on the Arrival of Illustrious Men in the Island of Chios, writes thus:- “I met Sophocles the poet in Chios, when he was sailing to Lesbos as the general: he was a man very pleasant over his wine, and very witty. And when Hermesilaus, who was connected with him by ancient ties of hospitality, and who was also the proxenus of the Athenians, entertained him, the boy who was mixing the wine was standing by the fire, being a boy of a very beautiful complexion, but made red by the fire: so Sophocles called him and said,'Do you wish me to drink with pleasure?' and when he said that he did, he said,'Well, then, bring me the cup, and take it away again in a leisurely manner.' And as the boy blushed all the more at this, Sophocles said to the guest who was sitting next to him,'How well did Phrynichus speak when he said- [604] The light of love doth shine in purple cheeks.' And a man from Eretria, or from Erythrae, who was a school-master, answered him,-'You are a great man in poetry, O Sophocles; but still Phrynichus did not say well when he called purple cheeks a mark of beauty. For if a painter were to cover the cheeks of this boy with purple paint he would not be beautiful at all. And so it is not well to compare what is beautiful with what is not so.' And on this Sophocles, laughing at the Eretrian, said,-'Then, my friend, I suppose you are not pleased with the line in Simonides which is generally considered among the Greeks to be a beautiful one- The maid poured forth a gentle voice From out her purple mouth. And you do not either like the poet who spoke of the golden-haired Apollo; for if a painter were to represent the hair of the god as actually golden, and not black, the picture would be all the worse. Nor do you approve of the poet who described women as rosy-fingered. For if any one were to dip his fingers in rosy-coloured paint he would make his hands like those of a purple-dyer, and not of a pretty woman.' And when they all laughed at this, the Eretrian was checked by the reproof; and Sophocles again turned to pursue the conversation with the boy; for he asked him, as he was brushing away the straws from the cup with his little finger, whether he saw any straws: and when he said that he did, he said,'Blow them away, then, that you may not dirty your fingers.' And when he brought his face near the cup he held the cup nearer to his own mouth, so as to bring his own head nearer to the head of the boy. And when he was very near he took him by the hand and kissed him. And when all clapped their hands, laughing and shouting out, to see how well he had taken the boy in, he said,'I, my friends, am practising the art of generalship, since Pericles has said that I know how to compose poetry, but not how to be a general; now has not this stratagem of mine succeeded perfectly?' And he both said and did many things of this kind in a witty manner, drinking and giving himself up to mirth: but as to political affairs he was not able nor energetic in them, but behaved as any other virtuous Athenian might have done.”

§ 13.82 And Hieronymus of Rhodes, in his Historical Commentaries, says that Sophocles once led a handsome boy outside the walls, in order to consort with him. The boy laid his own cloak on the grass, and they used Sophocles' cloak to cover them. When they had finished their encounter, the boy went off with Sophocles' cloak, and Sophocles was left with a boy's cloak. Naturally, this affair became the subject of gossip, and when Euripides was told about it he scoffed at Sophocles, saying that he too had used this boy, but he had not had to pay any extra, whereas Sophocles had been treated with contempt because of his licentiousness. When Sophocles heard this, he composed the following epigram, which refers to the fable about the sun and the north wind, and also hints at Euripides' adultery: It was the sun, not the boy, who stripped me Of my cloak, Euripides; but the north wind went With you, when you made love to another man's wife. You are not wise, when sowing another's field, To bring Eros to court for being a snatch-thief.

§ 13.83 And Theopompus, in his treatise On the Treasures of which the Temple at Delphi was plundered, [605] says that “ Asopichus, being a favourite of Epaminondas, had the trophy of Leuctra represented in relief on his shield, and that he encountered danger with extraordinary gallantry; and that this shield is consecrated at Delphi, in the portico.” And in the same treatise, Theopompus further alleges that “ Phayllus, the tyrant of Phocis, was extremely addicted to women; but that Onomarchus used to select boys as his favourites: and that he had a favourite, the son of Pythodorus the Sikyonian, to whom, when he came to Delphi to devote his hair to the god (and he was a youth of great beauty), Onomarchus gave the offerings of the Sybarites — four golden combs. And Phayllus gave to Bromias, the daughter of Deiniades, who was a female flute-player, a silver goblet (καρχήσιον) of the Phocaeans, and a golden crown of ivy-leaves, the offering of the Peparethians. And,” he says, “she was about to play the flute at the Pythian games, if she had not been hindered by the populace.” “ Onomarchus also gave,” as he says, “to his favourite Physcidas, a very handsome boy who was the son of Lycolas of Trichonium, a crown of laurel, the offering of the Ephesians. This boy was brought also to Philip by his father, but was dismissed without any favour. Onomarchus also gave to Damippus, the son of Epilycus of Amphipolis, who was a youth of great beauty, a present which had been consecrated to the god by Pleisthenes. And Philomelus gave to Pharsalia, a dancing-woman from Thessaly, a golden crown of laurel-leaves, which had been offered by the Lampsacenes. But Pharsalia herself was afterwards torn to pieces at Metapontum, by the soothsayers, in the market-place, on the occasion of a voice coming forth out of the brazen laurel which the people of Metapontum had set up at the time when Aristeas of Proconnesus was sojourning among them, on his return, as he stated, from the Hyperboreans, the first moment that she was seen entering the market-place. And when men afterwards inquired into the reason for this violence, she was found to have been put to death on account of this crown which belonged to the god.”

§ 13.84 Now I warn you, O philosophers, who indulge in unnatural passions, and who treat the great goddess Aphrodite with impiety, to beware, lest you be destroyed in the same manner. For boys are only handsome, as Glycera the courtesan said, while they are like women: at least, this is the saying attributed to her by Clearchus. But my opinion is that the conduct of Cleonymus the Spartan was in strict conformity with nature, who was the first man to take such hostages as he took from the Metapontines - namely, two hundred of their most respectable and beautiful maidens; as is related by Duris the Samian, in the third book of his History of Agathocles. And I too, as is said by Epicrates in his Anti- Lais, Have learnt completely all the love-songs Of Sappho, Meletus, Cleomenes, and Lamynthius. But you, my philosophical friends, even when you are in love with women............. as Clearchus says. For a bull was excited by the sight of the brazen cow at Peirene; and when a picture was displayed of a bitch, and a pigeon, and a goose: a gander came up to the goose, and a dog to the bitch, and a male pigeon to the pigeon, and not one of them discovered the deception till they got close to them. But when they got near enough to touch them, they desisted; just as Cleisophus of Selymbria did. For he fell in love with a statue of Parian marble that then was at Samos, and shut himself up in the temple to gratify his affection; but when he found that he could make no impression on the coldness and unimpressibility of the stone, then he discarded his passion. And Alexis the poet mentions this circumstance in his drama entitled The Picture, where he says- [606] And such another circumstance, they say, Took place in Samos: there a man did fall In love with a fair maiden wrought in marble, And shut himself up with her in the temple. And Philemon mentions the same fact, and says- But once a man,'tis said, did fall, at Samos, In love with a marble woman; and he went And shut himself up with her in the temple. But the statue spoken of is the work of Ctesicles; as Adaeus of Mytilene tells us in his treatise On Sculptors. And Polemon, or whoever the author of the book called Helladicus is, says- “At Delphi, in the museum of the pictures, there are two boys wrought in marble; with one of which, the Delphians say, a visitor fell in love so strongly, that he made love to it, and shut himself up with it, and presented it with a crown; but when he was detected, the god ordered the Delphians, who consulted his oracle with reference to the subject, to dismiss him freely, for that he had given him a handsome reward.”

§ 13.85 And even brute beasts have fallen in love with men: for there was a cock who took a fancy to a man of the name of Secundus, a cupbearer of the king; and the cock was nicknamed the Centaur. But this Secundus was a slave of Nicomedes the king of Bithynia; as Nicander informs us in the sixth book of his essay On Changes of Fortune. And, at Aegium, a goose took a fancy to a boy; as Clearchus relates in the first book of his Amatory Anecdotes. And Theophrastus, in his, essay On Love, says that the name of this boy was Amphilochus, and that he was a native of Olenus. And Hermeias the son of Hermodorus, who was a Samian by birth, says that a goose also took a fancy to Lacydes the philosopher. And in Leucadia (according to a story told by Clearchus ), a peacock fell so in love with a maiden there, that when she died, the bird died too. There is a story also that, at Iasus, a dolphin took a fancy to a boy. This story is told by Duris, in the ninth book of his History; and the subject of that book is the history of Alexander, and the historian's words are these: “He likewise sent for the boy from Iasus. For near Iasus there was a boy whose name was Dionysius, and he once, when leaving the palaestra with the rest of the boys, went down to the sea and bathed; and a dolphin came forward out of the deep water to meet him, and taking him on his back, swam away with him a considerable distance into the open sea, and then brought him back again to land.” But the dolphin is an animal which is very fond of men, and very intelligent, and one very susceptible of gratitude. Accordingly Phylarchus, in his twelfth book, says- “ Coeranus of Miletus, when he saw some fishermen who had caught a dolphin in a net, and who were about to cut it up, gave them some money and bought the fish, and took it down and put it back in the sea again. And after this it happened to him to be shipwrecked near Myconos, and while every one else perished, Coeranus alone was saved by a dolphin. And when, at last, he died of old age in his native country, as it so happened that his funeral procession passed along the sea-shore close to Miletus, a great shoal of dolphins appeared on that day in the harbour, keeping only a very little distance from those who were attending the funeral of Coeranus, as if they also were joining in the procession and sharing in their grief.” The same Phylarchus also relates, in the twentieth book of his History, the great affection which was once displayed by an elephant for a boy. And his words are these: “But there was a female elephant kept with this elephant, and the name of the female elephant was Nicaea; and to her the wife of the king of India, when dying, entrusted her child, which was just a month old. And when the woman did die, the affection for the child displayed by the beast was most extraordinary; for it could not endure the child to be away; and whenever it did not see him, it was out of spirits. And so, whenever the nurse fed the infant with milk, she placed it in its cradle between the feet of the beast; [607] and if she had not done so, the elephant would not take any food; and after this, it would take whatever reeds and grass there were near, and, while the child was sleeping, beat away the flies with the bundle. And whenever the child wept, it would rock the cradle with its trunk, and lull it to sleep. And very often the male elephant did the same.”

§ 13.86 But you, O philosophers, are far fiercer than dolphins and elephants, and are also much more untameable; although Persaeus of Citium, in his Recollections of Banquets, says loudly,- “It is a very consistent subject of conversation at drinking-parties for men to talk of amatory matters; for we are naturally inclined to such topics after drinking. And at those times we should praise those who indulge in that kind of conversation to a moderate and temperate degree, but blame those who go to excess in it, and behave in a beastly manner. But if logicians, when assembled in a social party, were to talk about syllogisms, then a man might very fairly think that they were acting very unseasonably. And a respectable and virtuous man will at times get drunk; but they who wish to appear extraordinarily temperate, keep up this character amid their cups for a certain time, but afterwards, as the wine begins to take effect on them, they descend to every kind of impropriety and indecency. And this was the case very lately with the ambassadors who came to Antigonus from Arcadia; for they sat at dinner with great severity of countenance, and with great propriety, as they thought, not only not looking at any one of us, but not even looking at one another. But as the wine went round, and music of different kinds was introduced, and when the Thessalian dancing-women, as their fashion is, came in, and danced quite naked, except that they had girdles round their waists, then the men could not restrain themselves any longer, but jumped up off the couches, and shouted as if they were beholding a most gratifying sight; and they congratulated the king because he had it in his power to indulge in such pastimes; and they did and said a great many more vulgar things of the same kind. ”And one of the philosophers who was once drinking with us, when a flute-playing girl came in, and when there was plenty of room near him, when the girl wished to sit down near him, would not allow her, but drew himself up and looked grave. And then afterwards, when the girl was put up to auction, as is often the fashion at such entertainments, he was exceedingly eager to buy her, and quarreled with the man who sold her, on the ground that he had knocked her down too speedily to someone else; and he said that the auctioneer had not fairly sold her. And at last this grave philosopher, he who at first would not permit the girl even to sit near him, came to blows about her." And perhaps this very philosopher, who came to blows about the flute-playing girl, may have been Persaeus himself; for Antigonus of Carystus, in his treatise on Zenon, makes the following statement:- “ Zenon of Citium, when once Persaeus at a drinking-party bought a flute-playing girl, and after that was afraid to bring her home, because he lived in the same house with Zenon, becoming acquainted with the circumstance, brought the girl home himself, and shut her up with Persaeus.” I know, also, that Polystratus the Athenian, who was a pupil of Theophrastus, and who was surnamed the Etruscan, used often to put on the garments of the female flute-players.

§ 13.87 Kings, too, have shown great anxiety about musical women; as Parmenion tells us in his Letter to Alexander, which he sent to that monarch after he had taken Damascus, and after he had become master of all the baggage of Dareius. Accordingly, having enumerated all the things which he had taken, he writes as follows:- [608] “I found three hundred and twenty-nine concubines of the king, all skilled in music; and forty-six men who were skilful in making garlands, and two hundred and seventy-seven confectioners, and twenty-nine boilers of pots, and thirteen cooks skilful in preparing milk, and seventeen artists who mixed drinks, and seventy slaves who strain wine, and forty preparers of perfumes.” And I say to you, O my companions, that there is no sight which has a greater tendency to gladden the eyes than the beauty of a woman. Accordingly Oineus, in the play of the same name which was composed by Chaeremon the tragic poet, speaks of some maidens whom he had seen, and says,- And one did lie with garment well thrown back, Showing her snow-white bosom to the moon: Another, as she lightly danced, displayed The fair proportions of her left-hand side, Naked- a lovely picture for the air To wanton with; and her complexion white Strove with the darkening shades. Another bared Her lovely arms and shoulders all: Another, with her robe high round her neck, Concealed her bosom, but a rent below Showed all her shapely thighs. I was led on, Not without hope, by desire for her smiling beauty. Then on the inviting asphodel they fell, Plucking the dark leaves of the violet flower, And crocus, which, with purple petals rising, Copies the golden rays of the early sun. There, too, the Persian sweetly-smelling marjoram Stretched out its neck along the laughing meadow.

§ 13.88 And the same poet, being passionately fond of flowers, says also in his Alphesiboea - The glorious beauty of her dazzling body Shone brilliant, a sweet sight to every eye; And modesty, a tender blush exciting, Tinted her gentle cheeks with delicate rose: Her waxy hair, in gracefully modelled curls, Falling as though arranged by sculptor's hand, Waved in the wanton breeze luxuriant. And in his Io he calls the flowers children of spring, where he says- Strewing around sweet children of the spring. And in his Centaur, which is a drama composed in many metres of various kinds, he calls them children of the meadow- There, too, they did invade the countless host Of all the new-born flowers that deck the fields, Hunting with joy the offspring of the meadows. And in his Dionysus he says- The ivy, lover of the dance, Child of the mirthful year. And in his Odysseus he speaks thus of roses — And in their hair they wore the choicest gifts Of the Horae, the flowering, fragrant rose, The loveliest foster-child of spring. And in his Thyestes he says- The brilliant rose, and modest snow-white lily. And in his Minyae he says- There was full many a fruit of Cypris to view, Dark in the rich flowers in due season ripe.

