mail: Bill Thayer	Ἑλληνική	Italiano	Help	Up	Home
previous: IV.148F‑160D This webpage reproduces a section of The Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus published in Vol. II of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1928 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: IV.170D‑185A

(Vol. II) Athenaeus
Deipnosophistae

Book IV
(Part 4 of 5)

 p231  (160d) Thereupon Magnus took the floor and said: "Our altogether excellent Larensis has answered this glutton 'dog' concerning 'conch' keenly and well. EBut I will follow The Celts of the Paphian Sopater:​1 'Among them it is the custom, whenever they win any success in battle, to sacrifice their captives to the gods; so I, imitating the Celts, have vowed to the heavenly powers that I shall burn three of those counterfeit dialecticians on the altar. Look you! Having heard that you diligently choose philosophy and philology Fand that you have stoical endurance, I am going to make a test of your doctrines first by smoking them; then, if I see one of you during the roasting pulling up his leg, he shall be sold to a Zenonian master for export, as one who knows not Wisdom.' For I will say to them frankly: if you, my philosopher, really love independence, why  p233 do you not emulate those Pythagoreans concerning whom 161 Antiphanes, in Memorials,​2 has these lines? 'Some wretched Pythagorists chanced to be eating salt-wort in the ravine, and, moreover, collecting poor bits of it in their bags.' And in the real Bag,​3 as it is entitled, Antiphanes says: 'First of all, like a devotee of Pythagoras, he eats nothing that has life, but takes a sooty piece of barley-cake, the largest possible for a ha'penny, and chews​4 that.' BAnd Alexis in Men of Tarentum:​5 'A. The devotees of Pythagoras, we hear, eat neither fish nor anything else that has life, and they are the only ones who drink no wine. B. Yes, but Epicharides devours dogs, and he is a Pythagorean. A. Of course, after he has killed one, for then it no longer has life!' And going on Alexis says: 'A. Pythagorean subtleties, and fine-spun discourses, and disputations nicely polished nurture those fellows, but their daily food is this: Cone loaf of simple​6 bread for each, a cup of water. That's all! B. It's prison fare that you tell of. Can it be that all these wise men live like that, and suffer such misery? A. These men live in luxury compared to others. Don't you know that Melanippides is a disciple, and Phaon, Phyromachus, and Phanus, who dine every four days on one half- p235 pint of barley-meal?' And in The Lady Devotee of Pythagoras:​7 'A. Their entertainment will be dried figs and olive-cakes​8 and cheese; Dfor to offer these in sacrifice is the Pythagoreans' custom. B. So help me Zeus, good sir, that is the finest "meat" there is.' And after a little: 'They had to put up with sparse diet, dirt, cold, silence, gloom,​9 and going without a bath.'

"But you, my philosophers, practise nothing of this regimen; on the contrary — and this is the most vexatious of all — you babble about things you know nothing of, and as eaters pretending decorum, you put in your mouthfuls in the way described so pleasantly by Antiphanes. For he says in The Restorer of Runaways:​10 E'Decorously putting in a mouthful — making his hand small to be sure in front, but full inside, as the women do — he ate it all up, fully and fattily.' According to this same poet, speaking in The Bumble-Bee,​11 he might have purchased for a shilling 'the foods which suit you, garlic, cheese, onions, capers — all that for a shilling.' Aristophon in The Pythagorean Discipline:​12 'In the name of the gods, Fdo we really think that those Pythagorean disciples, born in the old days, willingly went dirty or wore old clothes because they wanted to? It is no such thing, in my opinion. Rather,  p237 they did it from necessity, possessing not so much as a penny, and having found a good excuse for their frugality, they fixed standards fit for the poor. For just set before them fish or meat; if they don't eat them up, and their own fingers too, I am willing to be strung up a dozen times.' 162 It is not a bad time to recall the epigram, written in your honour, which Hegesander of Delphi has cited in the sixth book of his Commentaries:​13 Sons-of-eyebrow-raisers, noses-fixed-in‑beards, beards-bag-fashion-trimmed, and casserole-pilferers too, cloaks-over-shoulders-slinging, barefoot-shambling-with-eyes-cast‑down,​14 night‑birds-secretly-feeding, night-sinners-in‑deceit, puny‑lad-deceivers and silly-babblers-of-sought-syllables, Bwise-in-their-vain-conceits, degenerate-sons-of-seekers-after-good.'

