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Read Ebook: The Deipnosophists; or Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus Vol. 3 (of 3) by Athenaeus Of Naucratis Yonge Charles Duke Translator
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Ebook has 3387 lines and 157249 words, and 68 pages
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 Philo, 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 Man struck by Lightning, speaking thus--
Alas, you're a philosopher; but I Do think philosophers are only wise 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 Lacedaemonians, 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 wrecked. But Theotimus, who wrote the books against Epicurus, was accused by Zeno the Epicurean, and put to death; as is related by Demetrius the Magnesian, in his treatise on People and Things which go by the same Name.
Why should he practise a perfumer's trade, Sitting beneath a high umbrella 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."
"And those men who live in the Piraeus have such an 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 all that he can borrow is much more actually his own than what his father left him. Has he not got possession of the property of Hermaeus the perfumer, after having seduced his wife, though she was seventy years old? whom he pretended to be in love with, and then treated in such a manner that she reduced her husband and her sons to beggary, and made him a perfumer instead of a pedlar! in so amorous a manner did he handle the damsel, 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.
FOOTNOTES.
?????? meaning, "of double nature."
Iliad, xxiv. 489.
Iliad, ii. 220.
Theognis.
From the Andromeda.
This is a blunder of Athenaeus; for the passage alluded to is evidently that in the Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides. The lines as quoted in the text here are--
?????? ??? ???? ????? ??????????? ??????? ?? ??? ??' ??????? ???? ?? ?' ??? ???????? ??????.
The passage in Euripides is--
Iliad, x. 401.
This fragment is from the Hippodamia.
Ode 67.
This is not from any one of the odes, which we have entire; but is only a fragment.
From ?????, to cut the hair.
From the AEolus.
Iliad, iii. 156.
Ib. iii. 170.
Ib. xx. 234.
Ach. 524.
Pind. Ol. 13.
These are the second and third lines of the Electra of Sophocles.
The Kids was a constellation rising about the beginning of October, and supposed by the ancients to bring storms. Theocritus says--
????? ??' ????????? ??????? ????? ???? ????? ??????.--vii. 53.
?????? means "a young twig."
There is a pun here on her name,--???? meaning a mare.
??????, a cistern; a cellar.
This is a pun on the similarity of the name ??????? to ????, silence.
????? means both an old woman, and the scum on boiled milk.
?????? means both "the womb," and "the new comer."
Punning on the similarity of the name ?????? to ???, a goat.
Punning on the similarity of ?????????, to eat, and ??????, a goat.
The Greek word is ???????????, which might perhaps also mean to bring coolness, from ?????, coolness.
The young man says ??????? ???????????? , but Phryne chooses to suppose that he meant to say ??????? ???????, blows.
This is a pun on the name ???????, as if from ?????, to be stingy.
Anticyra was the name of three islands celebrated as producing a great quantity of hellebore. Horace, speaking of a madman, says:
Si tribus Anticyris caput insanabile nunquam Tonsori Licino commiserit.--A. P. 300.
This probably means a large crane.
From ?????, to weep, and ?????, laughter.
That is, With beautiful Eyelids; from ?????, grace, and ????????, an eyelid.
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