§ 13.89 Now there have been many women celebrated for their beauty (for, as Euripides says [ Heracles ]- “Even an old bard may sing of memory”). There was, for instance, Thargelia the Milesian, who was married to fourteen different husbands, [609] so very beautiful and accomplished was she, as Hippias the Sophist says, in his book which is entitled Synagoge. But Dinon, in the fifth book of his History of Persia, and in the first part of it, says that the wife of Bagazus, who was a sister of Xerxes by the same father, (and her name was Anutis,) was the most beautiful and the most licentious of all the women in Asia. And Phylarchus, in his nineteenth book, says that Timosa, the concubine of Oxyartes, surpassed all women in beauty, and that the king of Egypt had originally sent her as a present to Stateira, the wife of the king. And Theopompus, in the fifty-sixth book of his History, speaks of Xenopitheia, the mother of Lysandrides, as the most beautiful of all the women in Peloponnese. And the Lacedemonians put her to death, and her sister Chryse also, when Agesilaus the king, having raised a seditious tumult in the city, procured Lysandrides, who was his enemy, to be banished by the Lacedemonians. Pantica of Cyprus was also a very beautiful woman and she is mentioned by Phylarchus, in the tenth book of his History, where he says that when she was with Olympias, the mother of Alexander, Monimus, the son of Pythion, asked her in marriage. And, as she was a very licentious woman, Olympias said to him- “O wretched man, you are marrying with your eyes, and not with your understanding.” They also say that the woman who brought back Peisistratus to assume the tyranny, clad in the semblance of Athene the Saviour, was very beautiful, as indeed she ought to have been, seeing that she assumed the appearance of a goddess. And she was a seller of garlands; and Peisistratus afterwards gave her in marriage to Hipparchus his son, as Cleidemus relates in the eighth book of his Returns, where he says- “And he also gave the woman, by name Phya, who had been in the chariot with him, in marriage to his son Hipparchus. And she was the daughter of a man named Socrates. And he took for Hippias, who succeeded him in the tyranny, the daughter of Charmus the polemarch, who was extraordinarily beautiful.” And it happened, as it is said, that Charmus was a great admirer of Hippias, and that he was the man who first erected a statue of Eros in the Academy, on which there is the following inscription- O wily Eros, Charmus this altar raised At the well-shaded bounds of the Gymnasium. Hesiod, also, in the third book of his Melampodia, calls Chalcis in Euboea “Land of fair women” — for the women there are very beautiful, as Theophrastus also asserts. And Nymphodorus, in his Voyage round Asia, says that there are nowhere more beautiful women than those in Tenedos, an island close to Troy.

§ 13.90 I am aware, too, that on one occasion there was a contest of beauty instituted among women. And Nicias, speaking of it in his History of Arcadia, says that Cypselus instituted it, having built a city in the plain which is watered by the Alpheius; in which he established some Parrhasians, and consecrated a plot of sacred ground and an altar to Demeter of Eleusis, in whose festival it was that he had instituted this contest of beauty. And he says that the woman who gained the victory in this contest was Herodice. And even to this day this contest is continued; and the women who contend in it are called “gold-bearers” (χρυσοφόροι). And Theophrastus says that there is also a beauty contest for men which takes place among the Eleans, and that the decision is made with great care and deliberation; and that those who gain the victory receive arms as their prize, which Dionysius of Leuctra says are offered up to Athene. [610] And he says, too, that the victor is adorned with ribbons by his friends, and goes in procession to the temple; and that a crown of myrtle is given to him (at least this is the statement of Myrsilus, in his Historical Paradoxes). “But in some places,” says the same Theophrastus, “there are contests between the women in respect of modesty and good management, as there are among the barbarians; and at other places also there are contests about beauty, on the ground that this also is entitled to honour, as for instance, there are in Tenedos and Lesbos. But they say that this is the gift of chance, or of nature; but that the honour paid to modesty ought to be one of a greater degree. For that it is in consequence of modesty that beauty is beautiful; for without modesty it is apt to lead to intemperance.”

§ 13.91 Now, when Myrtilus had said all this in a continuous speech; and when all were marvelling at his memory, Cynulcus said- Your multifarious learning I do wonder at- Though there is not a thing more vain and useless, says Hippon the Atheist. But the divine Heracleitus also says-"A great variety of information does not usually give wisdom." And Timon said- There is great ostentation and parade Of multifarious learning, than which nothing Can be more vain or useless. For what is the use of so many names, my good grammarian, which are more calculated to overwhelm the hearers than to do them any good? And if any one were to inquire of you, who they were who were shut up in the Wooden Horse, you would perhaps be able to tell the names of one or two; and even this you would not do out of the verses of Stesichorus, (for that could hardly be,) but out of the Iliupersis, by Sacadas [or Agias?] the Argive; for he has given a catalogue of a great number of names. Nor indeed could you properly give a list of the companions of Odysseus, and say who they were who were devoured by the Cyclops, or by the Laestrygonians, and whether they were really devoured or not. And you do not even know this, in spite of your frequent mention of Phylarchus, that in the cities of the Ceans it is not possible to see either courtesans or female flute-players. And Myrtilus said,- But where has Phylarchus stated this? For I have read through all his history.

§ 13.92 And when he said,- In the twenty-third book; Myrtilus said- Do I not then deservedly detest all you philosophers, since you are all haters of philology,- men whom not only did Lysimachus the king banish from his own dominions, as Carystius tells us in his Historical Reminiscenses, but the Athenians did so too. At all events, Alexis, in his Horse, says- Is this the Academy; is this Xenocrates? May the gods greatly bless Demetrius And all the lawgivers; for, as men say, They've driven out of Attica with disgrace All those who do profess to teach the youth Learning and science. And a certain man, named Sophocles, passed a decree to banish all the philosophers from Attica. And Philon, the friend of Aristotle, wrote an oration against him; and Demochares, on the other hand, who was the cousin of Demosthenes, composed a defence for Sophocles. And the Romans, who are in every respect the best of men, banished all the sophists from Rome, on the ground of their corrupting the youth of the city, though, at a subsequent time, somehow or other, they admitted them. And Anaxippus the comic poet declares your folly in his Thunder-struck, speaking thus- Alas, you're a philosopher; but I Do think philosophers are only wise [611] In quibbling about words; in deeds they are, As far as I can see, completely foolish. It is, therefore, with good reason that many cities, and especially the city of the Lacedemonians, as Chamaeleon says in his book on Simonides, will not admit either rhetoric or philosophy, on account of the jealousy, and strife, and profitless discussions to which they give rise; owing to which it was that Socrates was put to death; he, who argued against the judges who were given him by lot, discoursing of justice to them when they were a pack of most corrupt men. And it is owing to this, too, that Theodorus the Atheist was put to death, and that Diagoras was banished; and this latter, sailing away when he was banished, was ship-wrecked. But Theotimus, who wrote the books against Epicurus, was accused by Zenon the Epicurean, and put to death; as is related by Demetrius of Magnesia, in his treatise on People and Things which go by the same Name.

§ 13.93 And, in short, according to Clearchus of Soli, you do not adopt a manly system of life, but you do really aim at a system which might become a dog; and although this animal has four excellent qualities, you select none but the worst of his qualities for your imitation. For a dog is a wonderful animal as to his power of smelling and of distinguishing what belongs to his own family and what does not; and the way in which he associates with man, and the manner in which he watches over and protects the houses of all those who are kind to him, is extraordinary. But you who imitate the dogs, do neither of these things. For you do not associate with men, nor do you distinguish between those with whom you are acquainted; and being very deficient in sensibility, you live in an indolent and indifferent manner. But while the dog is also a snarling and greedy animal, and also hard in his way of living, and naked; these habits of his you practice, being abusive and gluttonous, and, besides all this, living without a home or a hearth. The result of all which circumstances is, that you are destitute of virtue, and quite unserviceable for any useful purpose in life. For there is nothing less philosophical than those persons who are called philosophers. For whoever supposed that Aeschines, the pupil of Socrates, would have been such a man in his manners as Lysias the orator, in his speeches On the Contracts, represents him to have been; when, out of the dialogues which are extant, and generally represented to be his work, we are inclined to admire him as a decent and moderate man? Unless, indeed, those writings are in reality the work of the wise Socrates, and were given to Aeschines by Xanthippe, the wife of Socrates, after his death, which Idomeneus asserts to be the case.

§ 13.94 But Lysias, in the oration which bears the title Against Aeschines, the Pupil of Socrates, for Debt (for I will recite the passage, even though it be a rather long one, on account of your excessive arrogance, O philosophers) begins in the following manner:- “I never should have imagined, O judges, that Aeschines would have dared to come into court on a trial which is so discreditable to him. For a more disgracefully false accusation than the one which he has brought forward, I do not believe it to be easy to find. For he, O judges, when he owed a sum of money with interest at three drachmae [per month] to Sosinomus the banker and Aristogeiton, came to me, and besought me not to allow him to be evicted from his own property, in consequence of this high interest.'And I,' said he, am at this moment carrying on the trade of a perfumer; but I want capital to go on with, and I will pay you nine obols a month interest.'” [612] A fine end to the happiness of this philosopher was the trade of a perfumer, and admirably harmonizing with the philosophy of Socrates, a man who utterly rejected the use of all perfumes and unguents! And moreover, Solon the lawgiver expressly forbade a man to devote himself to any such business: on which account Pherecrates, in his Oven, or Woman sitting up all Night, says:- Why should he practise a perfumer's trade, Sitting up high beneath an awning there, Preparing for himself a seat on which To gossip with the youths the whole day long? And presently afterwards he says:- And no one ever saw a female cook Or any fishwoman; for every class Should practise arts which are best suited to it. And after what I have already quoted, the orator proceeds to say:- “And I was persuaded by this speech of his, considering also that this Aeschines had been the pupil of Socrates, and was a man who uttered fine sentiments about virtue and justice, and who would never attempt nor venture on the actions practised by dishonest and unjust men.”

§ 13.95 And again, after he had stated the accusations against Aeschines, and had explained how he had borrowed the money, and how he never paid either interest or principal, and how, when an action was brought against him, he had allowed judgment to go by default, and how a branded slave of his had been put forward by him as security; and after he had brought a good many more charges of the same kind against him, the orator proceeded as follows:- “But, O judges, I am not the only person to whom he behaves in this manner, but he treats every one who has any dealings with him in the same manner. Are not even all the wine-sellers who live near him, from whom he gets wine for his entertainments and never pays for it, bringing actions against him, having already closed their shops against him? And his neighbors are ill-treated by him to such a degree that they leave their own houses, and go and rent others which are at a distance from him. And with respect to all the contributions which he collects, he never himself puts down the remaining share which is due from him, but all the money which ever gets into this peddler's hands is lost as if it were utterly destroyed. And such a number of men come to his house daily at dawn, to ask for their money which he owes them, that passers-by suppose he must be dead, and that such a crowd can only be collected to attend his funeral. ”And those men who live in the Peiraeus have such a low opinion of him, that they think it a far less perilous business to sail to the Adriatic than to deal with him; for he thinks that the money that he borrows is much more actually his own than what his father bequeathed to him. Has he not got possession of the property of Hermaeus the perfumer, after having seduced his wife, though she was seventy years old? He pretended to be in love with her, and then treated her in such a manner that she reduced her husband and her sons to beggary, and made him a perfumer instead of a peddler! He handled the lady in this amorous manner, enjoying the'fruit of her youth', when it would have been less trouble to him to count her teeth than the fingers of her hand, they were so much fewer. And now come forward, you witnesses, who will prove these facts. This, then, is the life of this sophist." These, O Cynulcus, are the words of Lysias. But I, in the words of Aristarchus the tragic poet, “Saying no more, but this in self-defence,” will now cease my attack upon you and the rest of the Cynics.

§ 14.1 Book 14, (tr. Yonge from Perseus Project): MOST people, my friend Timocrates, call Dionysos frantic, because those who drink too much unmixed wine become violent To copious wine this insolence we owe, And much thy betters wine can overthrow The great Eurytion, when this frenzy stung, Pirithous' roofs with frantic riot rung: Boundless the Centaur raged, till one and all The heroes rose and dragg'd him from the hall; His nose they shorten'd, and his ears they slit, And sent him sober'd home with better wit. For when the wine has penetrated down into the body, as Herodotus says, bad and furious language is apt to rise to the surface. And Clearchus the comic poet says in his Corinthians — If all the men who to get drunk are apt, Had every day a headache ere they drank The wine, there is not one would drink a drop: But as we now get all the pleasure first, And then the drink, we lose the whole delight In the sharp pain which follows. And Xenophon represents Agesilaus as insisting that a man ought to shun drunkenness equally with madness, and immoderate gluttony as much as idleness. But we, as we are not of the class who drink to excess, nor of the number of those who are in the habit of being intoxicated by midday, have come rather to this literary entertainment; for Ulpian, who is always finding fault, reproved some one just now who said, I am not drunk (ἔξοινος), saying, — Where do you find that word ἔξοινος? But he rejoined, — Why, in Alexis, who, in his play called the New Settler, says — He did all this when drunk (ἔξοινος).

§ 14.2 But as, after the discussion by us of the new topics which arise, our liberal entertainer Laurentius is every day constantly introducing different kinds of music, and also jesters and buffoons, let us have a little talk about them. Although I am aware that Anacharsis the Scythian, when on one occasion jesters were introduced in his company, remained without moving a muscle of his countenance; but afterwards, when a monkey was brought in, he burst out laughing, and said, “Now this fellow is laughable by his nature, but man is only so through practice.” And Euripides, in his Melanippe in Chains, has said — But many men, from the wish to raise a laugh, Practise sharp sayings; but those sorry jesters I hate who let loose their unbridled tongues Against the wise and good; nor do I class them As men at all, but only as jokes and playthings. Meantime they live at ease, and gather up Good store of wealth to keep within their houses. And Parmeniscus of Metapontum, as Semus tells us in the fifth book of his Delias, a man of the highest consideration both as to family and in respect of his riches, having gone down to the cave of Trophonius, after he had come up again, was not able to laugh at all. And when he consulted the oracle on this subject, the Pythia replied to him — You're asking me, you laughless man, About the power to laugh again; Your mother'll give it you at home, If you with reverence to her come. So, on this, he hoped that when he returned to his country he should be able to laugh again; but when he found that he could laugh no more now than he could before, he considered that he had been deceived; till, by some chance, he came to Delos; and as he was admiring everything he saw in the island, he came into the Letoon, expecting to see some very superb statue of the mother of Apollo; but when he saw only a wooden shapeless figure, he unexpectedly burst out laughing. And then, comparing what had happened with the oracle of the god, and being cured of his infirmity, he honoured the goddess greatly.

§ 14.3 Now Anaxandrides, in his Old Man's Madness, says that it was Rhadamanthus and Palamedes who invented the fashion of jesters; and his words are these: — And yet we labour much. But Palamedes first, and Rhadamanthus, Sought those who bring no other contribution, But say amusing things. Xenophon also, in his Banquet, mentions jesters; introducing Philip, of whom he speaks in the following manner: — “But Philip the jester, having knocked at the door, told the boy who answered, to tell the guests who he was, and that he was desirous to be admitted; and he said that he came provided with everything which could qualify him for supping at other people's expense. And he said, too, that his boy was in a good deal of distress because he had brought nothing, and because he had had no dinner.” And Hippolochus the Macedonian, in his epistle to Lynceus, mentions the jesters Mandrogenes and Strato the Athenian. And at Athens there was a great deal of this kind of cleverness. Accordingly, in the Heracleum at Diomea they assembled to the number of sixty, and they were always spoken of in the city as amounting to that number, in such expressions as — “The sixty said this,” and, “I am come from the sixty.” And among them were Callimedon, nicknamed the Crab, and Dinias, and also Mnasigeiton and Menaechmus, as Telephanes tells us in his treatise on the City. And their reputation for amusing qualities was so great, that Philip the Macedonian heard of it, and sent them a talent to engage them to write out their witticisms and send them to him. And the fact of this king having been a man who was very fond of jokes is testified to us by Demosthenes the orator in his Philippics. Demetrius Poliorcetes was a man very eager for anything which could make him laugh, as Phylarchus tells us in the sixth book of his History. And he it was who said, “that the palace of Lysimachus was in no respect different from a comic theatre; for that there was no one there bigger than a dissyllable” (meaning to laugh at Bithys and Paris, who had more influence than anybody with Lysimachus, and at some others of his friends;) “but that his friends were Peucesteses, and Menelauses, and Oxythemises.” But when Lysimachus heard this, he said, — “I, however, never saw a prostitute on the stage in a tragedy;” referring to Lamia the female flute-player. And when this was reported to Demetrius, he rejoined, — “But the prostitute who is with me, lives in a more modest manner than the Penelope who is with him.”