Archestratus of Gela, in his Gastrology — this, by the way, is the only epic poem which you wise men like; the only Pythagorean rule you observe is the rule of silence, which you practise only because of your incapacity for discourse; furthermore, you like the Art of Love by the Cynic Sphodrias, you like the recitals on love​15 given by Protagorides, and the Convivial Dialogues of that noble sage Persaeus, Ccompiled from the memoirs of Stilpo and Zeno. In these, that the banqueters may not fall asleep, questions are raised such as, How should the toasts be ordered? At what hour should the beautiful boys and girls be introduced into the symposium,  p239 and when should they be allowed to practise their coquetry, and when should they be sent packing for showing contempt? And then, again, concerning new entrées and kinds of bread, and, among other topics, all that the philosopher son of Sophroniscus has said with some particularity on the subject of kisses.​16 For Persaeus ever turned his mind to these subjects; but having been entrusted by Antigonus with the citadel of Corinth, Das Hermippus says,​17 he was ejected when in his cups even from Corinth itself, being out-generalled by Aratus of Sicyon — he who before that had hotly insisted, in his Dialogues addressed to Zeno, that the wise man would under all circumstances prove to be a good general as well, the noble 'slave' of Zeno having established this contention by his deeds alone!​18 For Bion the Borysthenite, when he saw a bronze statue of him on which was inscribed 'Persaeus, slave of Zeno, of the town of Citium,' remarked wittily that the engraver of the inscription had made a mistake; Efor (he said) it should read thus: 'Persaeus of Zeno-Slavia.'​19 For he was, as a matter of fact, a slave of Zeno, as Nicias of Nicaea records in his Inquiry Concerning Philosophers, and Sotion of Alexandria in his Successions.​20 I have come across two volumes of this wise treatise of Persaeus bearing this title, Convivial Dialogues.

"Ctesibius of Chalcis, the friend of Menedemus,  p241 was once asked by somebody, according to Antigonus of Carystus in his Lives,​21 Fwhat advantage he had gained from philosophy. He replied, 'Dinners without paying my share.' Wherefore Timon somewhere addressed him in these words,​22 'Dinner-crazed, with the eyes of a fawn, but with a heart unmoved!' Now Ctesibius could hit the nail on the head and provoke laughter by his wit, 163 consequently he was always being invited to dinners; not like you, Cynic, who have never won the favour of the Muses, to say nothing of the Graces. At any rate, Virtue avoids you and those like you, and takes her seat by the side of Pleasure, as Mnasalces of Sicyon phrases it in epigrammatic verses: 'I, unhappy Virtue, have taken my seat here beside Pleasure, my curly locks shorn in direst disgrace, my soul caught in the meshes of heavy grief, Bbecause insane Joy has been preferred to me.' And the comic poet Baton says in The Murderer:​23 'I summon hither the philosophers who are sober, who never give themselves a single good thing, who look for the wise man in their walks​24 and talks, as for one who has run away. Man accursed, why, when you have the money to pay, do you stay sober? Why do such injury to the gods? CWhy, fellow, have you deemed money more precious than yourself or than it is by nature? You are a dead loss to the community if you drink water; for you wrong the farmer and the merchant. But I, when I drink wine to the full, make their profits  p243 good. Yet you carry about your jug from early morning, looking to see if there is oil in it; whence one would think that you carry about a water-clock, not a jug!'25

"As I was saying,​26 Cynulcus: Archestratus, whom you worship, for your belly's sake, on a par with Homer — D'and there is nothing more voracious than that,' to quote your friend Timon​27 — writes as follows an account of the shark:​28 'Nay, not many mortals know of this heavenly viand or consent to eat it — all those mortals, that is, who possess the puny soul of the booby-bird​29 and are smitten with palsy because, as they say, the creature is a man-eater. But every fish loves human flesh if it can get it. Wherefore it is the simple duty of all who talk such foolishness to betake themselves to vegetables, and going over to the philosopher Diodorus, Eto live abstemiously like Pythagoreans in his company.' Now this Diodorus was an Aspendian by birth, and though he was reputed to be a Pythagorean, he lived in the manner of you Cynics, wearing his hair long, and going dirty and bare-footed. Hence some have even thought that this habit of wearing long hair was Pythagorean, having been promulgated by Diodorus, as Hermippus says.​30 And Timaeus of Tauromenium, in the ninth book of his Histories,​31 writes about him thus: 'Diodorus, the Aspendian by birth, introduced the eccentric mode of life, and pretended that he had consorted  p245 as a disciple with the Pythagoreans; Fto him Stratonicus dispatched a messenger, bidding the man as he departed to report his commands "to that henchman of Pythagoras who keeps the Porch​32 crowded with people marvelling at his beast-robed madness and insolence." ' Sosicrates, too, in the third book of The Succession of Philosophers,​33 records that Diodorus adopted the wearing of a long beard, put on a worn cloak, and grew long hair, introducing this practice as an innovation in order to gratify a kind of vanity, 164 since the Pythagoreans before his time always dressed in white​34 clothing and made use of baths, ointments, and the customary mode of hair-cut. Now if, my philosophers, you really love independence and cheap things to eat, why do you come here where you have not even been invited? Is it as though you had come into a prodigal's house to learn how to make a list of cooking utensils? Or to recite the Cephalion of Diogenes? For, in the words of the Cedalion of Sophocles,​35 ye are 'rogues from the whipping-post and the rack, devourers of other men's goods.'

