(Third Century A.D.)
ittle is known that is authentic about the Græco-Egyptian Sophist or man of letters, Athenaeus, author of the 'Deipnosophistæ' or Feast of the Learned, except his literary bequest. It is recorded that he was born at Naucratis, a city of the Nile Delta; and that after living at Alexandria he migrated to Rome. His date is presumptively fixed in the early part of the third century by his inclusion of Ulpian, the eminent jurist (whose death occurred A.D. 228) among the twenty-nine guests of the banquet whose wit and learning furnished its viands. He was perhaps a contemporary of the physician Galen, another of the putative banqueters, who served as a mouthpiece of the author's erudition.
Probably nothing concerning him deserved preservation except his unique work, the 'Feast of the Learned.' Of the fifteen books transmitted under the above title, the first two, and portions of the third, eleventh, and fifteenth, exist only in epitome--the name of the compiler and his time being equally obscure; yet it is curious that for many centuries these garbled fragments were the only memorials of the author extant. The other books, constituting the major portion of the work, have been pronounced authentic by eminent scholars with Bentley at their head. Without the slightest pretense of literary skill, the 'Feast of the Learned' is an immense storehouse of Ana, or table-talk. Into its receptacles the author gathers fruitage from nearly every branch of contemporary learning. He seemed to anticipate Macaulay's "vice of omniscience," though he lacked Macaulay's incomparable literary virtues. Personal anecdote, criticism of the fine arts, the drama, history, poetry, philosophy, politics, medicine, and natural history enter into his pages, illustrated with an aptness and variety of quotation which seem to have no limit. He preserves old songs, folk-lore, and popular gossip, and relates whatever he may have heard, without sifting it. He gives, for example, a vivid account of the procession which greeted Demetrius Poliorketes:--
"When Demetrius returned from Leucadia and Corcyra to Athens, the Athenians received him not only with incense and garlands and libations, but they even sent out processional choruses, and greeted him with Ithyphallic hymns and dances. Stationed by his chariot-wheels, they sang and danced and chanted that he alone was a real god; the rest were sleeping or were on a journey, or did not exist: they called him son of Poseidon and Aphrodite, eminent for beauty, universal in his goodness to mankind; then they prayed and besought and supplicated him like a god."
The hymn of worship which Athenaeus evidently disapproved has been preserved, and turned into English by the accomplished J.A. Symonds on account of its rare and interesting versification. It belongs to the class of Prosodia, or processional hymns, which the greatest poets delighted to produce, and which were sung at religious festivals by young men and maidens, marching to the shrines in time with the music, their locks crowned with wreaths of olive, myrtle, or oleander; their white robes shining in the sun.
"See how the mightiest gods, and best beloved,
Towards our town are winging!
For lo! Demeter and Demetrius
This glad day is bringing!
She to perform her Daughter's solemn rites;
Mystic pomps attend her;
He joyous as a god should be, and blithe,
Comes with laughing splendor.
Show forth your triumph! Friends all, troop around,
Let him shine above you!
Be you the stars to circle him with love;
He's the sun to love you.
Hail, offspring of Poseidon, powerful god,
Child of Aphrodite!
The other deities keep far from earth;
Have no ears, though mighty;
They are not, or they will not hear us wail:
Thee our eye beholdeth;
Not wood, not stone, but living, breathing, real,
Thee our prayer enfoldeth.
First give us peace! Give, dearest, for thou canst;
Thou art Lord and Master!
The Sphinx, who not on Thebes, but on all Greece
Swoops to gloat and pasture;
The Ætolian, he who sits upon his rock,
Like that old disaster;
He feeds upon our flesh and blood, and we
Can no longer labor;
For it was ever thus the Ætolian thief
Preyed upon his neighbor;
Him punish Thou, or, if not Thou, then send
Oedipus to harm him,
Who'll cast this Sphinx down from his cliff of pride,
Or to stone will charm him."
The Swallow song, which is cited, is an example of the folk-lore and old customs which Athenaeus delighted to gather; and he tells how in springtime the children used to go about from door to door, begging doles and presents, and singing such half-sensible, half-foolish rhymes as--
"She is here, she is here, the swallow!
Fair seasons bringing, fair years to follow!
Her belly is white,
Her back black as night!
From your rich house
Roll forth to us
Tarts, wine, and cheese;
Or, if not these,
Oatmeal and barley-cake
The swallow deigns to take.
What shall we have? or must we hence away!
Thanks, if you give: if not, we'll make you pay!
The house-door hence we'll carry;
Nor shall the lintel tarry;
From hearth and home your wife we'll rob;
She is so small,
To take her off will be an easy job!
Whate'er you give, give largess free!
Up! open, open, to the swallow's call!
No grave old men, but merry children we!"
The 'Feast of the Learned' professes to be the record of the sayings at a banquet given at Rome by Laurentius to his learned friends. Laurentius stands as the typical Mæcenas of the period. The dialogue is reported after Plato's method, or as we see it in the more familiar form of the 'Satires' of Horace, though lacking the pithy vigor of these models. The discursiveness with which topics succeed each other, their want of logic or continuity, and the pelting fire of quotations in prose and verse, make a strange mixture. It may be compared to one of those dishes known both to ancients and to moderns, in which a great variety of scraps is enriched with condiments to the obliteration of all individual flavor. The plan of execution is so cumbersome that its only defense is its imitation of the inevitably disjointed talk when the guests of a dinner party are busy with their wine and nuts. One is tempted to suspect Athenaeus of a sly sarcasm at his own expense, when he puts the following flings at pedantry in the mouths of some of his puppets:--
"And now when Myrtilus had said all this in a connected statement, and when all were marveling at his memory, Cynulcus said,--
'Your multifarious learning I do wonder at, Though there is not a thing more vain and useless.'