§ 14.4 And we have mentioned before this that Sulla, the general of the Romans, was very fond of anything laughable. And Lucius Anicius, who was also a general of the Romans, after he had subdued the Illyrians, and brought with him Genthius the king of the Illyrians as his prisoner, with all his children, when he was celebrating his triumphal games at Rome, did many things of the most laughable character possible, as Polybius relates in his thirtieth book: — “For having sent for the most eminent artists from Greece, and having erected a very large theatre in the circus, he first of all introduced all the flute-players. And these were Theodorus the Boeotian, and Theopompus, and Hermippus, surnamed Lysimachus, who were the most eminent men in their profession. And having brought these men in front of the stage after the chorus was over, he ordered them all to play the flute. And as they accompanied their music with appropriate gestures, he sent to them and said that they were not playing well, and desired them to be more vehement. And while they were in perplexity, one of the lictors told them that what Anicius wished was that they should turn round so as to advance towards each other, and give a representation of a battle. And then the flute-players, taking this hint, and adopting a movement not unsuited to their habitual wantonness, caused a great tumult and confusion; and turning the middle of the chorus towards the extremities, the flute-players, all blowing unpremeditated notes, and letting their flutes be all out of tune, rushed upon one another in turn: and at the same time the choruses, all making a noise to correspond to them, and coming on the stage at the same time, rushed also upon one another, and then again retreated, advancing and retreating alternately. But when one of the chorus-dancers tucked up his garment, and suddenly turned round and raised his hands against the flute-player who was coming towards him, as if he was going to box with him, then there arose an extraordinary clapping and shouting on the part of the spectators. And while all these men were fighting as if in regular battle, two dancers were introduced into the orchestra with a symphony, and four boxers mounted the stage, with trumpeters and horn-players: and when all these men were striving together, the spectacle was quite indescribable: and as for the tragedians,” says Polybius, “if I were to attempt to describe what took place with respect to them, I should be thought by some people to be jesting.”

§ 14.5 Now when Ulpian had said thus much, and when all were laughing at the idea of this exhibition of Anicius, a discussion arose about the men who are called πλάνοι. And the question was asked, Whether there was any mention of these men in any of the ancient authors? for of the jugglers (θαυματοποιοὶ) we have already spoken: and Magnus said, — Dionysius of Sinope, the comic poet, in his play entitled the Namesakes, mentions Cephisodorus the πλάνος in the following terms: — They say that once there was a man at Athens, A πλάνος, named Cephisodorus, who Devoted all his life to this pursuit; And he, whenever to a hill he came, Ran straight up to the top; but then descending Came slowly down, and leaning on a stick. And Nicostratus also mentions him in his Syrian — They say the πλάνος Cephisodorus once Most wittily station'd in a narrow lane A crowd of men with bundles of large faggots, So that no one else could pass that way at all. There was also a man named Pantaleon, who is mentioned by Theognetus, in his Slave devoted to his Master — Pantaleon himself did none deceive (ἐπλάνα) Save only foreigners, and those, too, such As ne'er had heard of him: and often he, After a drunken revel, would pour forth All sorts of jokes, striving to raise a laugh By his unceasing chattering. And Chrysippus the philosopher, in the fifth book of his treatise on Honour and Pleasure, writes thus of Pantaleon: — “But Pantaleon the πλάνος, when he was at the point of death, deceived every one of his sons separately, telling each of them that he was the only one to whom he was revealing the place where he had buried his gold; so that they afterwards went and dug together to no purpose, and then found out that they had been all deceived.”

§ 14.6 And our party was not deficient in men fond of raising a laugh by bitter speeches. And respecting a man of this kind, Chrysippus subsequently, in the same book, writes as follows: — “Once when a man fond of saying bitter things was about to be put to death by the executioner, he said that he wished to die like the swan, singing a song; and when he gave him leave, he ridiculed him.” And Myrtilus having had a good many jokes cut on him by people of this sort, got angry, and said that Lysimachus the king had done a very sensible thing; for he, hearing Telesphorus, one of his lieutenants, at an entertainment, ridiculing Arsinoe (and she was the wife of Lysimachus ), as being a woman in the habit of vomiting, in the following line — You begin ill, introducing τηνδεμουσαν,3 — ordered him to be put in a cage (γαλεάγρα) and carried about like a wild beast, and fed; and he punished him in this way till he died. But if you, O Ulpian, raise a question about the word γαλεάγρα, it occurs in Hyperides the orator; and the passage you may find out for yourself. And Tachaos the king of Egypt ridiculed Agesilaus king of Lacedemon, when he came to him as an ally (for he was a very short man), and lost his, kingdom in consequence, as Agesilaus abandoned his alliance. And the expression of Tachaos was as follows: — The mountain was in labour; Zeus Was greatly frighten'd: lo! a mouse was born. And Agesilaus hearing of this, and being indignant at it, said, “I will prove a lion to you.” So afterwards, when the Egyptians revolted (as Theopompus relates, and Lyceas of Naucratis confirms the statement in his History of Egypt ), Agesilaus refused to cooperate with him, and, in consequence, Tachaos lost his kingdom, and fled to the Persians.

§ 14.7 So as there was a great deal of music introduced, and not always the same instruments, and as there was a good deal of discussion and conversation about them, (without always giving the names of those who took part in it,) I will enumerate the chief things which were said. For concerning flutes, somebody said that Melanippides, in his Marsyas, disparaging the art of playing the flute, had said very cleverly about Athena: — Athena cast away those instruments Down from her sacred hand; and said, in scorn, “Away, you shameful things — you stains of the body! Shall I now yield myself to such malpractices'” And some one, replying to him, said, — But Telestes of Selinus, in opposition to Melanippides, says in his Argo (and it is of Athena that he too is speaking): — It seems to me a scarcely credible thing That the wise Pallas, holiest of goddesses, Should in the mountain groves have taken up That clever instrument, and then again Thrown it away, fearing to draw her mouth Into an unseemly shape, to be a glory To the nymph-born, noisy monster Marsyas. For how should chaste Athena be so anxious About her beauty, when the Fates had given her A childless, husbandless virginity? intimating his belief that she, as she was and always was to continue a maid, could not be alarmed at the idea of disfiguring her beauty. And in a subsequent passage he says — But this report, spread by vain-speaking men, Hostile to every chorus, flew most causelessly Through Greece, to raise an envy and reproach Against the wise and sacred art of music. And after this, in an express panegyric on the art of flute-playing, he says — And so the happy breath of the holy goddess Bestow'd this art divine on Bromius, With the quick motion of the nimble fingers. And very neatly, in his Asclepius, has Telestes vindicated the use of the flute, where he says — And that wise Phrygian king who first poured forth The notes from sweetly-sounding sacred flutes, Rivalling the music of the Doric Muse, Embracing with his well-join'd reeds the breath Which fills the flute with tuneful modulation.

§ 14.8 And Pratinas the Phliasian says, that when some hired flute-players and chorus-dancers were occupying the orchestra, some people were indignant because the flute-players did not play in tune to the choruses, as was the national custom, but the choruses instead sang, keeping time to the flutes. And what his opinion and feelings were towards those who did this, Pratinas declares in the following hyporchema: — What noise is this What mean these songs of dancers now? What new unseemly fashion Has seized upon this stage to Dionysos sacred, Now echoing with various noise? Bromius is mine! is mine! I am the man who ought to sing, I am the man who ought to raise the strain, Hastening o'er the hills, In swift inspired dance among the Naiades; Blending a song of varied strain, Like the sweet dying swan. You, O Pierian Muse, the sceptre sway Of holy song: And after you let the shrill flute resound; For that is but the handmaid Of revels, where men combat at the doors, And fight with heavy fists. And is the leader fierce of bloody quarrel. Descend, O Dionysos, on the son of Phrynaeus, The leader of the changing choir, — Chattering, untimely, leading on The rhythm of the changing song. King of the loud triumphal dithyrambic, Whose brow the ivy crowns, Hear this my Doric song.

§ 14.9 And of the union of flutes with the lyre (for that concert has often been a great delight to us ourselves), Ephippus, in his Traffic, speaks as follows: — Clearly, O youth, the music of the flute, And that which from the lyre comes, does suit Well with our pastimes; for when each resound In unison with the feelings of those present, Then is the greatest pleasure felt by all. And the exact meaning of the word συναυλία is shown by Semus the Delian, in the fifth book of his Delias, where he writes — “But as the term'concert' (συναυλία) is not understood by many people, we must speak of it. It is wren there is a union of the flute and of rhythm in alternation, without any words accompanying the melody.” And Antiphanes explains it very neatly in his Flute-player, where he says — Tell me, I pray you, what this concert (ἡ συναυλία αἵτη) was Which he did give you. For you know; but they Having well learnt, still played.5....... A concert of sweet sounds, apart from words, Is pleasant, and not destitute of meaning. But the poets frequently call the flute “the Libyan flute,” as Duris remarks in the second book of his History of Agathocles, because Seirites, who appears to have been the first inventor of the art of flute-playing, was a Libyan, of one of the Nomad tribes; and he was the first person who played airs on the flute in the festival of Cybele." And the different kinds of airs which can be played on the flute (as Tryphon tells us in the second book of his treatise on Names) have the following names: — the Comus, the Bucoliasmus, the Gingras, the Tetracomus, the Epiphallus, the Choreus, the Callinicus, the Martial, the Hedycomus, the Sicynnotyrbe, the Thyrocopicum, which is the same as the Crousithyrum (or Door-knocker), the Cnismus, the Mothon. And all these airs on the flute, when played, were accompanied with dancing.

§ 14.10 Tryphon also gives a list of the different names of songs, as follows. He says — “There is the Himaeus, which is also called the Millstone song, which men used to sing while grinding corn, perhaps from the word ἱμαλίς.. But ἱμαλίς is a Dorian word, signifying a return, and also the quantity of corn which the millers gave into the bargain. Then there is the Elinus, which is the song of the men who worked at the loom; as Epicharmus shows us in his Atalantas. There is also the Ioulos, sung by the women who spin. And Semus the Delian, in his treatise on Paeans, says —'”They used to call the handfuls of barley taken separately, ἄμάλαι; but when they were collected so that a great many were made into one sheaf, then they were called οὔλοι and ἴουλοι.. And Ceres herself was called sometimes Chloe, and sometimes Ioulo; and, as being the inventions of this goddess, both the fruits of the ground and also the songs addressed to the goddess were called οὖλοι and ἴουλοι: and so, too, we have the words δημήτρουλοι and καλλίουλοι, and the line — πλεῖστον οὖλον οὖλον ἵει, ἴουλον ἵει. But others say that the Ioulis is the song of the workers in wool. There are also the songs of nurses, which are called καταβαυκαλήσεις. There was also a song used at the feast of Swings, in honour of Erigone, which is called Aletis. At all events, Aristotle says, in his treatise on the Constitution of the Colophonians — “ Theodorus also himself died afterwards by a violent death. And he is said to have been a very luxurious man, as is evident from his poetry; for even now the women sing his songs on the festival of the Swing.” There was also a reaper's song called Lityerses; and another song sung by hired servants when going to the fields, as Teleclides tells us in his Amphictyons. There were songs, too, of bathing men, as we learn from Crates in his Deeds of Daring; and a song of women baking, as Aristophanes intimates in his Thesmophoriazusae, and Nicochares in his Hercules Choregus. And another song in use among those who drove herds, and this was called the Bucoliasmus. And the man who first invented this species of song was Diomus, a Sicilian cowherd; and it is mentioned by Epicharmus in his Halcyon, and in his Ulysses Shipwrecked. The song used at deaths and in mourning is called Olophyrmus; and the songs called Iouli are used in honour of Ceres and Proserpine. The song sung in honour of Apollo is called Philhelias, as we learn from Telesilla; and those addressed to Artemis are called Upingi. There were also lays composed by Charondas, which were sung at Athens at drinking-parties; as Hermippus tells us in the sixth book of his treatise on Lawgivers. And Aristophanes, in his catalogue of Attic Expressions, say — “The Himaeus is the song of people grinding; the Hymenaeus is the song used at marriage-feasts; and that employed in lamentation is called Ialemus. But the Linus and the Aelinus are not confined to occasions of mourning, but are in use also in good fortune, as we may gather from Euripides.”

§ 14.11 But Clearchus, in the first book of his treatise on matters relating to Love, says that there was a kind of song called Nomium, derived from Eriphanis; and his words are these: — “ Eriphanis was a lyric poetess, the mistress of Menalcas the hunter; and she, pursuing him with her passions, hunted too. For often frequenting the mountains, and wandering over them, she came to the different groves, equalling in her wanderings the celebrated journeys of Io; so that not only those men who were most remarkable for their deficiency in the tender passion, but even the fiercest beasts, joined in weeping for her misfortunes, perceiving the lengths to which her passionate hopes carried her. Therefore she wrote poems; and when she had composed them, as it is said, she roamed about the desert, shouting and singing the kind of song called Nomium, in which the burden of the song is — The lofty oaks, Menalcas.” And Aristoxenus, in the fourth book of his treatise on Music, says — “Anciently the women used to sing a kind of song called Calyca. Now, this was a poem of Stesichorus, in which a damsel of the name of Calyca, being in love with a young man named Euathlus, prays in a modest manner to Venus to aid her in becoming his wife. But when the young man scorned her, she threw herself down a precipice. And this disaster took place near Leucas. And the poet has represented the disposition of the maiden as very modest; so that she was not willing to live with the youth on his own terms, but prayed that, if possible, she might become the wedded wife of Euathlus; and if that were not possible, that she might be released from life.” But, in his Brief Memoranda, Aristoxenus says — “ Iphiclus despised Harpalyce, who was in love with him; but she died, and there has been a contest established among the virgins of songs in her honour, and the contest is called from her, Harpalyce.” And Nymphis, in the first book of his History of Heraclea, speaking of the Maryandyni, says — “And in the same way it is well to notice some songs which, in compliance with a national custom, they sing, in which they invoke some ancient person, whom they address as Bormus. And they say that he was the son of an illustrious and wealthy man, and that he was far superior to all his fellows in beauty and in the vigour of youth; and as he was superintending the cultivation of some of his own lands, and wishing to give his reapers something to drink, he went to fetch some water, and disappeared. Accordingly, they say that on this the natives of the country sought him with a kind of dirge and invocation set to music, which even to this day they are in the habit of using frequently. And a similar kind of song is that which is in use among the Egyptians, and is called Maneros.”

§ 14.12 Moreover, there were rhapsodists also present at our entertainments: for Laurentius delighted in the reciters of Homer to an extraordinary degree; so that one might call Cassander the king of Macedonia a trifler in comparison of him; concerning whom Carystius, in his Historic Recollections, tells us that he was so devoted to Homer, that he could say the greater part of his poems by heart; and he had a copy of the Iliad and the Odyssey written out with his own hand. And that these reciters of Homer were called Homeristae also, Aristocles has told us in his treatise on Choruses. But those who are now called Homeristae were first introduced on the stage by Demetrius Phalereus. Now Chamaeleon, in his essay on Stesichorus, says that not only the poems of Homer, but those also of Hesiod and Archilochus, and also of Mimnermus and Phocylides, were often recited to the accompaniment of music; and Clearchus, in the first book of his treatise on Pictures, says — “ Simonides of Zacynthus used to sit in the theatres on a lofty chair reciting the verses of Archilochus.” And Lysanias, in the first book of his treatise on Iambic Poets, says that Mnasion the rhapsodist used in his public recitations to deliver some of the Iambics of Simonides. And Cleomenes the rhapsodist, at the Olympic games, recited the Purification of Empedocles, as is asserted by Dicaearchus in his history of Olympia. And Jason, in the third book of his treatise on the Temples of Alexander, says that Hegesias, the comic actor, recited the works of Herodotus in the great theatre, and that Hermophantus recited the poems of Homer.