But that you philosophers always have your minds on dinners Bwhen you ought to ask for something in the way of Cynic food to eat up or devour (for it were not lawful for me 'to use pleasing terms'),​36 is plain from what Alexis tells in the play entitled Linus. He imagines Heracles as being educated in the house of Linus and as having been bidden to  p247 select from a large number of books lying beside him and read. So he picked up a book on cookery and held it in both hands very carefully. Linus​37 speaks: 'Go up and take whatever book from there you wish; Cthen looking very carefully at the titles, quietly and at your leisure, you shall read. Orpheus is there, Hesiod, tragedies, Choerilus, Homer, Epicharmus, histories of all sorts. For thus shall you show the bent of your nature. HER. This is the one I shall take. LI. Tell me first what it is. HER. Cookery, as the title declares. LI. You are a philosopher,​38 that's very plain; for, paying no attention to all these other writings, you have picked the treatise of Simus. DHER. Simus, who's he? LI. A very talented fellow. At present he is keen for tragedy, and of all actors he is much the best cook, in the opinion of those who hire him, but of cooks he is the best actor . . .​39 LIN. The fellow has a morbid hunger. HER. Say what you like of me. I am hungry, let me tell you!' "

After Magnus had recited these quotations​40 in order, Cynulcus addressed the philosophers present: "As Cratinus said in The Archilochi (Satirists):​41 E'You have seen what sort of insults that Thasian  p249 pickle barks at us — how neatly and speedily he got his revenge without delay. He is not like the blind talking uselessly to the deaf, let me tell you.' For, oblivious of the court before whom he delivers the display of his clever iambics, and impelled by his native desire to satisfy his belly and his love of jesting, he gives us a recital of wild songs and 'lays discordantly piped and cymbals struck untimely.'​42 FAnd after these nice exhibitions of poor taste he goes about from house to house looking to see where brilliant dinners are preparing, outdoing the poor devil Chaerephon of Athens, of whom Alexis says in The Refugee:​43 'Chaerephon is always inventing some trick; in fact, at this very moment he is trying to get himself dinners for which he pays nothing. For where crockery is exposed for cooks to hire, there he goes, at earliest dawn, and takes his stand; and if he sees it being let out for an entertainment, 165 he learns from the cook who the entertainer is, and if he can but find the front door open wide, he is the first to enter.' And this man, like our noble Magnus, does not hesitate to undertake foreign travel to gratify his appetite; so says the same Alexis in Dying Together:​44 'To get a dinner Chaerephon went uninvited to Corinth; yes, by this time he is flying overseas; so pleasant a thing it is to eat others' food.' BAnd Theopompus said in Odysseus:​45 'The saying of Euripides is not half bad — the really fortunate man dines on others' food.' "

 p251  When, then, all had laughed at this, Ulpian spoke: "That word for 'jesting'​46 — where did these solecistic voluptuaries get it?" Cynulcus answered him: "Why, 'you well-seasoned pig,' the comic poet Phrynichus, in Ephialtes,​47 mentions jesting in these lines: 'Of all the jobs we now have to do, the hardest is to protect oneself from them. CFor they have a kind of sting in their fingers,​48 the flower of man-haters' prime. When they go about the market-place they always speak suavely to all; but when they are seated on the benches,​49 there they tear great scratches in those to whom they speak so suavely, and with one consent deride them.' But the expression, 'use pleasing terms,' is employed by Aeschylus in Prometheus Bound:​50 'Thou shalt know that this is verily so, Dnor is it in me to use pleasing terms.' "

Again Ulpian said: "What, my friends, are the utensils used by cooks?" For they had mentioned these as worthy of notice in the account of the Arcadian dinners.​51 "And where is that word 'prodigal's house'?​52 I know indeed of some notorious prodigals. One is mentioned by Alexis in The Woman of Cnidus:​53 'That scamp Diodorus, in  p253 only two years, has made a football of his patrimony, so rashly has he chewed up all that he had.' EAnd in Phaedrus​54 he says: 'Slowly indeed, yes, by the sun slowly, you say! That little Epicharides in five days has made a football of his patrimony, so rashly and speedily has he squeezed it up into a ball.' And Ctesippus also, the son of Chabrias, went so far in his prodigality that, to indulge his pleasures, he actually sold the stones of his father's monument, on which Athens had spent a thousand drachmas. At any rate, Diphilus says in Worshippers of the Dead:​55 F"If, Phaedimus, Ctesippus, son of Chabrias, had not happened to be a friend, I should have proposed a law not unuseful, in my opinion, — that his father's monument should be some day completed, one stone at a time each year, each large enough to fill a cart, and very cheap material too, say I.' Timocles in Satyrs of the People​56 says: 'No longer does even Ctesippus, son of Chabrias, shave three times a day, 166 bright spark among the ladies, but not among true men.' And Menander says this about him in Temperament:​57 'And yet, wife, I too was once a young man, but in those days I did not bathe five times a day. Now I do. I did not own a fine cloak either. Now I do. Nor did I have perfume. Now I have. And I will have my hair dyed, yes, Zeus be my witness, I will pluck myself smooth, and in a little while I will become Ctesippus  p255 and not a man, Band then, like him, I will eat up the very stones, every one of them; at any rate I won't eat my land and nothing else.' It may be, then, that on account of this great extravagance and licentiousness Demosthenes omitted naming him in the speech On Exemptions.​58 Men who have devoured their inheritances ought to be punished in the way described in Menander's Skipper:​59 'O dearest mother earth, how very reverend a possession, and beyond price, art thou in the eyes of sensible men! For it were only right, of course, that anyone who had inherited an ancestral estate and then devoured it Cshould from that time on for ever sail the seas, and never so much as set foot on land, that he might thus come to see how good a thing he had inherited but failed to save.'

"A prodigal named Pythodelus is mentioned by Axionicus in The Etruscan​60 thus: 'Here comes Pythodelus, surnamed the Dancer, and close at his heels behind him comes reeling that clever girl, Bastinado-fig.'​61 DAnd Anaxandrides holds up Polyeuctus to ridicule in Tereus.​62 He says: 'A. You shall bear the name Rooster. — B. Why, in the name of the hearth goddess? Is it because I have eaten up my father's property, as the noble Polyeuctus did? A. No, of course not; it's because you, a male, have been pecked to pieces by females.' Theopompus, in the tenth book of his History of Philip​63 (though some deny the authenticity of the last part, dealing  p257 with the popular leaders at Athens) — says that the popular leader Eubulus was a prodigal. The language he used is as follows: E'To such an extent has he outdone the people of Tarentum in extravagance and greed, that whereas they were intemperate simply in the matter of banquets, he has made a constant practice of spending even the revenues of Athens to hire mercenaries. But Callistratus, he continues, the son of Callicrates, likewise a popular leader, though he was intemperate in personal indulgence, was careful of the public interests.' And recording the history of Tarentum in the fifty-second book of his Histories​64 he writes as follows: 'The city of Tarentum offers sacrifices of oxen and holds public banquets nearly every month. FThe mass of common people is always busy with parties and drinking-bouts. And the Tarentines have a saying of some such purport as this, that whereas the rest of the world, in their devotion to work and their preoccupation with various forms of industry, are always preparing to live, they themselves, with their parties and their pleasures, do not put off living, but live already.'

"Concerning the extravagance and mode of life of Philip and his companions Theopompus wrote the following in the forty-ninth book of his Histories:​65 167 'After Philip had become possessor of a large fortune he did not spend it fast. No! He threw it outdoors and cast it away, being the worst manager in the world. This was true of his companions as well as himself. For to put it unqualifiedly, not one of them knew how to live uprightly or to manage an estate discreetly. He himself was to blame for this; being insatiable and extravagant, he did everything  p259 in a reckless manner, whether he was acquiring or giving. For as a soldier he had no time to count up revenues and expenditures. BAdd to this also that his companions were men who had rushed to his side from very many quarters; some were from the land to which he himself belonged,​66 others were from Thessaly, still others were from all the rest of Greece, selected not for their supreme merit; on the contrary, nearly every man in the Greek or barbarian world of a lecherous, loathsome, or ruffianly character flocked to Macedonia and won the title of "companions of Philip." And even supposing that one of them was not of this sort when he came, he soon became like all the rest, under the influence of the Macedonian life and habits. CIt was partly the wars and campaigns, partly also the extravagances of living that incited them to be Ruffians, and live, not in a law-abiding spirit, but prodigally and like highwaymen.'