§ 14.13 And the men called Hilarodists (whom some people at the present day call Simodists, as Aristocles tells us in his first book on Choruses, because Simus the Magnesian was the most celebrated of all the poets of joyous songs,) frequently come under our notice. And Aristocles also gives a regular list of them in his treatise on Music, here he speaks in the following manner: — “The Magodist — but he is the same as the Lysiodist.” But Aristoxenus says that Magodus is the name given to an actor who acts both male and female characters; but that he who acts a woman's part in combination with a man's is called a Lysiodist. And they both sing the same songs, and in other respects they are similar. The Ionic dialect also supplies us with poems of Sotades, and with what before his time were called Ionic poems, such as those of Alexander the Aetolian, and Pyres the Milesian, and Alexas, and other poets of the same kind; and Sotades is called κιναιδόλογος. And Sotades the Maroneian was very notorious for this kind of poetry, as Carystius the Pergamene says in his essay on Sotades; and so was the son of Sotades, Apollonius: and this latter also wrote an essay on his father's poetry, from which one may easily see the unbridled licence of language which Sotades allowed himself, — abusing Lysimachus the king in Alexandria, — and, when at the court of Lysimachus, abusing Ptolemy Philadelphus,-and in different cities speaking ill of different sovereigns; on which account, at last, he met with the punishment that he deserved: for when he had sailed from Alexandria (as Hegesander, in his Reminiscences, relates), and thought that he had escaped all danger, (for he had said many bitter things against Ptolemy the king, and especially this, after he had heard that he had married his sister Arsinoe, — He pierced forbidden fruit with deadly sting,) Patrocles, the general of Ptolemy, caught him in the island of Caunus, and shut him up in a leaden vessel, and carried him into the open sea and drowned him. And his poetry is of this kind: Philenus was the father of Theodorus the fluteplayer, on whom he wrote these lines: — And he, opening the door which leads from the back-street, Sent forth vain thunder from a leafy cave, Such as a mighty ploughing ox might utter.

§ 14.14 But the Hilarodus, as he is called, is a more respectable kind of poet than these men are; for he is never effeminate or indecorous, but he wears a white manly robe, and he is crowned with a golden crown: and in former times he used to wear sandals, as Aristocles tells us; but at the present day he wears only slippers. And some man or woman sings an accompaniment to him, as to a person who sings to the flute. And a crown is given to a Hilarodus, as well as to a person who sings to the flute; but such honours are not allowed to a player on the harp or on the flute. But the man who is called a Magodus has drums and cymbals, and wears all kinds of woman's attire; and he behaves in an effeminate manner, and does every sort of indecorous, indecent thing, — imitating at one time a woman, at another an adulterer or a pimp: or sometimes he represents a drunken man, or even a serenade offered by a reveller to his mistress. And Aristoxenus says that the business of singing joyous songs is a respectable one, and somewhat akin to tragedy; but that the business of a Magodus is more like comedy. And very often it happens that the Magodi, taking the argument of some comedy, represent it according to their own fashion and manner. And the word μαγῳδία was derived from the fact that those who addicted themselves to the practice, uttered things like magical incantations, and often declared the power of various drugs.

§ 14.15 But there was among the Lacedemonians an ancient kind of comic diversion, as Sosibius says, not very important or serious, since Sparta aimed at plainness even in pastimes. And the way was, that some one, using very plain, unadorned language, imitated persons stealing fruit, or else some foreign physician speaking in this way, as Allexis, in his Woman who has taken Mandragora, represents one: and he says — If any surgeon of the country says, “Give him at early dawn a platter full Of barley-broth,” we shall at once despise him; But if he says the same with foreign accent, We marvel and admire him. If he call The beet-root σεύτλιον, we disregard him; But if he style it τεύτλιον, we listen, And straightway, with attention fix'd, obey; As if there were such difference between σεύτλιον and τεύτλιον. And those who practised this kind of sport were called among the Lacedemonians δικηλισταὶ, which is a term equivalent to σκευοποιοὶ or μιμηταί. There are, however, many names, varying in different places, for this class of δικηλισταί; for the Sicyonians call them φαλλοφόροι, and others call them αὐτοκάβδαλοι, and some call them φλύακες, as the Italians do; but people in general call them Sophists: and the Thebans, who are very much in the habit of giving peculiar lames to many things, call them ἐθελονταί. But that the Thebans do introduce all kinds of innovations with respect to words, Strattis shows us in the Phoenissae, where he says — You, you whole body of Theban citizens, Know absolutely nothing; for I hear You call the cuttle-fish not σηπία, But ὀπισθότιλα. Then, too, you term A cock not ἀλεκτρύων, but ὀρτάλιχος: A physician is no longer in your mouths ἰατρὸς — no, but σακτάς. For a bridge, You turn γέφυρα into βλέφυρα. Figs are not σῦκα now, but τῦκα: swallows, κωτιλάδες, not χελιδόνες. A mouthful With you is ἄκολος; to laugh, ἐκριδδέμεν. A new-seled shoe you call νεοσπάτωτον.

§ 14.16 Semos the Delian says in his book about Paeans — “The men who were called αὑτοκάβδαλοι used to wear crowns of ivy, and they would go through long poems slowly. But at a later time both they and their poems were called Iambics. And those,” he proceeds, “who are called Ithyphalli, wear a mask representing the face of a drunken man, and wear crowns, having gloves embroidered with flowers. And they wear tunics shot with white; and they wear a Tarentine robe, which covers them down to their ancles: and they enter at the stage entrance silently, and when they have reached the middle of the orchestra, they turn towards the spectators, and say — Out of the way; a clear space leave For the great mighty god: For the god, to his ancles clad, Will pass along the centre of the crowd. And the Phallophori,” says he, “wear no masks; but they put on a sort of veil of wild thyme, and on that they put acanthi, and an untrimmed garland of violets and ivy; and they clothe themselves in Caunacae, and so come on the stage, some at the side, and others through the centre entrance, walking in exact musical time, and saying — For you, O Dionysos, do we now set forth — This tuneful song; uttering in various melody This simple rhythm. It is a song unsuited to a virgin; Nor are we now addressing you with hymns Made long ago, but this our offering Is fresh unutter'd praise. And then, advancing, they used to ridicule with their jests whoever they chose; and they did this standing still, but the Phallophorus himself marched straight on, covered with soot and dirt.”

§ 14.17 And since we are on this subject, it is as well not to omit what happened to Amoebeus, a harp-player of our time, and a man of great science and skill in everything that related to music. He once came late to one of our banquets, and when he heard from one of the servants that we had all finished supper, he doubted what to do himself, until Sophon the cook came to him, and with a loud voice, so that every one might hear, recited to him these lines out of the Auge of Eubulus: — O wretched man, why stand you at the doors Why don't you enter'? Long ago the geese Have all been deftly carved limb from limb; Long the hot pork has had the meat cut off From the long backbone, and the stuffing, which Lay in the middle of his stomach, has Been served around; and all his pettitoes, The dainty slices of fat, well-season'd sausages, Have all been eaten. The well-roasted cuttle-fish Is swallow'd long ago; and nine or ten Casks of rich wine are drain'd to the very dregs. So if you'd like some fragments of the feast, Hasten and enter. Don't, like hungry wolf, Losing this feast, then run about at random. For as that delightful writer Antiphanes says, in his Friend of the Thebans, — A. We now are well supplied with everything; For she, the namesake of the dame within, The rich Boeotian eel, carved in the depths Of the ample dish, is warm, and swells, and boils, And bubbles up, and smokes; so that a man, E'en though equipp'd with brazen nostrils, scarcely Could bear to leave a banquet such as this, — So rich a fragrance does it yield his senses. B. Say you the cook is living A. There is near A cestreus, all unfed both night and day, Scaled, wash'd, and stain'd with cochineal, and turned; And as he nears his last and final turn He cracks and hisses; while the servant bastes The fish with vinegar: then there's Libyan silphium, Dried in the genial rays of midday sun: — B. Yet there are people found who dare to say That sorcerers possess no sacred power; For now I see three men their bellies filling While you are turning this. A. And the comrade squid Bearing the form of the humpback'd cuttlefish, Dreadful with armed claws and sharpen'd talons, Changing its brilliant snow-white nature under The fiery blasts of glowing coal, adorns Its back with golden splendour; well exciting Hunger, the best forerunner of a feast. So, come in — Do not delay, but enter: when we've dined We then can best endure what must be borne. And so he, meeting him in this appropriate manner, replies with these lines out of the Harper of Clearchus: — Sup on white congers, and whatever else Can boast a sticky nature; for by such food The breath is strengthen'd, and the voice of man Is render'd rich and powerful. And as there was great applause on this, and as every one with one accord called to him to come in, he went in and drank, and taking the lyre, sang to us in such a manner that we all marvelled at his skill on the harp, and at the rapidity of his execution, and at the tunefulness of his voice; for he appeared to me to be not at all inferior to that ancient Amoebeus, whom Aristeas, in his History of Harp-players, speaks of as living at Athens, and dwelling near the theatre, and receiving an Attic talent a-day every time he went out singing.

§ 14.18 And while some were discussing music in this manner, and others of the guests saying different things every day, but all praising the pastime, Masurius, who excelled in everything, and was a man of universal wisdom, (for as an interpreter of the laws he was inferior to no one, and he was always devoting some of his attention to music, for indeed he was able himself to play on some musical instruments,) said, — My good friends, Eupolis the comic poet says — And music is a deep and subtle science, And always finding out some novelty For those who're capable of comprehending it; on which account Anaxilas, in his Hyacinthus, says — For, by the gods I swear, music, like Libya, Brings forth each year some novel prodigy; for, my dear fellows, “ Music,” as the Harp-player of Theophilus says, “is a great and lasting treasure to all who have learnt it and know anything about it;” for it ameliorates the disposition, and softens those who are passionate and quarrelsome in their tempers. Accordingly, “ Clinias the Pythagorean,” as Chamaeleon of Pontus relates, “who was a most unimpeachable man both in his actual conduct and also in his disposition, if ever it happened to him to get out of temper or indignant at anything, would take up his lyre and play upon it. And when people asked him the reason of this conduct, he used to say,'I am pacifying myself.' And so, too, the Achilles of Homer was mollified by the music of the harp, which is all that Homer allots to him out of the spoils of Eetion, as being able to check his fiery temper. And he is the only hero in the whole Iliad who indulges in this music.” Now, that music can heal diseases, Theophrastus asserts in his treatise on Enthusiasm, where he says that men with diseases in the loins become free from pain if any one plays a Phrygian air opposite to the part affected. And the Phrygians are the first people who invented and employed the harmony which goes by their name; owing to which circumstance it is that the flute-players among the Greeks have usually Phrygian and servile-sounding names, such as Sambas in Alcman, and Adon, and Telus. And in Hipponax we find Cion, and Codalus, and Babys, from whom the proverb arose about men who play worse and worse, — “He plays worse than Babys.” But Aristoxenus ascribes the invention of this harmony to Hyagnis the Phrygian.

§ 14.19.1 But Heraclides of Pontus, in the third book of his treatise on Music, says — “Now that harmony ought not to be called Phrygian, just as it has no right either to be called Lydian. For there are three harmonies; as there are also three different races of Greeks- Dorians, Aeolians, and] Ionians: and accordingly there is no little difference between their manners. The Lacedemonians are of all the Dorians the most strict in maintaining their national customs and the Thessalians (and these are they who were the origin of the Aeolian race) have preserved at all times very nearly the same customs and institutions; but the population of the Ionians has been a great deal changed, and has gone through many transitions, because they have at all times resembled whatever nations of barbarians have from time to time been their masters.

§ 14.19.12 Accordingly, that species of melody which the Dorians composed they called the Dorian harmony, and that which the Aeolians used to sing they named the Aeolian harmony, and the third they called the Ionian, because they heard the Ionians sing it. ”Now the Dorian harmony is a manly and high-sounding strain, having nothing relaxed or merry in it, but, rather, it is stern and vehement, not admitting any great variations or any sudden changes. The character of the Aeolian harmony is pompous and inflated, and full of a sort of pride; and these characteristics are very much in keeping with the fondness for breeding horses and for entertaining strangers which the people itself exhibits. There is nothing mean in it, but the style is elevated and fearless; and therefore we see that a fondness for banquets and for amorous indulgences is common to the whole nation, and they indulge in every sort of relaxation: on which account they cherish the style of the Sub- Dorian harmony; for that which they call the Aeolian is, says Heraclides, a sort of modification of the Dorian, and is called ὑποδώριος.. And we may collect the character of this Aeolian harmony also from what Lasus of Hermione says in his hymn to the Demeter in Hermione, where he speaks as follows:

§ 14.19.30 I sing the praise of Demeter and of Kore, The sacred wife of Clymenus, raising a sweet-singing hymn, with heavy-sounding Aeolian harmony. But these Sub- Dorian songs, as they are called, are sung by nearly everybody. Since, then, there is a Sub- Dorian melody, it is with great propriety that Lasus speaks of Aeolian harmony. Pratinas, too, somewhere or other says — Aim not at too sustain'd a style, nor yet At the relax'd Ionian harmony; But draw a middle furrow through your ground, And follow the Eolian muse in preference. And in what comes afterwards he speaks more plainly — - But to all men who wish to raise their voices, The Aeolian harmony's most suitable.

§ 14.19.46 “Now formerly, as I have said, they used to call this the Aeolian harmony, but afterwards they gave it the name of the Sub- Dorian, thinking, as some people say, that it was pitched lower on the flute than the Dorian. But it appears to me that those who gave it this name, seeing its inflated style, and the pretence to valour and virtue which was put forth in the style of the harmony, thought it not exactly the Dorian harmony, but to a certain extent like it: on which account they called it ὑποδώριον, just as they call what is nearly white ὑπόλευκον: and what is not absolutely sweet, but something near it, we call ὑπόγλυκυ; so, too, we call what is not thoroughly Dorian ὑπόδωριον.

§ 14.20 ”Next in order let us consider the character of the Milesians, which the Ionians display, being very proud of the goodly appearance of their persons; and full of spirit, hard to be reconciled to their enemies, quarrelsome, displaying no philanthropic or cheerful qualities, but rather a want of affection and friendship, and a great moroseness of disposition: on which account the Ionian style of harmony also is not flowery nor mirthful, but austere and harsh, and having a sort of gravity in it, which, however, is not ignoble-looking; on which account that tragedy has a sort of affection for that harmony. But the manners of the Ionians of the present day are more luxurious, and the character of their present music is very far removed from the Ionian harmony we have been speaking of. And men say that Pythermus the Teian wrote songs such as are called Scolia in this kind of harmony; and that it was because he was an Ionian poet that the harmony got the name of Ionian. This is that Pythermus whom Ananius or Hipponax mentions in his Iambics in this way: — Pythermus speaks of gold as though all else were nought. And Pythermus's own words are as follows: — All other things but gold are good for nothing. Therefore, according to this statement, it is probable that Pythermus, as coming from those parts. adapted the character of his melodies to the disposition of the Ionians; on which account I suppose that his was not actually the Ionian harmony, but that it was a harmony adapted in some a admirable manner to the purpose required. And those are contemptible people who are unable to distinguish the characteristic differences of these separate harmonies; but who are led away by the sharpness or flatness of the sounds, so as to describe one harmony as ὑπερμιξολύδιος, and then again to give a definition of some further sort, refining on this: for I do not think that even that which is called the ὑπερφρύγιος has a distinct character of its own, although some people do say that they have invented a new harmony which they call Sub- Phrygian (ὑποφρύγιος). Now every kind of harmony ought to have some distinct species of character or of passion; as the Locrian has, for this was a harmony used by some of those who lived in the time of Simonides and Pindar, but subsequently it fell into contempt.

§ 14.21 “There are, then, as we have already said, three kinds of harmony, as there are three nations of the Greek people. But the Phrygian and Lydian harmonies, being barbaric, became known to the Greeks by means of the Phrygians and Lydians who came over to Peloponnesus with Pelops. For many Lydians accompanied and followed him, because Sipylus was a town of Lydia; and many Phrygians did so too, not because they border on the Lydians, but because their king also was Tantalus — (and you may see all over Peloponnesus, and most especially in Lacedemon, great mounds, which the people there call the tombs of the Phrygians who came over with Pelops ) — and from them the Greeks learnt these harmonies: on which account Telestes of Selinus says — First of all, Greeks, the comrades brave of Pelops, Sang o'er their wine, in Phrygian melody, The praises of the mighty Mountain Mother; But others, striking the shrill strings of the lyre, Gave forth a Lydian hymn.”

§ 14.22 “But we must not admit,” says Polybius of Megalopolis, “that music, as Ephorus asserts, was introduced among men for the purposes of fraud and trickery. Nor must we think that the ancient Cretans and Lacedemonians used flutes and songs at random to excite their military ardour, instead of trumpets. Nor are we to imagine that the earliest Arcadians had no reason whatever for doing so, when they introduced music into every department of their management of the republic; so that, though the nation in every other respect was most austere in its manner of life, they nevertheless compelled music to be the constant companion, not only of their boys, but even of their youths up to thirty years of age. For the Arcadians are the only people among whom the boys are trained from infancy to sing hymns and paeans to regular airs, in which indeed every city celebrates their national heroes and gods with such songs, in obedience to ancient custom. ”But after this, learning the airs of Timotheus and Philoxenus, they every year, at the festival of Dionysos, dance in their theatres to the music of flute-players; the boys dancing in the choruses of boys, and the youths in those of men. And throughout the whole duration of their lives they are addicted to music at their common entertainments; not so much, however, employing musicians as singing in turn: and to admit themselves ignorant of any other accomplishment is not at all reckoned discreditable to them; but to refuse to sing is accounted a most disgraceful thing. And they, practising marches so as to march in order to the sound of the flute, and studying their dances also, exhibit every year in the theatres, under public regulations and at the public expense. These, then, are the customs which they have derived from the ancients, not for the sake of luxury and superfluity, but from a consideration of the austerity which each individual practised in his private life, and of the severity of their characters, which they contract from the cold and gloomy nature of the climate which prevails in the greater part of their country. And it is the nature of all men to be in some degree influenced by the climate, so as to get some resemblance to it themselves; and it is owing to this that we find different races of men, varying in character and figure and complexion, in proportion as they are more or less distant from one another. “In addition to this, they instituted public banquets and public sacrifices, in which the men and women join; and also dances of the maidens and boys together; endevouring to mollify and civilize the harshness of their nature character by the influence of education and habit. And as the people of Cynaetha neglected this system (although they occupy by far the most inclement district of Arcadia, both as respects the soil and the climate), they, never meeting one another except for the purpose of giving offence and quarrelling, became at last so utterly savage, that the very greatest impieties prevailed among them alone of all the people of Arcadia; and at the time when they made the great massacre, whatever Arcadian cities their emissaries came to in their passage, the citizens of all the other cities at once ordered them to depart by public proclamation; and the Mantineans even made a public purification of their city after their departure, leading victims all round their entire district.”

§ 14.23 Agias, the musician, said that “the styrax, which at the Dionysiac festivals is burnt in the orchestras, presented a Phrygian odour to those who were within reach of it.” Now, formerly music was an exhortation to courage; and accordingly Alcaeus the poet, one of the greatest musicians that ever lived, places valour and manliness before skill in music and poetry, being himself a man warlike even beyond what was necessary. On which account, in such verses as these, he speaks in high-toned language, and says — My lofty house is bright with brass, And all my dwelling is adorn'd, in honour Of mighty Mars, with shining helms, O'er which white horsehair crests superbly wave, Choice ornament for manly brows; And brazen greaves, on mighty pegs suspended, Hang round the hall; fit to repel The heavy javelin or the long-headed spear. There, too, are breastplates of new linen, And many a hollow shield, thrown basely down By coward enemies in flight: There, too, are sharp Chalcidic swords, and belts, Short military cloaks besides, And all things suitable for fearless war; Which I may ne'er forget, Since first I girt myself for the adventurous work — although it would have been more suitable for him to have had his house well stored with musical instruments. But the ancients considered manly courage the greatest of all civil virtues, and they attributed the greatest importance to that, to the exclusion of other good qualities. Archilochus accordingly, who was a distinguished poet, boasted in the first place of being able to partake in all political undertakings, and in the second place he mentioned the credit he had gained by his poetical efforts, saying, — But I'm a willing servant of great Mars, Skilled also in the Muses' lovely art. And, in the same spirit, Aeschylus, though a man who had acquired such great renown by his poetry, nevertheless preferred having his valour recorded on his tomb, and composed an inscription for it, of which the following lines are a part: — The grove of Marathon, and the long-hair'd Medes; Who felt his courage, well may speak of it.

§ 14.24 And it is on this account that the Lacedaemonans, who are a most valiant nation, go to war to the music of the flute, and the Cretans to the strains of the lyre, and the Lydians to the sound of pipes and flutes, as Herodotus relates. And, moreover, many of the barbarians make all their public proclamations to the accompaniment of flutes and harps, softening the souls of their enemies by these means. And Theopompus, in the forty-sixth book of his History, says — “The Getae make all their proclamations while holding harps in their hands and playing on them.” And it is perhaps on this account that Homer, having due regard to the ancient institutions and customs of the Greeks, says — I hear, what Graces every feast, the lyre; as if this art of music were welcome also to men feasting. Now it was, as it should seem, a regular custom to introduce music, in the first place in order that every one who might be too eager for drunkenness or gluttony might have music as a sort of physician and healer of his insolence and indecorum, and also because music softens moroseness of temper; for it dissipates sadness, and produces affability and a sort of gentlemanlike joy. From which consideration, Homer has also, in the first book of the Iliad, represented the gods as using music after their dissensions on the subject of Achilles; for they continued for some time listening to it — Thus the blest gods the genial day prolong In feasts ambrosial and celestial song: Apollo tuned the lyre, — the Muses round, With voice alternate, aid the silver sound. [Il i. 603] For it was desirable that they should leave off their quarrels and dissensions, as we have said. And most people seem to attribute the practice of this art to banquets for the sake of setting things right, and of the general mutual advantage. And, besides these other occasions, the ancients also established by customs and laws that at feasts all men should sing hymns to the gods, in order by these means to preserve order and decency among us; for as all songs proceed according to harmony, the consideration of the gods being added to this harmony, elevates the feelings of each individual. And Philochorus says that the ancients, when making their libations, did not always use dithyrambic hymns, but “when they pour libations, they celebrate Dionysos with wine and drunkenness, but Apollo with tranquillity and good order.” Accordingly Archilochus says — I, all excited in my mind with wine, Am skilful in the dithyrambic, knowing The noble melodies of the sovereign Dionysos. And Epicharmus, in his Philoctetes, says — A water-drinker knows no dithyrambics. So, that it was not merely with a view to superficial and vulgar pleasure, as some assert, that music was originally introduced into entertainments, is plain from what has been said above. But the Lacedemonians do not assert that they used to learn music as a science, but they do profess to be able to judge well of what is done in the art; and they say that they have already three times preserved it when it was in danger of being lost.

§ 14.25 Music also contributes to the proper exercising of the body and to sharpening the intellect; on which account, every Grecian people, and every barbarian nation too, that we are acquainted with, practise it. And it was a good saying of Damon the Athenian, that songs and dances must inevitably exist where the mind was excited in any manner; and liberal, and gentlemanly, and honourable feelings of the mind produce corresponding kinds of music, and the opposite feelings likewise produce the opposite kinds of music. On which account, that saying of Clisthenes the tyrant of Sicyon was a witty one, and a sign of a well-educated intellect. For when he saw, as it is related, one of the suitors for his daughter dancing in an unseemly manner (it was Hippoclides the Athenian ), he told him that he had danced away his marriage, thinking, as it should seem, that the mind of the man corresponded to the dance which he had exhibited; for in dancing and walking decorum and good order are honourable, and disorder and vulgarity are discreditable. And it is on this principle that the poets originally arranged dances for freeborn men, and employed figures only to be emblems of what was being sung, always preserving the principles of nobleness and manliness in them; on which account it was that they gave them the name of ὑπορχήματα(accompaniment to the dance). And if any one, while dancing indulged in unseemly postures or figures, and did nothing at all corresponding to the songs sung, he was considered blameworthy; on which account, Aristophanes or Plato, in his Preparations (as Chamaeleon quotes the play), spoke thus: — So that if any one danced well, the sight Was pleasing: but they now do nothing rightly, But stand as if amazed, and roar at random. For the kind of dancing which was at that time used in the choruses was decorous and magnificent, and to a certain extent imitated the motions of men under arms; on which account Socrates in his Poems says that those men who dance best are the best in warlike exploits; and thus he writes: — But they who in the dance most suitably Do honour to the Gods, are likewise best In all the deeds of war. For the dance is very nearly an armed exercise, and is a display not only of good discipline in other respects, but also of the care which the dancers bestow on their persons.

§ 14.26 And Amphion the Thespiaean, in the second book of his treatise on the Temple of the Muses on Mount Helicon, says that in Helicon there are dances of boys, got up with great care, quoting this ancient epigram: — I both did dance, and taught the citizens The art of music, and my flute-player Was Anacus the Phialensian; My name was Bacchides of Sicyon; And this my duty to the gods perform'd Was honourable to my country Sicyon. And it was a good answer which was made by Caphesias the flute-player, when one of his pupils began to pay on the flute very loudly, and was endeavouring to play as loudly as he could; on which he struck him, and said, “Goodness does not consist in greatness, but greatness in goodness” There are also relics and traces of the ancient dancing in some statues which we have, which were made by ancient statuaries; on which account men at that time paid more attention to moving their hands with graceful gestures; for in this particular also they aimed at graceful and gentlemanlike motions, comprehending what was great in what was well done. And from these motions of the hands they transferred some figures to the dances, and from the dances to the palaestra; for they sought to improve their manliness by music and by paying attention to their persons. And they practised to the accompaniment of song with reference to their movements when under arms; and it was from this practice that the dance called the Pyrrhic dance originated, and every other dance of this kind, and all the others which have the same name or any similar one with a slight change: such as the Cretan dances called orsites ὀρσίτης and epikredios ἐπικρήδιος; and that dance, too, which is named apokinos ἀπόκινος, (and it is mentioned under this name by Cratinus in his Nemesis, and by Cephisodorus in his Amazons, and by Aristophanes in his Centaur, and by several other poets,) though afterwards it came to be called maktrismos μακτρισμός; and many women used to dance it, who, I am aware, were afterwards called marktypiai μαρκτύπιαι.

§ 14.27 But the more sedate kinds of dance, both the more varied kinds and those too whose figures are more simple, are the following: — The Dactylus, the Iambic, the Molossian, the Emmelea, the Cordax, the Sicinnis, the Persian, the Phrygian, the Nibatismus, the Thracian, the Calabrismus, the Telesias (and this is a Macedonian dance which Ptolemy was practising when he slew Alexander the brother of Philip, as Marsyas relates in the third book of his History of Macedon ). The following dances are of a frantic kind: — The Cernophorus, and the Mongas, and the Thermaustris. There was also a kind of dance in use among private individuals, called the ἄνθεμα, and they used to dance this while repeating the following form of words with a sort of mimicking gesture, saying — Where are my roses, and where are my violets? Where is my beautiful parsley Are these then my roses, are these then my violets And is this my beautiful parsley? Among the Syracusans there was a kind of dance called the Chitoneas, sacred to Artemis, and it is a peculiar kind of dance, accompanied with the flute. There was also an Ionian kind of dance practised at drinking parties. They also practised the dance called ἀγγελικὴ at their drinking parties. And there is another kind of dance called the Burning of the World, which Menippus the Cynic mentions in his Banquet. There are also some dances of a ridiculous character: — the Igdis, the Mactrismus, the Apocinus, and the Sobas; and besides these, the Morphasmus, and the Owl, and the Lion, and the Pouring out of Meal, and the Abolition of Debt, and the Elements, and the Pyrrhic dance. And they also lanced to the accompaniment of the flute a dance which they called the Dance of the Master of the Ship, and the Platter Dance. The figures used in dances are the Xiphismus, the Calathismus, the Callabides, the Scops, and the Scopeuma. And the Scops was a figure intended to represent people looking out from a distance, making an arch over their brows with their hand so as to shade their eyes. And it is mentioned by Aeschylus in his Spectators: — And all these old σκωπεύματα of yours. And Eupolis, in his Flatterers, mentions the Callabides, when he says — He walks as though he were dancing the Callabides. Other figures are the Thermastris, the Hecaterides, the Scopus, the Hand-down, the Hand-up, the Dipodismus, the Taking-hold of Wood, the Epanconismus, the Calathiscus, the Strobilus. There is also a dance called the Telesias; and this is a martial kind of dance, deriving its title from a man of the name of Telesias, who was the first person who ever danced it, holding arms in his hands, as Hippagoras tells us in the first book of his treatise on the Constitution of the Carthaginians.

§ 14.28 There is also a kind of satyric dance called the Sicinnis, as Aristocles says in the eighth book of his treatise on Dances; and the Satyrs are called Sicinnistae. But some say that a barbarian of the name of Sicinnus was the inventor of it, though others say that Sicinnus was a Cretan by birth; and certainly the Cretans are dancers, as is mentioned by Aristoxenus. But Scamon, in the first book of his treatise on Inventions, says that this dance is called Sicinnis, from being shaken (ἀπὸ τοῦ σείεσθαι), and that Thersippus was the first person who danced the Sicinnis. Now in dancing, the motion of the feet was adopted long before any motion of the lands was considered requisite; for the ancients exercised their feet more than their hands in games and in hunting; and the Cretans are greatly addicted to hunting, owing to which they are swift of foot. But there are people to be found who assert that Sicinnis is a word formed poetically from κίνησις, because in dancing it the Satyrs use most rapid movements; for this kind of dance gives no scope for a display of the passions, on which account also it is never slow. Now all satyric poetry formerly consisted of choruses, as also did tragedy, such as it existed at the same time; and that was the chief reason why tragedy had no regular actors. Arid there are three kinds of dance appropriate to dramatic poetry, — the tragic, the comic, and the satyric; and in like manner, there are three kinds of lyric dancing, — the pyrrhic the gymnopaedic, and the hyporchematic. And the pyrrhic dance resembles the satyric; for they both consist of rapid movements; but the pyrrhic appears to be a warlike kind of dance, for it is danced by armed boys. And men in war have need of swiftness to pursue their enemies, and also, when defeated, To flee, and not like madmen to stand firm, Nor be afraid to seem a short time cowards. But the dance called Gymnopaedica is like the dance in tragedy which is called Emmelea; for in each there is seen a degree of gravity and solemnity. But the hyporchematic dance is very nearly identical with the comic one which is called Cordax. And they are both a sportive kind of figure.

§ 14.29 But Aristoxenus says that the Pyrrhic dance derives its name from Pyrrhichus, who was a Lacedemonian by birth; and that even to this day Pyrrhichus is a Lacedemonian name. And the dance itself, being of a warlike character, shows that it is the invention of some Lacedemonian; for the Lacedemonians are a martial race, and their sons learn military marches which they call ἐνόπλια. And the Lacedemonians themselves in their wars recite the poems of Tyrtaeus, and move in time to those airs. But Philochorus asserts that the Lacedemonians, when owing to the generalship of Tyrtaeus they had subdued the Messenians, introduced a regular custom in their expeditions, that whenever they were at supper, and had sung the paean, they should also sing one of Tyrtaeus's hymns as a solo, one after another; and that the polemarch should be the judge, and should give a piece of meat as a prize to him who sang best. But the Pyrrhic dance is not preserved now among any other people of Greece; and since that has fallen into disuse, their wars also have been brought to a conclusion; but it continues in use among the Lacedemonians alone, being a sort of prelude preparatory to war: and all who are more than five years old in Sparta learn to dance the Pyrrhic dance. But the Pyrrhic dance as it exists in our time, appears to be a sort of Bacchic dance, and a little more pacific than the old one; for the dancers carry thyrsi instead of spears, and they point and dart canes at one another, and carry torches. And they dance in figures having reference to Dionysos, and to the Indians, and to the story of Pentheus: and they require for the Pyrrhic dance the most beautiful airs, and what are called the “stirring” tunes.