"Duris, in the seventh book of his Macedonian History,​67 speaking of Pasicyprus, king of Cyprus, and his prodigality, writes the following: 'After the siege of Tyre, Alexander, in dismissing Pnytagoras, gave him among other presents a fortress which he himself had asked for. This fortress the reigning king Pasicyprus had before this been compelled by his extravagance to sell Dfor fifty talents to Pygmalion of Citium; along with the fortress went his kingdom too. Pasicyprus took the money and passed his old age in Amathus.' Another spendthrift of this sort, according to Demetrius of Skepsis,68  p261 was Aethiops of Corinth, who is mentioned by Archilochus.​69 For, pleasure-loving and lacking self-control, he, when sailing with Archias to Sicily at the time when Archias was going to found Syracuse, sold to his messmate for a honey-cake the share which he had drawn by lot and was to have in Syracuse. E'Demetrius, the grandson of Demetrius of Phalerum,' as Hegesander​70 says, 'went to such extremes of prodigality that he kept Aristagora of Corinth as his mistress and lived sumptuously. And when the Areopagites summoned him before them and bade him live a better life, he replied, "But I am living as becomes a man of breeding as it is. For I have a mistress who is very fair, I have never wronged any man, I drink Chian wine, and in all other respects I contrive to satisfy myself, since my private revenues are sufficient for these purposes; I do not, as some of you do, live as a venal judge or adulterer." FThereupon he designated by name some who made a practice of these things. And when King Antigonus​71 heard this, he made him a judge.​72 At the Panathenaea, as commander of horse, he reared beside the Hermae​73 a platform for Aristagora higher than the Hermae; and at Eleusis, at the time of the Mysteries, he placed a throne for her beside the temple, after threatening that any who should try to prevent him would be sorry for it.'

168 "That all prodigals, and persons who did not live according to their means, were in ancient times summoned before the Areopagites and punished by  p263 them, is recorded by Phanodemus​74 and Philochorus​75 and several others. For example,​76 they sent for the philosophers, Menedemus and Asclepiades, when they were young and poor, and asked them how it was that though they spent all their days in leisurely association with the philosophers, and possessed no property, yet they were in such good bodily condition; and they told the judges to summon a certain miller. BWhen he arrived he deposed that every night they came to his mill and ground, receiving, both together, two shillings; and in admiration the Areopagites rewarded them with ten pounds. Again, the people of Abdera summoned Democritus to trial in court on the charge of having squandered his patrimony; but when he had read them his great Order of the Universe and told them about the nether world, he explained that he had spent all on these researches, and was acquitted. Those, however, who are not prodigal in this sense, in the words of Amphis,​77 'Drink every day throughout the day,' Cwith temples badly shaken by the unmixed wine; or, as Diphilus​78 says, 'carrying three heads, like an image of Artemis.'​79 'They are enemies of their own property,' as Satyrus says in his work On Characters,​80 'trampling down their fields, pillaging their houses, looting their funds, looking not to what has been spent but to what is going to be spent, not to what will be left over but to what will not be left over; Din their youth squandering too soon the provision  p265 for their old age, delighting in a mistress, not in mates, and in wine, not in the company at wine.' And Agatharchides of Cnidus, in the twenty-eighth book of his European History,​81 says: 'The Ephors in Sparta debarred Gnosippus, since he had proved to be a prodigal, from associating with the young men.' Among the Romans it is recalled, as Poseidonius says in the forty-ninth book of his Histories,​82 that a certain Apicius had outdone the whole world in prodigality. EºThis Apicius is the man who caused the banishment of Rutilius, who had published his History of Rome in the Greek language. Concerning an Apicius who also was notorious for prodigality, we have spoken in the first book.83

"Diogenes of Babylon in his work on Noble Birth​84 says that there was not a man in Athens who did not hate Phocus, the son of Phocion; and whenever one met Phocus he would say to him, 'O you disgrace to your family!' For he spent all his ancestral estate in prodigality, and then began to toady to the ruler of Munichia,​85 for which he was again castigated by all. FAnd once, when donations, over and above taxes, were being subscribed, he came forward also in person before the assembly and said, 'I myself donate';​86 and all the Athenians with one consent cried out, 'Yes, to profligacy.' Phocus was also a drink-lover. At any rate, he  p267 once won in a horse race at the Panathenaea; and when his father entertained his companions with a banquet, the company, on arriving at the dinner, found the preparations elaborate; and as they came in there were brought to them vessels for washing the feet, filled with spiced wine. 169 When his father saw them, he called to Phocus and said, 'Make your comrade stop spoiling your victory!'​87 I know of many other prodigal men besides, but I leave you to inquire into the history of them all excepting Callias the son of Hipponicus, whose story is known even to the slaves who attend schoolboys. But if you have anything to say on the other subjects which I have propounded for discussion before anyone else, 'I hold the portals of my ears spread open wide.'​88 Wherefore speak. For I again ask about the expressions which Magnus used,​89 'to eat up and devour.' "

And Aemilianus said: "You have the word 'prodigals' house' in Strattis, who says in Chrysippus:​90 B'If a body isn't going to have time even to relieve himself, or go to a prodigal's house, or when someone meets him, to stop and say a single word!' "

Cooking utensils are enumerated by Anaxippus in The Harp-singer​91 thus: "Bring a soup ladle, a dozen skewers, a meat hook, mortar, small cheese  p269 scraper, skillet,​92 three bowls, a skinning knife, four cleavers. First bring, won't you, you abomination in the eyes of the gods, the small kettle and the things from the soda-shop.​93 CLate again, are you? Bring also the axe and the rack of frying-pans."

The pot used for boiling is called caccabê by Aristophanes in Women who get the Best Places,​94 thus: "A. Put the pot on the fire. — B. What, the teacher's?" Also in Men of Dinnerville:​95 "And bring the pot from there." Antiphanes in The Pro-Theban:​96 "We now have everything; for the creature which bears the same name as our lady inside, Boeotian 'eel,' is tightly enveloped in the hollow depths of the pot (caccabê); Dit's getting hot, rising high, stewing and spluttering." But in Euthydicus Antiphanes calls the pot batanion:​97 "after that, sliced octopus stewed in pots (batania)." So Alexis in Asclepiocleides:​98 "With such natural aptitude have I learned in Sicily to make fancy dishes, that I cause the feasters now and then to push their teeth into  p271 the pots for very joy." But Antiphanes has patanion, spelled with p, in Marriage:​99 E"Pots (patania), a beet, silphium, boilers, lamps, coriander, onions, salt, olive-oil, a bowl." Philetaerus in Oenopion:​100 "Let this cook Potter advance!" And again: "Methinks Potter will have more pupils than Victor." In The Parasite​101 Antiphanes also has this: "A. Following this another will come, large, filling the table, well-born​102a — B. Whom are you talking about? — A. A creature from Carystus,​102b gigantic,​103 seething. — FB. Well, aren't you going to tell me? Get on! — A. Caccabus I mean; you, perhaps, would call him Casserole. — B. Do you think it makes any difference to me whether people like to call it Caccabus or Sittybus,​104 provided that I know that you are talking about a pot?" But Eubulus, in Ion,​105 has both forms, batania and patania, in these lines: "Bowls, and basins (batania) too, and kettles, casseroles, and patens (patania), sounding in various tones, and — I couldn't begin to tell you if I began to tell."

 p273  170 Alexis has made his own list of seasonings in The Melting-pot​106 as follows: "A. No excuses for me here! No 'I haven't got any'! — B. Well, tell me what you need. I will get everything. — A. All right. Then first go and get sesame seeds. — B. But I have them in the house. — A. A mashed raisin, some fennel, aniseed, mustard, kale,​107 silphium, dried coriander, sumach, cummin, capers, Bmarjoram, horn-onion, garlic, thyme, sage, must, hart-wort, rue, leek." Another list is in The Vigil, or Toilers;​108 he represents a cook as saying: "I'll​109 have to run round and round and shout for anything I may need. You will demand of me your dinner just as soon as you arrive? But I have, as it happens, no vinegar, no anise, no marjoram, no fig-leaves, no oil, no almonds, no garlic, no must, horn-onion, Cbulb, fire, cummin, salt, egg, wood, kneading-trough, frying-pan, well-rope — I have not seen cistern or well. There is no wine jar, and I stand here all in vain, knife in hand, and what's more, my loins girt up for action." And in The Love-lorn Lass:​110 "First of all put some marjoram at the bottom of a large casserole, over that the liqueur, diluted with vinegar in just measure, colouring it with must and silphium; then whip it vigorously."

 p275  DTo "eat up" is used by Telecleides thus in The Prytanes:​111 "Eating up a little cheese." Eupolis has the aorist of the verb in The Taxiarchs:​112 "To eat up nothing, but merely chew an onion and three salted olives." And Aristophanes in Plutus:​113 "in the old days, such was his poverty, he would eat up anything."

---

The Loeb Editor's Notes:

1 Kaibel 193.

❦

2 Kock II.76.

❦

3 Kock II.67.

❦

4 λέπει, "peels," is slang for "chews." See 170D, 246F.

❦

5 Kock II.378.

❦

6 Lit. "clean," cf. 149E.

❦

7 Kock II.370.

❦

8 The refuse of olives from the oil-press.

❦

9 See critical note.

❦

10 Kock II.46; the title refers to those who made a business of recovering fugitive slaves. Indemnities for their loss, paid by contract, constitute the earliest form of assurance.