§ 14.30 But the Gymnopaedica resembles the dance which by the ancients used to be called Anapale; for all the boys dance naked, performing some kind of movement in regular time, and with gestures of the hand like those used by wrestlers: so that the dancers exhibit a sort of spectacle akin to the palestra and to the pancratium, moving their feet in regular time. And the different modes of dancing it are called the Oschophoricus, and the Bacchic, so that this kind of dance, too, has some reference to Dionysos. But Aristoxenus says that the ancients, after they had exercised themselves in the Gymnopaedica, turned to the Pyrrhic dance before they entered the theatre: and the Pyrrhic dance is also called the Cheironomia. But the Hyporchematic dance is that in which the chorus dances while singing. Accordingly Bacchylides says — There's no room now for sitting down, There's no room for delay. And Pindar says — The Lacedemonian troop of maidens fair. And the Lacedemonians dance this dance in Pindar. And the Hyporchematica is a dance of men and women. Now the best modes are those which combine dancing with the singing; and they are these-the Prosodiacal, the Apostolical (which last is also called (παρθένιος), and others of the same kind. And some danced to the hymn and some did not; and some danced in accompaniment to hymns to Venus and Dionysos, and to the Paean, dancing at one time and resting at another. And among the barbarians as well as among the Greeks there are respectable dances and also indecorous ones. Now the Cordax among the Greeks is an indecorous dance, but the Emmelea is a respectable one: as is among the Arcadians the Cidaris, and among the Sicyonians the Aleter; and it is called Aleter also in Ithaca, as Aristoxenus relates in the first book of his History of Sicyon. And this appears enough to say at present on the subject of dances.

§ 14.31 Now formerly decorum was carefully attended to in music, and everything in this art had its suitable and appropriate ornament: on which account there were separate flutes for each separate kind of harmony; and every flute-player had flutes adapted to each kind of harmony in their contests. But Pronomus the Theban was the first man who played the three different kinds of harmony already mentioned on the same flute. But now people meddle with music in a random and inconsiderate manner. And formerly, to be popular with the vulgar was reckoned a certain sign of a want of real skill: on which account Asopodorus the Phliasian, when some flute-player was once being much applauded while he himself was remaining in the hyposcenium, said — “What is all this? the man has evidently committed some great blunder:” — as else he could not possibly have been so much approved of by the mob. But I am aware that some people tell this story as if it were Antigenides who said this. But in our days artists make the objects of their art to be the gaining the applause of the spectators in the theatre; on which account Aristoxenus, in his book entitled Promiscuous Banquets, says — “We act in a manner similar to the people of Paestum who dwell in the Tyrrhenian Gulf; for it happened to them, though they were originally Greeks, to have become at last completely barbarised, becoming Tyrrhenians or Romans, and to have changed their language, and all the rest of their national habits. But one Greek festival they do celebrate even to the present day, in which they meet and recollect all their ancient names and customs, and bewail their loss to one another, and then, when they have wept for them, they go home. And so,” says he, “we also, since the theatres have become completely barbarised, and since music has become entirely ruined and vulgar, we, being but a few, will recal to our minds, sitting by ourselves, what music once was.” And this was the discourse of Aristoxenus.

§ 14.32 Wherefore it seems to me that we ought to have a philosophical conversation about music: for Pythagoras the Samian, who had such a high reputation as a philosopher, is well known, from many circumstances, to have been a man who had no slight or superficial knowledge of music; for he indeed lays it down that the whole universe is put and kept together by music. And altogether the ancient philosophy of the Greeks appears to have been very much addicted to music; and on this account they judged Apollo to have been the most musical and the wisest of the gods, and Orpheus of the demigods. And they called every one who devoted himself to the study of this art a sophist, as Aeschylus does in the verse where he says — And then the sophist sweetly struck the lyre. And that the ancients were excessively devoted to the study of music is plain from Homer, who, because all his own poetry was adapted to music, makes, from want of care, so many verses which are headless, and weak, and imperfect in the tail. But Xenophanes, and Solon, and Theognis, and Phocylides, and besides them Periander of Corinth, an elegiac poet, and the rest of those who did not set melodies to their poems, compose their verses with reference to number and to the arrangement of the metres, and take great care that none of their verses shall be liable to the charge of any of the irregularities which we just now imputed to Homer. Now when we call a verse headless (ἀκέφαλος), we mean such as have a mutilation or lameness at the beginning, such as — ᾿επειδὴ νῆάς τε καὶ ῾ελλήσποντον ἵκοντο. ᾿επίτονος τετάνυστο βοὸς ἶφι κταμένοιο. Those we call weak (λαγαρὸς) which are defective in the middle, as — αἶψα δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ αἰνείαν υἱὸν φίλον ᾿αγχίσαο. τῶν δ᾽ αὖθ᾽ ἡγείσθην ᾿ασκληπιοῦ δύο παῖδες. Those again are μείουροι, which are imperfect in the tail or end, as — τρῶες δ᾽ ἐῤῥίγησαν ὅπως ἴδον αἴολον ὄφιν. [Il xii. 208] καλὴ κασσιέπεια θεοῖς δέμας ἐοικυῖα. τοῦ φέρον ἔμπλησας ἀσκὸν μέγαν, ἐν δὲ καί ἤϊα.

§ 14.33 But of all the Greeks, the Lacedemonians were those who preserved the art of music most strictly, as they applied themselves to the practice a great deal: and there were a great many lyric poets among them. And even to this day they preserve their ancient songs carefully, being possessed of very varied and very accurate learning on the subject; on which account Pratinas says — The Lacedemonian grasshopper sweetly sings, Well suited to the chorus. And on this account the poets also continually styled their odes — President of sweetest hymns: and — The honey-wing'd melodies of the Muse. For owing to the general moderation and austerity of their lives, they betook themselves gladly to music, which has a sort of power of soothing the understanding; so that it was natural enough that people who hear it should be delighted. And the people whom they called Choregi, were not, as Demetrius of Byzantium tells us in the fourth book of his treatise on Poetry, those who have that name now, the people, that is to say, who hire the choruses, but those who actually led the choruses, as the name intimates: and so it happened, that the Lacedemonians were good musicians, and did not violate the ancient laws of music. Now in ancient times all the Greeks were fond of music; but when in subsequent ages disorders arose, when nearly all the ancient customs had got out of fashion and had become obsolete, this fondness for music also wore out, and bad styles of music were introduced, which led all the composers to aim at effeminacy rather than delicacy, and at an enervated and dissolute rather than a modest style. And perhaps this will still exist hereafter in a greater degree, and will extend still further, unless some one again draws forth the national music to the light. For formerly the subjects of their songs used to be the exploits of heroes, and the praises of the Gods; and accordingly Homer says of Achilles — With this he soothes his lofty soul, and sings Th' immortal deeds of heroes and of kings. And of Phemius he says — Phemius, let acts of gods and heroes old, What ancient bards in hall and bower have told, Attemper'd to the lyre your voice employ, Such the pleased ear will drink with silent joy. And this custom was preserved among the barbarians, as Dinon tells us in his history of Persia. Accordingly, the poets used to celebrate the valour of the elder Cyrus, and they foresaw the war which was going to be waged against Astyages. “For when,” says he, “ Cyrus had begun his march against the Persians, (and he had previously been the commander of the guards, and afterwards of the heavy-armed troops there, and then he left;) and while Astyages was sitting at a banquet with his friends, then a man, whose name was Angares, (and he was the most illustrious of his minstrels,) being called in, sang other things, such as were customary, and at last he said that — A mighty monster is let loose at last Into the marsh, fiercer than wildest boar; And when once master of the neighbouring ground It soon will fight with ease'gainst numerous hosts. And when Astyages asked him what monster he meant, he Said —' Cyrus the Persian.' And so the king, thinking that his suspicions were well founded, sent people to recal Cyrus, but did not succeed in doing so.”

§ 14.34 But I, though I could still say a good deal about music, yet, as I hear the noise of flutes, I will check my desire for talking, and only quote you the lines out of the Amateur of the Flute, by Philetaerus — O Zeus, it were a happy thing to die While playing on the flute. For flute-players Are th' only men who in Hades below Feel the soft power and taste the bliss of Venus. But those whose coarser minds know nought of music, Pour water always into bottomless casks. After this there arose a discussion about the sambuca. And Masurius said that the sambuca was a musical instrument, very shrill, and that it was mentioned by Euphorion (who is also an Epic poet), in his book on the Isthmian Games; for he says that it was used by the Parthians and by the Troglodytae, and that it had four strings. He said also that it was mentioned by Pythagoras, in his treatise on the Red Sea. The sambuca is also a name given to an engine used in sieges, the form and mechanism of which is explained by Biton, in his book addressed to Attalus on the subject of Military Engines. And Andreas of Panormus, in the thirty-third book of his History of Sicily, detailed city by city, says that it is borne against the walls of the enemy on two cranes. And it is called sambuca because when it is raised up it gives a sort of appearance of a ship and ladder joined together, and resembles the shape of the musical instrument of the same name. But Moschus, in the first book of his treatise on Mechanics, says that the sambuca is originally a Roman engine, and that Heraclides of Pontus was the original inventor of it. But Polybius, in the eighth book of his History, says, — “ Marcellus, having been a great deal inconvenienced at that siege of Syracuse by the contrivances of Archimedes, used to say that Archimedes had given his ships drink out of the sea; but that his sambucae had been buffeted and driven from the entertainment in disgrace.”

§ 14.35 And when, after this, Aemilianus said, — But, my good friend Masurius, I myself, often, being a lover of music, turn my thoughts to the instrument which is called the magadis, and cannot decide whether I am to think that it was a species of flute or some kind of harp. For that sweetest of poets, Anacreon, says somewhere or other — I hold my magadis and sing, Striking loud the twentieth string, Leucaspis, as the rapid hour Leads you to youth's and beauty's flower. But Ion of Chios, in his Omphale, speaks of it as if it were a species of flute, in the following words — And let the Lydian flute, the magadis, Breathe its sweet sounds, and lead the tuneful song. And Aristarchus the grammarian, (a man whom Panaetius the Rhodian philosopher used to call the Prophet, because he could so easily divine the meanings of poem,) when explaining this verse, affirms that the magadis was a kind of flute: though Aristoxenus does not say so either in his treatise on the Flute-players or in that on Flutes and other Musical Instruments; nor does Archestratus either, — and he also wrote two books on Flute-players; nor has Pyrrhander said so in his work on Flute-players; nor Phillis the Delian, — for he also wrote a treatise on Flute-players and so did Euphranor. But Tryphon, in the second book of his essay on Names, speaks thus — “The flute called magadis.” And in another place he says — “The magadis gives a shrill and deep tone at the same time, as Anaxandrides intimates in his Man fighting in heavy Armour, were we find the line — I will speak to you like a magadis, In soft and powerful sounds at the same time. And, my dear Masurius, there is no one else except you who can solve this difficulty for me.

§ 14.36 And Masurius replied — Didymus the grammarian, in his work entitled Interpretations of the Plays of Ion different from the Interpretations of others, says, my good friend Aemilianus, that by the term μάγαδις αὐλὸς he understands the instrument which is also called κιθαριοτήριος; which is mentioned by Aristoxenus in the first book of his treatise on the Boring of Flutes; for there he says that there are five kinds of flutes; the parthenius, the paedicus, the citharisterius, the perfect, and the superperfect. And he says that Ion has omitted the conjunction τε improperly, so that we are to understand by μάγαδις αὐλὸς the flute which accompanies the magadis; for the magadis is a stringed (ψαλτικὸν) instrument, as Anacreon tells us, and it was invented by the Lydians, on which account Ion, in his Omphale, calls the Lydian women ψάλτριαι, as playing on stringed instruments, in the following lines — But come, ye Lydian ψάλτριαι, and singing Your ancient hymns, do honour to this stranger. But Theophilus the comic poet, in his Neoptolemus, calls playing on the magadis μαγαδίζειν, saying — It may be that a worthless son may sing His father or his mother on the magadis (μαγαδίζειν), Sitting upon the wheel; but none of us Shall ever play such music now as theirs. And Euphorion, in his treatise on the Isthmian Games, says, that the magadis is an ancient instrument, but that in latter times it was altered, and had the name also changed to that of the sambuca. And, that this instrument was very much used at Mitylene, so that one of the Muses was represented by an old sculptor, whose name was Lesbothemis, as holding one in her hand. But Menaechmus, in his treatise on Artists, says that the πηκτὶς, which he calls identical with the magadis, was invented by Sappho. And Aristoxenus says that the magadis and the pectis were both played with the fingers without any plectrum; on which account Pindar, in his Scolium addressed to Hiero, having named the magadis, calls it a responsive harping (ψαλμὸν ἀντίφθογγον), because its music is accompanied in all its keys by two kinds of singers, namely, men and boys. And Phrynichus, in his Phoenician Women, has said — Singing responsive songs on tuneful harps. And Sophocles, in his Mysians, says — There sounded too the Phrygian triangle, With oft-repeated notes; to which responded The well-struck strings of the soft Lydian pectis.

§ 14.37 But some people raise a question how, as the magadis did not exist in the time of Anacreon (for instruments with many strings were never seen till after his time), Anacreon can possibly mention it, as he does when he says — I hold my magadis and sing, Striking loud the twentieth string, Leucaspis. But Posidonius asserts that Anacreon mentions three kinds of melodies, the Phrygian, the Dorian, and the Lydian; for that these were the only melodies with which he was acquainted. And as every one of these is executed on seven strings, he says that it was very nearly correct of Anacreon to speak of twenty strings, as he only omits one for the sake of speaking in round numbers. But Posidonius is ignorant that the magadis is an ancient instrument, though Pindar says plainly enough that Terpander invented the barbitos to correspond to, and answer the pectis in use among the Lydians — The sweet responsive lyre Which long ago the Lesbian bard, Terpander, did invent, sweet ornament To the luxurious Lydian feasts, when he Heard the high-toned pectis. Now the pectis and the magadis are the same instrument, as Aristoxenus tells us, and Menechmus the Sicyonian too, in his treatise on Artists. And this last author says that Sappho, who is more ancient than Anacreon, was the first person to use the pectis. Now, that Terpander is more ancient than Anacreon, is evident from the following considerations: — Terpander was the first man who ever got the victory at the Carnean games, as Hellanicus tells us in the verses in which he has celebrated the victors at the Carnea, and also in the formal catalogue which he gives us of them. But the first establishment of the Carnea took place in the twenty-sixth Olympiad, as Sosibius tells us in his essay on Dates. But Hieronymus, in his treatise on Harp-players, which is the subject of the fifth of his Treatises on Poets, says that Terpander was a contemporary of Lycurgus the law-giver, who, it is agreed by all men, was, with Iphitus of Elis, the author of that establishment of the Olympic games from which the first Olympiad is reckoned. But Euphorion, in his treatise on the Isthmian Games, says that the instruments with many strings are altered only in their names; but that the use of them is very ancient.