❦

11 Kock II.37.

❦

12 Kock II.279.

❦

13 F. H. G. IV.413, an epigram on all philosophers.

❦

14 See critical note; the last part of the word is more probably connected with ἐλαύνω than with ἔλαιον.

❦

15 The beginnings of the Novel.

❦

16 Or reading, with Kaibel, ἢ after εἴρηκεν and deleting φιλόσοφος, "all that he (Persaeus) has said about kisses with more particularity than the son of Sophroniscus"; Socrates is meant, Xen. Mem. II.6.33.

❦

17 F. H. G. III.48.

❦

18 Which proved, since he was a poor general, that he was not a wise man. His syllogism was this: All wise men make good generals; I am a wise man; therefore I shall make a good general. The conclusion might be correct, the minor premise was not.

❦

19 Punning on ὁ Κιτιεύς, "he of Citium," and οἰκετιεύς, "from among his slaves."

❦

20 i.e. successive heads of the philosophic schools.

❦

21 Of philosophers; p102 Wilamowitz.

❦

22 Frag. 30 Wachsmuth, 188 Diels, parodying Il. I.225. "Eyes of a fawn" refers to the restless look of the parasite hunting for a dinner. See crit. note.

❦

23 Kock III.326.

❦

24 Lit. "paths" of such groves as the Lyceum, where philosophers gathered; hence "Peripatetic," used of Aristotle's school.

❦

25 The meaning is not clear. The water-clock bore some resemblance to an oil-jug. Apparently this sober man, who is also parsimonious, looks to the contents of his oil-jug as anxiously as a man of business would at a clock.

❦

26 162B.

❦

27 Frag. 56 Wachsmuth, 186 Diels; cf. 279F.

❦

28 Frag. 28 Ribbeck, 23 Brandt; cf. 310C‑E.

❦

29 Lit. "soul of a wingless-locust-booby."

❦

30 F. H. G. III.42.

❦

31 Ibid. I.211.

❦

32 The "Painted Porch" in Athens, meeting-place of the Stoics.

❦

33 On the title cf. 162E, note.

❦

34 Lit. "bright"; cf. Polybius X.5.1, where λαμπρά ἐσθής is used of the toga candida, and Iamblichus XXI.100, where the Pythagoreans' dress is called λευκή.

❦

35 T. G. F.2 202; one title suggests the other, in a kind of pun.

❦

36 Cf. 165C.

❦

37 Kock II.345.

❦

38 i.e. a man of discernment.

❦

39 See critical note. The next remark of Linus is occasioned by watching Heracles read recipes as eagerly as he would eat the food. Heracles and Linus play here the rôles of Oliver Twist and Squeers.

❦

40 From 160D.

❦

41 Kock I.13. Archilochus himself and his bitter invective are here referred to. His father led a colony to Thasos off the coast of Thrace. "The blind to the deaf" seems to be a proverb of an ignorant person instructing a stupid one.

❦

42 T. G. F.2 857; Kock III.616.

❦

43 Kock II.391; cf. Athen. 229B.

❦

44 Kock II.374; Plautus wrote a play entitled Commorientes.

❦

45 Kock I.743, T. G. F.2 647.

❦

46 ἡδυλογία, of Archilochus in 164C.

❦

47 Kock I.370; the verb ἡδυλογεῖν properly means "to speak suavely"; but since "suave" could scarcely be applied to Archilochus, Cynulcus takes ἡδυλογία and ἡδυλογεῖν in the sense of "pleasantries," "witticisms."

❦

48 i.e. the finger of scorn, pointed by the youngsters at their elders.

❦

49 In a courtroom or at a lecture.

❦

50 l. 297; cf. 164B.

❦

51 149A.

❦

52 164A.

❦

53 Kock II.333; "made a ball of" is equivalent to "played battledore and shuttlecock with." The figure changes in the last line.

❦

54 Kock II.387; the first line is ironical. Cf. 58A.

❦

55 More properly Ἐναγίσμασι, Offerings to the Dead, Kock II.552.

❦

56 Kock II.452.

❦

57 Or Anger. Kock III.105, Allinson 416. The first play of Menander which won him a victory (315 B.C.). See Capps, Amer. Journ. Phil. XXI.60.

❦

58 Orat. 20.

❦

59 Kock III.102, Allinson 414.

❦

60 Kock II.412.

❦

61 Ischas, "dried fig," was a courtesan's name. See crit. note.

❦

62 Kock II.156.

❦

63 F. H. G. I.293.

❦

64 F. H. G. I.322.

❦

65 Ibid. I.320.

❦

66 Macedonia; "the land itself," "the very land," a curious expression for "his own land."

❦

67 F. H. G. II.472.

❦

68 Frag. 73 Gaede.

❦

69 P. L. G.4 Frag. 145; Aethiops ("Swarthy") is the Esau ("Hairy") of Greek history. Both got their names from bodily peculiarities.