§ 14.38 However, Diogenes the tragic poet represents the pectis as differing from the magadis; for in the Semele he says — And now I hear the turban-wearing women, Votaries of th' Asiatic Cybele, The wealthy Phrygians' daughters, loudly sounding With drums, and rhombs, and brazen-clashing cymbals, Their hands in concert striking on each other, Pour forth a wise and healing hymn to the gods. Likewise the Lydian and the Bactrian maids Who dwell beside the Halys, loudly worship The Tmolian goddess Artemis, who loves The laurel shade of the thick leafy grove, Striking the clear three-corner'd pectis, and Raising responsive airs upon the magadis, While flutes in Persian manner neatly join'd Accompany the chorus. And Phillis the Delian, in the second book of his treatise on Music, also asserts that the pectis is different from the magadis. And his words are these — ”There are the phoenices, the pectides, the magadides, the sambucae, the iambicae, the triangles, the clepsiambi, the scindapsi, the nine-string." For, he says that “the lyre to which they sang iambics, they called the iambyca, and the instrument to which they sang them in such a manner as to vary the metre a little, they called the clepsiambus, while the magadis was an instrument uttering a diapason sound, and equally in tune for every portion of the singers. And besides these there were instruments of other kinds also; for there was the barbitos, or barmus, and many others, some with strings, and some with sounding-boards.”

§ 14.39 There were also some instruments besides those which were blown into, and those which were used with different strings, which gave forth only sounds of a simple nature, such as the castanets (κρέμβαλα), which are mentioned by Dicaearchus, in his essay on the Manners and Customs of Greece, where he says, that formerly certain instruments were in very frequent use, in order to accompany women while dancing and singing; and when any one touched these instruments with their fingers they uttered a shrill sound. And he says that this is plainly shown in the hymn to Artemis, which begins thus — Artemis, now my mind will have me utter A pleasing song in honour of your deity, While this my comrade strikes with nimble hand The well-gilt brazen-sounding castanets. And Hermippus, in his play called The Gods, gives the word for rattling the castanets, κρεμβαλίζειν, saying — And beating down the limpets from the rocks, They make a noise like castanets (κρεμβαλιζουσι). But Didymus says, that some people, instead of the lyre, are in the habit of striking oyster-shells and cockle-shells against one another, and by these means contrive to play a tune in time to the dancers, as Aristophanes also intimates in his Frogs.20

§ 14.40 But Artemon, in the first book of his treatise on the Dionysian System, as he calls it, says that Timotheus the Milesian appears to many men to have used an instrument of more strings than were necessary, namely, the magadis, on which account he was chastised by the Lacedemonians as having corrupted the ancient music. And when some one was going to cut away the superfluous strings from his lyre, he showed them a little statue of Apollo which they had, which held in its hand a lyre with an equal number of strings, and which was tuned in the same manner; and so he was acquitted. But Douris, in his treatise on Tragedy, says that the magadis was named after Magodis, who was a Thracian by birth. But Apollodorus, in his Reply to the Letter of Aristocles, says — “That which we now call ψαλτήριον is the same instrument which was formerly called magadis; but that which used to be called the clepsiambus, and the triangle, and the elymus, and the nine-string, have fallen into comparative disuse.” And Alcman says — And put away the magadis. And Sophocles, in his Thamyras, says — And well-compacted lyres and magadides, And other highly-polish'd instruments, From which the Greeks do wake the sweetest sounds. But Telestes, in his dithyrambic poem, called Hymenaeus, says that the magadis was an instrument with five strings, using the following expressions — And each a different strain awakens, — One struck the loud horn-sounding magadis, And in the fivefold number of tight strings Moved his hand to and fro most rapidly. I am acquainted, too, with another instrument which the Thracian kings use in their banquets, as Nicomedes tells us in his essay on Orpheus. Now Ephorus and Scarmon, in their treatise on Inventions, say that the instrument called the Phoenix derives its name from having been invented by the Phoenicians. But Semus of Delos, in the first book of the Delias, says that it is so called because its ribs are made of the palm-tree which grows in Delos. The same writer, Semus, says that the first person who used the sambuca was Sibylla, and that the instrument derives its name from having been invented by a man named Sambyx.

§ 14.41 And concerning the instrument called the tripod (this also is a musical instrument) the before-mentioned Artemo writes as follows — “And that is how it is that there are many instruments, as to which it is even uncertain whether they ever existed; as, for instance, the tripod of Pythagoras of Zacynthus. For as it was in fashion but a very short time, and as, either because the fingering of it appeared exceedingly difficult, or for some other reason, it was very soon disused, it has escaped the notice of most writers altogether. But the instrument was in form very like the Delphian tripod, and it derived its name from it; but it was used like a triple harp. For its feet stood on some pedestal which admitted of being easily turned round, just as the legs of movable chairs are made; and along the three intermediate spaces between the feet, strings were stretched; an arm being placed above each, and tuning-pegs, to which the strings were attached, below. And on the top there was the usual ornament of the vase, and of some other ornaments which were attached to it; all which gave it a very elegant appearance; and it emitted a very powerful sound. And Pythagoras divided the three harmonies with reference to three countries, — the Dorian, the Lydian, and Phrygian. And he himself sitting on a chair made on the same principles and after the same pattern, putting out his left hand so as to take hold of the instrument, and using the plectrum in his other hand, moved the pedestal with his foot very easily, so as to use whichever side of the instrument he chose to begin with; and then again turning to the other side he went on playing, and then he changed to the third side. And so rapidly did the easy movement of the pedestal, when touched by the foot, bring the various sides under his hand, and so very rapid was his fingering and execution, that if a person had not seen what was being done, but had judged only by his ear, he would have fancied that he was listening to three harp-players all playing on different instruments. But this instrument, though it was so greatly admired, after his death rapidly fell into disuse.”

§ 14.42 Now the system of playing the harp without any vocal accompaniment, was, as Menaechmus informs us, first introduced by Aristonicus the Argive, who was a contemporary of Archilochus, and lived in Corcyra. But Philochorus, in the third book of his Atthis, says — -" Lysander the Sicyonian harp-player was the first person who ever changed the art of pure instrumental performance, dwelling on the long tones, and producing a very rich sound, and adding also to the harp the music of the flute; and this last addition was first introduced by Epigonus; and taking away the jejuneness which existed in the music of those who played the harp alone without any vocal accompaniment, he first introduced various beautiful modifications on that instrument; and he played on the different kinds of harp called iambus and magadis, which is also called συριγμός. And he was the first person who ever attempted to change his instrument while playing. And afterwards, adding dignity to the business, he was the first person to institute a chorus. And Menaechmus says that Dion of Chius was the first person who ever played on the harp an ode such as is used at libations to the honour of Dionysos. But Timomachus, in his History of Cyprus, says that Stesander the Samian added further improvements to his art, and was the first person who at Delphi sang to his lyre the battles narrated in Homer, beginning with the Odyssey. But others say that the first person who ever played amatory strains on his harp was Ametor the Eleuthernaean, who did so in his own city, whose descendants are all called Ametores. But Aristoxenus says that just as some men have composed parodies on hexameter verses, for the sake of exciting a laugh; so, too, others have parodied the verses which were sung to the harp, in which pastime Oenopas led the way. And he was imitated by Polyeuctus the Achaean, and by Diocles of Cynaetha. There have also been poets who have composed a low kind of poems, concerning whom Phaenias the Eresian speaks in his writings addressed to the Sophists; where he writes thus: — “ Telenicus the Byzantian, and also Argas, being both authors of low poems, were men who, as far as that kind of poetry could go, were accounted clever. But they never even attempted to rival the songs of Terpander or Phrynis.” And Alexis mentions Argas, in his Man Disembarked, thus — A. Here is a poet who has gained the prize In choruses. B. What is his style of poetry? A. A noble kind. B. How will he stand comparison With Argas A. He's a whole day's journey better. And Anaxandrides, in his Hercules, says — For he appears a really clever man. How gracefully he takes the instrument, Then plays at once..... When I have eaten my fill, I then incline To send you off to sing a match with Argas, That you, my friend, may thus the sophists conquer.

§ 14.43 But the author of the play called the Beggars, which is attributed to Chionides, mentions a certain man of the name of Gnesippus as a composer of ludicrous verses, and also of merry songs; and he says — I swear that neither now Gnesippus, nor Cleomenes with all his nine-string'd lyre, Could e'er have made this song endurable. And the author of the Helots says — He is a man who sings the ancient songs Of Alcman, and Stesichorus, and Simonides; (he means to say Gnesippus ): He likewise has composed songs for the night, Well suited to adulterers, with which They charm the women from their doors, while striking The shrill iambyca or the triangle. And Cratinus, in his Effeminate Persons, says — Who, O Gnesippus, e'er saw me in love I am indignant; for I do think nothing Can be so vain or foolish as a lover........and he ridicules him for his poems; and in his Herdsmen he says — A man who would not give to Sophocles A chorus when he asked one; though he granted That favour to Cleomachus, whom I Should scarce think worthy of so great an honour, At the Adonia. And in his Horae he says — Farewell to that great tragedian Cleomachus, with his chorus of hair-pullers, Plucking vile melodies in the Lydian fashion. But Teleclides, in his Rigid Men, says that he was greatly addicted to adultery. And Clearchus, in the second book of his Amatory Anecdotes, says that the love-songs, and those, too, which are called the Locrian songs, do not differ in the least from the compositions of Sappho and Anacreon. Moreover, the poems of Archilochus, and that on fieldfares, attributed to Homer, relate to some division or other of this passion, describing it in metrical poetry. But the writings of Asopodorus about love, and the whole body of amorous epistles, are a sort of amatory poetry out of metre.

§ 14.44 When Masurius had said this, the second course, as it is called, was served up to us; which, indeed, was very often offered to us, not only on the days of the festival of Saturn, when it is the custom of the Romans to feast their slaves, while they themselves discharge the offices of their slaves. But this is in reality a Grecian custom. At all events, in Crete, at the festival of Hermes, a similar thing takes place, as Carystius tells us in his Historic Reminiscences; for then, while the slaves are feasting, the masters wait upon them as if they were the servants: and so they do at Troezen in the month Geraestius. For then there is a festival which lasts for many days, on one of which the slaves play at dice in common with the citizens, and the masters give a banquet to the slaves, as Carystius himself tells us. And Berosus, in the first book of his History of Babylon, says that on the sixteenth day of the month Lous, there is a great festival celebrated in Babylon, which is called Sakeas; and it lasts five days: and during those days it is the custom for the masters to be under the orders of their slaves; and one of the slaves puts on a robe like the king's, which is called a zoganes, and is master of the house. And Ctesias also mentions this festival in the second book of his History of Persia. But the Coans act in an exactly contrary manner, as Macareus tells us in the third book of his History of Cos. For when they sacrifice to Hera, the slaves do not come to the entertainment; on which account Phylarchus says — Among the Sourii, the freemen only Assist at the holy sacrifice; none else The temples or the altars dare approach; And no slave may come near the sacred precincts.

§ 14.45 But Baton of Sinope, the orator, in his treatise on Thessaly and Haemonica, distinctly asserts that the Roman Saturnalia are originally a very Greek festival, saying that among the Thessalians it is called Peloria. And these are his words: — “When a common festival was being celebrated by all the Pelasgi, a man whose name was Pelorus brought news to Pelasgus that there had been some violent earthquakes in Haemonia, by which the mountains called Tempe had been rent asunder, and that the water of the lake had burst through the rent, and was all falling into the stream of the Peneus; and that all the country which had formerly been covered by the lake was now laid open, and that, as the waters were now drained off, there were plains visible of wondrous size and beauty. Accordingly, Pelasgus, on hearing this statement, had a table loaded with every delicacy set before Pelorus; and every one else received him with great cordiality, and brought whatever they had that was best, and placed it on the table before the man who had brought this news; and Pelasgus himself waited on him with great cheerfulness, and all the rest of the nobles obeyed him as his servants as often as any opportunity offered. On which account, they say that after the Pelasgi occupied the district, they instituted a festival as a sort of imitation of the feast which took place on that occasion; and, sacrificing to Zeus Pelor, they serve up tables admirably furnished, and hold a very cordial and friendly assembly, so as to receive every foreigner at the banquet, and to set free all the prisoners, and to make their servants sit down and feast with every sort of liberty and licence, while their masters wait on them. And, in short, even to this day the Thessalians celebrate this as their chief festival, and call it Peloria.”

§ 14.46 Very often, then, as I have said, when such a dessert as this is set before us, some one of the guests who were present would say — Certainly, second thoughts are much the best; For what now can the table want? or what Is there with which it is not amply loaded?'Tis full of fish fresh from the sea, besides Here's tender veal, and dainty dishes of goose, Tartlets, and cheesecakes steep'd most thoroughly In the rich honey of the golden bee; as Euripides says in his Cretan Women: and, as Eubulus said in his Rich Woman — And in the same way everything is sold Together at Athens; figs and constables, Grapes, turnips, pears and apples, witnesses, Roses and medlars, cheesecakes, honeycombs, Vetches and law-suits; bee -strings of all kinds, And myrtle-berries, and lots for offices, Hyacinths, and lambs, and hour-glasses too, And laws and prosecutions. Accordingly, when Pontianus was about to say something about each of the dishes of the second course, — We will not, said Ulpian, hear you discuss these things until you have spoken about the sweetmeats (ἐπιδορπίσματα). And Pontianus replied: — Cratinus says that Philippides has given this name to the τραγήματα, in his Miser, where he says — Cheesecakes, ἐπιδορπίσματα, and eggs, And sesame; and were I to endeavour To count up every dish, the day would fail me. And Diphilus, in his Telesias, says — τράγημα, myrtle-berries, cheesecakes too, And almonds; so that with the greatest pleasure I eat the second course (ἐπιδορπίζομαι). And Sophilus, in his Deposit, says —'Tis always pleasant supping with the Greeks; They manage well; with them no one cries out — Here, bring a stronger draught; for I must feast With the Tanagrian; that there, lying down, And Plato, in his Atlanticus, calls these sweetmeats μεταδόρπια; saying — “And at that time the earth used to produce all sorts of sweet-smelling things for its inhabitants; and a great deal of cultivated fruit, and a great variety of nuts; and all the μεταδόρπια which give pleasure when eaten.”

§ 14.47 But Tryphon says that formerly before the guests entered the supper-room, each person's share was placed on the table, and that afterwards a great many dishes of various kinds were served up in addition; and that on this account these latter dishes were called ἐπιφορήματα. But Philyllius, in his Well-digger, speaking of the second course, says — Almonds, and nuts, and ἐπιφορήματα. And Archippus, in his Hercules, and Herodotus, in the first book of his History, have both used the verb ἐπιδορπίζομαι for eating after supper. And Archippus also, in his Hercules Marrying, uses the word ἐπιφορήματα;where he says — The board was loaded with rich honey-cakes And other ἐπιφορήματα. And Herodotus, in the first book of his History, says — “They do not eat a great deal of meat, but a great many ἐπιφορήματα.” But as for the proverbial saying, “The ἐπιφόρημα of Abydos,” that is a kind of tax and harbour-due; as is explained by Aristides in the third book of his treatise on Proverbs. But Dionysius, the son of Tryphon, says — “Formerly, before the guests came into the banqueting-room, the portion for each individual was placed on the table, and afterwards a great many other things were served up in addition (ἐπιφέρεσθαι); from which custom they were called ἐπιφορήματα.” And Philyllius, in his Well-digger, speaks of what is brought in after the main part of the banquet is over, saying — Almonds, and nuts, and ἐπιφορήματα. But Plato the comic poet, in the Menelaus, calls them ἐπιτραπεζώματα, as being for eatables placed on the table (ἐπὶταῖς τραπέζαις), saying — A. Come, tell me now, Why are so few of the ἐπιτραπεζώματα Remaining? B. That man hated by the gods Ate them all up. And Aristotle, in his treatise on Drunkenness, says that sweetmeats (τραγήματα) used to be called by the ancients τρωγάλια; for that they come in as a sort of second course. But it is Pindar who said — And τρώγαλον is nice when supper's over, And when the guests have eaten plentifully. And he was quite right. For Euripides says, when one looks on what is served up before one, one may really say — You see how happily life passes when A man has always a well-appointed table.

§ 14.48 And that among the ancients the second course used to have a great deal of expense and pains bestowed on it, we may learn from what Pindar says in his Olympic Odes, where he speaks of the flesh of Pelops being served up for food: — And in the second course they carved Your miserable limbs, and feasted on them; But far from me shall be the thought profane, That in foul feast celestials could delight. Pind. Ol. i. And the ancients often called this second course simply τράπεζαι, as, for instance, Achaeus in his Vulcan, which is a satyric drama, who says, — A. First we will gratify you with a feast; Lo! here it is. B. But after that what means Of pleasure will you offer me? A. We'll anoint you All over with a richly-smelling perfume. B. Will you not give me first a jug of water To wash my hands with! A. Surely; the dessert (τράπεζα) Is now being clear'd away. And Aristophanes, in his Wasps, says — Bring water for the hands; clear the dessert. Ar. Vespae, And Aristotle, in his treatise on Drunkenness, uses the term δεύτεραι τράπεζαι, much as we do now; saying, — “We must therefore bear in mind that there is a difference between τράγημα and βρῶμα, as there is also between ἔδεσμαand τρωγάλιον. For this is a national name in use in every part of Greece, since there is food (βρῶμα) in sweetmeats (ἐντραγήμασι), from which consideration the man who, first used the expression δευτέρα τράπεζα,, appears to have spoken with sufficient correctness. For the eating of sweetmeats (τραγηματισμὸς) is really an eating after supper (ἐπιδορπισμὸς); and the sweetmeats are served up as a second supper.” But Dicaearchus, in the first book of his Descent to the Cave of Trophonius, speaks thus: “There was also the δευτέρα τράπεζα, which was a very expensive part of a banquet, and there were also garlands, and perfumes, and burnt frankincense, and all the other necessary accompaniments of these thing.”

§ 14.49 Eggs too often formed a part of the second course, as did hares and thrushes, which were served up with the honey-cakes; as we find mentioned by Antiphanes in the Leptiniscus, where he says, — A. Would you drink Thasian wine? B. No doubt, if any one Fills me a goblet with it. A. Then what think you Of almonds? B. I feel very friendly to them, They mingle well with honey. A. If a man Should bring you honied cheesecakes? B. I should eat them, And swallow down an egg or two besides. And in his Things resembling one another, he says, — Then he introduced a dance, and after that he served up A second course, provided well with every kind of dainty. And Amphis, in his Gynaecomania, says, — A. Did you e'er hear of what they call a ground life?........'tis clearly Cheesecakes, sweet wine, eggs, cakes of sesame, Perfumes, and crowns, and female flute-players. B. Castor and Pollux! why you have gone through The names of all the dozen gods at once. Anaxandrides, in his Clowns, says, — And when I had my garland on my head, They brought in the dessert (ἡ τράπεζα), in which there were So many dishes, that, by all the gods, And goddesses too, I hadn't the least idea There were so many different things i' th' house; And never did I live so well as then. Clearchus says in his Pandrosus, — A. Have water for your hands: B. By no means, thank you; I'm very comfortable as I am. A. Pray have some; You'll be no worse at all events. Boy, water! And put some nuts and sweetmeats on the table. And Eubulus, in his Campylion, says, — A. Now is your table loaded well with sweetmeats. B. I am not always very fond of sweetmeats. Alexis, too, says in his Polyclea, ( Polyclea was the name of a courtesan,) — He was a clever man who first invented The use of sweetmeats; for he added thus A pleasant lengthening to the feast, and saved men From unfill'd mouths and idle jaws unoccupied. And in his Female Likeness (but this same play is attributed also to Antidotus ) he says, — A. I am not one, by Asclepius! To care excessively about my supper; I'm fonder of dessert. B.'Tis very well. A. For I do hear that sweetmeats are in fashion, For suitors when they're following... B. Their brides, — A. To give them cheesecakes, hares, and thrushes too, These are the things I like; but pickled fish And soups and sauces I can't bear, ye gods! But Apion and Diodorus, as Pamphilus tells us, assert that the sweetmeats brought in after supper are also called ἐπαίκλεια.

§ 14.50 Ephippus, in his Ephebi, enumerating the different dishes in fashion for dessert, says, — Then there were brought some groats, some rich perfumes From Egypt, and a cask of rich palm wine Was broach'd. Then cakes and other kinds of sweetmeats, Cheesecakes of every sort and every name; And a whole hecatomb of eggs. These things We ate, and clear'd the table vigorously, For we did e'en devour some parasites. And in his Cydon he says, — And after supper they served up some kernels, Vetches, and beans, and groats, and cheese, and honey, Sweetmeats of various kinds, and cakes of sesame, And pyramidical rolls of wheat, and apples, Nuts, milk, hempseed too, and shell-fish, Syrup, the brains of Zeus. Alexis too, in his Philiscus, says, — Now is the time to clear the table, and To bring each guest some water for his hands, And garlands, perfumes, and libations, Frankincense, and a chafing-dish. Now give Some sweetmeats, and let all some cheesecakes have. And as Philoxenus of Cythera, in his Banquet, where he mentions the second course, has spoken by name of many of the dishes which are served up to us, we may as well cite his words: — “And the beautiful vessels which come in first, were brought in again full of every kind of delicacy, which mortals call τράπεζαι, but the Gods call them the Horn of Amalthea. And in the middle was placed that great delight of mortals, white marrow dressed sweet; covering its face with a thin membrane, like a spider's web, out of modesty, that one might not see..... in the dry nets of Aristaeus.... And its name was amyllus.......... which they call Zeus's sweetmeats.... Then he distributed plates of.... very delicious...... and a cheesecake compounded of cheese, and milk, and honey... almonds with soft rind.... and nuts, which boys are very fond of; and everything else which could be expected in plentiful and costly entertainment. And drinking went on, and playing at the cottabus, and conversation....... It was pronounced a very magnificent entertainment, and every one admired and praised it.” This, then, is the description given by Philoxenus of Cythera, whom Antiphanes praises in his Third-rate Performer, where he says — Philoxenus now does surpass by far All other poets. First of all he everywhere Uses new words peculiar to himself; And then how cleverly doth he mix his melodies With every kind of change and modification! Surely he is a god among weak men, And a most thorough judge of music too, But poets of the present day patch up Phrases of ivy and fountains into verse, And borrow old expressions, talking of Melodies flying on the wings of flowers, And interweave them with their own poor stuff.

§ 14.51 There are many writers who have given lists of the different kinds of cheesecakes, and as far as I can recollect, I will mention them, and what they have said. I know, too, that Callimachus, in his List of Various Books, mentions the treatises on the Art of Making Cheesecakes, written by Aegimius, and Hegesippus, and Metrobius, and also by Phaetus. But I will communicate to you the names of cheesecakes which I myself have been able to find to put down, not treating you as Socrates was treated in the matter of the cheesecake which was sent to him by Alcibiades; for Xanthippe took it and trampled upon it, on which Socrates laughed, and said, “At all events you will not have any of it yourself.” (This story is related by Antipater, in the first book of his essay on Passion.) But I, as I am fond of cheesecakes, should have been very sorry to see that divine cheesecake so injuriously treated. Accordingly, Plato the comic poet mentions cheesecakes in his play called The Poet, where he says — Am I alone to sacrifice without Having a taste allow'd me of the entrails, Without a cheesecake, without frankincense? Nor do I forget that there is a village, which Demetrius the Scepsian, in the twelfth book of his Trojan Array, tells us bears the name of πλακοῦς (cheesecake); and he says that it is six stadia from Hypoplacian Thebes. Now, the word πλακοῦς ought to have a circumflex in the nominative case; for it is contracted from πλακόεις, as τυροῦς is from τυρόεις, and σησαμοῦς from σησαμόεις.. And it is used as a substantive, the word ἄρτος (bread) being understood. Those who have lived in the place assure us that there are capital cheesecakes to be got at Parium on the Hellespont; for it is a blunder of Alexis, when he speaks of them as coming from the island of Paros. And this is what he says in his play called Archilochus: — Happy old man, who in the sea-girt isle Of happy Paros dwell'st — a land which bears Two things in high perfection; marble white, Fit decoration for th' immortal gods, And cheesecakes, dainty food for mortal men. And Sopater the farce-writer, in his Suitors of Bacchis, testifies that the cheesecakes of Samos are extraordinarily good; saying, — The cheesecake-making island named Samos.

§ 14.52 Menander, in his False Hercules, speaks of cheesecakes made in a mould: — It is not now a question about candyli, Or all the other things which you are used To mix together in one dish-eggs, honey, And similago; for all these things now Are out of place. The cook at present's making Baked cheesecakes in a mould; and boiling groats To serve up after the salt-fish, — and grapes, And forced-meat wrapp'd in fig-leaves. And the maid, Who makes the sweetmeats and the common cheesecakes, Is roasting joints of meat and plates of thrushes. And Euangelus, in his Newly-married Woman, says — A. Four tables did I mention to you of women, And six of men; a supper, too, complete — In no one single thing deficient; Wishing the marriage-feast to be a splendid one. B. Ask no one else; I will myself go round, Provide for everything, and report to you...... As many kinds of olives as you please; For meat, you've veal, and sucking- pig, and pork, And hares — A. Hear how this cursed fellow boasts! B. Forced-meat in fig-leaves, cheese, cheesecakes in moulds- A. Here, Dromo! B. Candyli, eggs, cakes of meal. And then the table is three cubits high; So that all those who sit around must rise Whenever they wish to help themselves to anything, There was a kind of cheesecake called ἄμης. Antiphanes enumerates ἄμητες, ἄμυλοι; and Menander, in his Suppostitious Son, says — You would be glad were any one to dress A cheesecake (ἄμητα) for you. But the Ionians, as Seleucus tells us in his Dialects, make the accusative case ἄμην; and they call small cheesecakes of the same kind ἀμητίσκοι. Teleclides says — Thrushes flew of their own accord Right down my throat with savoury ἀμητίσκοι.

§ 14.53 There was also a kind called διακόνιον: — He was so greedy that he ate a whole Diaconium up, besides an amphiphon. But the ἀμφιφῶν was a kind of cheesecake consecrated to Artemis, having figures of lighted torches round it. Philemon, in his Beggar, or Woman of Rhodes, says — Artemis, mistress dear, I bring you now This amphiphon, and these libations holy. Diphilus also mentions it in his Hecate. Philochorus also mentions the fact of its being called ἀμφιφῶν, and of its being brought into the temples of Artemis, and also to the places where three roads meet, on the day when the moon is overtaken at its setting by the rising of the sun; and so the heaven is ἀμφιφῶς, or all over light. There is the basynias too. Semus, in the second book of the Deliad, says — “In the island of Hecate, the Delians sacrifice to Iris, offering her the cheesecakes called basyniae; and this is a cake of wheat-flour, and suet, and honey, boiled up together: and what is called κόκκωρα consists of a fig and three nuts.” There are also cheesecakes called strepti and neelata. Both; these kinds are mentioned by Demosthenes the orator, in his Speech in Defence of Ctesiphon concerning the Crown. There are also epichyta. Nicochares, in his Handicraftsmen, says — I've loaves, and barley-cakes, and bran, and flour, And rolls, obelias, and honey'd cheesecakes, Epichyti, ptisan, and common cheesecakes, Dendalides, and fried bread. But Pamphilus says that the ἐπίχυτος is the same kind of cheesecake as that which is called ἀττανίτης. And Hipponax mentions the ἀττανίτης in the following lines: — Not eating hares or woodcocks, Nor mingling small fried loaves with cakes of sesame, Nor dipping attanite in honeycombs, There is also the creium. This is a kind of cheesecakes which, at Argos, is brought to the bridegroom from the bride; and it is roasted on the coals, and the friends of the bridegroom are invited to eat it; and it is served up with honey, as Philetas tells us in his Miscellanies. There is also the glycinas: this is a cheesecake in fashion among the Cretans, made with sweet wine and oil, as Seleucus tells us in his Dialects. There is also the empeptas. The same author speaks of this as a cheesecake made of wheat, hollow and well-shaped, like those which are called κρηπῖδες; being rather a kind of paste into which they put those cheesecakes which are really made with cheese.

§ 14.54 There are cakes, also, called ἐγκρίδες. These are cakes boiled in oil, and after that seasoned with honey; and they are mentioned by Stesichorus in the following lines: — Groats and encrides, And other cakes, and fresh sweet honey. Epicharmus, too, mentions them; and so does Nicophon, in his Handicraftsmen. And Aristophanes, in his Danaides, speaks of a man who made them in the following words: — And not be a seller of encrides (ἐγκριδοπώλης). And Pherecrates, in his Crapatalli, says — Let him take this, and then along the road Let him seize some encrides. There is the ἐπικύκλιος, too. This is a kind of cheesecake in use among the Syracusans, under this name; and it is mentioned by Epicharmus, in his Earth and Sea. There is also the γοῦρος;; and that this, too, is a kind of cheesecake we learn from what Solon says in his Iambics: — Some spend their time in drinking, and eating cakes, And some eat bread, and others feast on γοῦροι Mingled with lentils; and there is no kind Of dainty wanting there, but all the fruits Which the rich earth brings forth as food for men Are present in abundance. There are also cribanae; and κριβάνης is a name given by Alcman to some cheesecakes, as Apollodorus tells us. And Sosibius asserts the same thing, in the third book of his Essay on Alcman; and he says they are in shape like a breast, and that the Lacedemonians use them at the banquets of women, and that the female friends of the bride, who follow her in a chorus, carry them about when they are going to sing an encomium which has been prepared in her honour. There is also the crimnites, which is a kind of cheesecake made of a coarser sort of barley-meal (κρίμνον), as Iatrocles tells us in his treatise on Cheesecakes.

§ 14.55 Then there is the staitites; and this, too, is a species of cheesecake made of wheaten-flour and honey. Epicharmus mentions it in his Hebe's Wedding; but the wheaten-flour is wetted, and then put into a frying-pan; and after that honey is sprinkled over it, and sesame, and cheese; as Iatrocles tells us. There is also the charisius. This is mentioned by Aristophanes in his Daitaleis, where he says — But I will send them in the evening A charisian cheesecake. And Eubulus, in his Ancylion, speaks of it as if it were plain bread: — I only just leapt out, While baking the charisius. Then there is the ἐπίδαιτρον, which is a barley-cake, made like a cheesecake, to be eaten after supper; as Philemon tells us in his treatise on Attic Names. There is also the nanus, which is a loaf made like a cheesecake, prepared with cheese and oil. There are also ψώθια, which are likewise called ψαθύρια. Pherecrates, in the Crapatalli, says — And in Hades below you'll get for threepence A crapatallus, and some ψώθια. But Apollodorus the Athenian, and Theodorus, in his treatise on the Attic Dialect, say that the crumbs which are knocked off from a loaf are called ψώφια,, which some people also call ἀττάραγοι. Then there is the ἴτριον. This is a thin cake, made of sesame and honey; and it is mentioned by Anacreon thus: — I broke my fast, taking a little slice Of an ἴριον; but I drank a cask of wine. And Aristophanes, in his Acharnians, says — Cheesecakes, and cakes of sesame, and ἴτρια. And Sophocles, in his Contention, says — But I, being hungry, look back at the ἴτρια. There is mention made also of ἄμοραι. Philetas, in his Miscellanies, says that cakes of honey are called ἄμοραι; and they are made by a regular baker. There is the ταγηνίτης, too; which is a cheesecake fried in oil. Magnes, or whoever it was that wrote the comedies which are attributed to him, says in the second edition of his Dionysos — Have you ne'er seen the fresh ταγήνιαι hissing, When you pour honey over them? And Cratinus, in his Laws, says — The fresh ταγηνίας, dropping morning dew. Then there is the ἔλαφος.. This is a cheesecake made on the festival of Elaphebolia, of wheat-flour, and honey, and sesame. The ναστὸς is a kind of cheesecake, having stuffing inside it.