❦

70 F. H. G. IV.415.

❦

71 Antigonus Gonatas, Droysen, Geschichte des Hellenismus, II.223.

❦

72 Thesmothetes, one of the six junior archons in Athens.

❦

73 Images of Hermes which stood in a row in the Athenian market-place, before which the Panathenaic procession passed.

❦

74 F. H. G.1 368.

❦

75 Ibid. 394.

❦

76 An example e contrario, as often in Athen.

❦

77 Kock II.248; the words διασειόμενοι τοὺς κροτάφους ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀκράτου, though adapted by the speaker to his own sentence, also belong to the poet, cf. Aristoph. Nub. 1276.

❦

78 Kock II.577; Eustath. 1504.62 says that drunken men feel as if they had many heads.

❦

79 Referring to the three-faced (τριπρόσωπα) images of Artemis or Hecate, "Diana of the Cross-roads."

❦

80 F. H. G. III.164.

❦

81 F. H. G. III.193. The Ephors were the five elders who constituted a Board of Control in all Spartan affairs.

❦

82 Ibid. 265. The Apicius here mentioned is not the writer on cookery (see Vol. I Introduction) but lived much earlier. Rutilius Rufus was exiled in 93 B.C. See 274C.

❦

83 7A.

❦

84 Apparently a study of eugenics historically considered.

❦

85 Either the commander of the Macedonian garrison on the Munichian hill which controlled Peiraeus (Wilamowitz) or "the hero of neat-wine drinking," 39C (Kaibel).

❦

86 ἐπιδίδωμι may be used, as here, of voluntary contributions to a good cause or of misplaced devotion to a bad.

❦

87 Plutarch, Phoc. 20, tells this story more lucidly, Phocion, the father, was not the host. On the contrary, he not only gave no banquet, but he had also refused the invitations of others. Yielding at last to the solicitation of one of his son's friends, he attended a dinner in his son's honour. "When he saw the foot-basins, filled with spiced win, offered to the guests as they entered, he called to his son and said, 'Make your comrade stop spoiling your victory!' "

❦

88 Modification of an iambic line? Here end the remarks of Ulpian begun at 165D. The exposition by Aemilianus seems to extend to 174D.

❦

89 164A.

❦

90 Kock I.726; a young man complains of his father's restrictions.

❦

91 Kock III.300.

❦

92 "stirring stick"? στελεόν is properly "axe-haft." Cf. 74A.

❦

93 τὸ νίτρον, "the soda," was that place in the market where dry groceries were sold.

❦

94 Lit. "who preëmpt the tents," i.e. best places for setting up tents at games, parades, fairs, etc. Kock I.515. κακκάβη in these passages suggests κακκᾶν, Lat. cacare.

❦

95 Kock I.445.

❦

96 Kock II.105; cf. Athen 622F. Apparently the courtesan giving the dinner was named Enchelys, "Eel."

❦

97 Kock II.49.

❦

98 Kock II.306; cf. 107D.

❦

99 Kock II.40; from the form πατάνη (colloquial πατάνιον) came Lat. patina, Eng. pan.

❦

100 Kock II.234.

❦

101 Kock II.85.

❦

102a 102b Punning on the first syllable; eugenes suggests Euboea, the southern cape of which is Carystus. Cf. 135E, "casseroles from Euboea."

❦

103 Or "earth-born."

❦

104 The speaker (B.) is trying to emulate the pedant by citing strange words. He picks sittybus ("label" or "title," a piece of leather pasted to a scroll), the meaning of which he does not know himself.

❦

105 Kock II.177; the text is defective, and it is not easy to see how Eubulus could use two forms which differ in dialect merely. See crit. note.

❦

106 Kock II.343, cf. Pollux VI.66.

❦

107 Or "cauliflower."

❦

108 Kock II.362.

❦

109 A cook complains that he has no helper and no supplies. The fig-leaf was often used to wrap and serve food in, like the leaf of grape or cabbage to‑day. Cf. Athen. 9A, 131D.

❦

110 Kock II.367.

❦

111 Presiding officers in the Athenian Council and Assembly; Kock I.215, cf. Athen. 486A.

❦

112 Commanders of the tribal quotas in the Athenian army; Kock I.328.

❦

113 l. 1005, where, however, the best reading is ὑπήσθιεν.

◂ previous						next ▸
Images with borders lead to more information. The thicker the border, the more information. (Details here.)
UP TO:	Athenaeus	Classical Texts	LacusCurtius	Home
A page or image on this site is in the public domain ONLY if its URL has a total of one *asterisk. If the URL has two **asterisks, the item is copyright someone else, and used by permission or fair use. If the URL has none the item is © Bill Thayer. See my copyright page for details and contact information.