"Says Hippo the Atheist, 'But the divine Heraclitus also says, 'A great variety of information does not usually give wisdom.' And Timon said, ... '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?'"
'Your multifarious learning I do wonder at, Though there is not a thing more vain and useless.'
This passage shows the redundancy of expression which disfigures so much of Athenaeus. It is also typical of the cudgel-play of repartee between his characters, which takes the place of agile witticism. But if he heaps up vast piles of scholastic rubbish, he is also the Golden Dustman who shows us the treasure preserved by his saving pedantry. Scholars find the 'Feast of the Learned' a quarry of quotations from classical writers whose works have perished. Nearly eight hundred writers and twenty-four hundred separate writings are referred to and cited in this disorderly encyclopedia, most of them now lost and forgotten. This literary thrift will always give rank to the work of Athenaeus, poor as it is. The best editions of the original Greek are those of Dindorf (Leipzig, 1827), and of Meineke (Leipzig, 1867). The best English translation is that of C.D. Yonge in 'Bonn's Classical Library,' from which, with slight alterations, the appended passages are selected.
WHY THE NILE OVERFLOWS
From the 'Deipnosophistæ'
Thales the Milesian, one of the Seven Wise Men, says that the overflowing of the Nile arises from the Etesian winds; for that they blow up the river, and that the mouths of the river lie exactly opposite to the point from which they blow; and accordingly, that the wind blowing in the opposite direction hinders the flow of the waters; and the waves of the sea, dashing against the mouth of the river, and coming on with a fair wind in the same direction, beat back the river, and in this manner the Nile becomes full to overflowing. But Anaxagoras, the natural philosopher, says that the fullness of the Nile arises from the snow melting; and so too says Euripides, and some others of the tragic poets. Anaxagoras says this is the sole origin of all that fullness; but Euripides goes further and describes the exact place where this melting of the snow takes place.
HOW TO PRESERVE THE HEALTH
From the 'Deipnosophistæ'
One ought to avoid thick perfumes, and to drink water that is thin and clear, and that in respect of weight is light, and that has no earthy particles in it. And that water is best which is of moderate heat or coldness, and which, when poured into a brazen or silver vessel, does not produce a blackish sediment. Hippocrates says, "Water which is easily warmed or easily chilled is alway lighter." But that water is bad which takes a long time to boil vegetables; and so too is water full of nitre, or brackish. And in his book 'On Waters,' Hippocrates calls good water drinkable; but stagnant water he calls bad, such as that from ponds or marshes. And most spring-water is rather hard.
Erasistratus says that some people test water by weight, and that is a most stupid proceeding. "For just look," says he, "if men compare the water from the fountain Amphiaraus with that from the Eretrian spring, though one of them is good and the other bad, there is absolutely no difference in their respective weights." And Hippocrates, in his book 'On Places,' says that those waters are the best which flow from high ground, and from dry hills, "for they are white and sweet, and are able to bear very little wine, and are warm in winter and cold in summer." And he praises those most, the springs of which break toward the east, and especially toward the northeast, for they must be inevitably clear and fragrant and light. Diocles says that water is good for the digestion and not apt to cause flatulency, that it is moderately cooling, and good for the eyes, and that it has no tendency to make the head feel heavy, and that it adds vigor to the mind and body. And Praxagoras says the same; and he also praises rain-water. But Euenor praises water from cisterns, and says that the best is that from the cistern of Amphiaraus, when compared with that from the fountain in Eretria.
That water is really nutritious is plain from the fact that some animals are nourished by it alone, as for instance grasshoppers. And there are many other liquids that are nutritious, such as milk, barley water, and wine. At all events, animals at the breast are nourished by milk; and there are many nations who drink nothing but milk. And it is said that Democritus, the philosopher of Abdera, after he had determined to rid himself of life on account of his extreme old age, and after he had begun to diminish his food day by day, when the day of the Thesmophorian festival came round, and the women of his household besought him not to die during the festival, in order that they might not be debarred from their share in the festivities, was persuaded, and ordered a vessel full of honey to be set near him: and in this way he lived many days with no other support than honey; and then some days after, when the honey had been taken away, he died. But Democritus had always been fond of honey; and he once answered a man, who asked him how he could live in the enjoyment of the best health, that he might do so if he constantly moistened his inward parts with honey, and the outer man with oil. And bread and honey was the chief food of the Pythagoreans, according to the statement of Aristoxenus, who says that those who eat this for breakfast were free from disease all their lives. And Lycus says that the Cyrneans (a people who live near Sardinia) are very long-lived, because they are continually eating honey; and it is produced in great quantities among them.
AN ACCOUNT OF SOME GREAT EATERS
From the Deipnosophistæ
Heraclitus, in his 'Entertainer of Strangers,' says that there was a woman named Helena who ate more than any other woman ever did. And Posidippus, in his 'Epigrams,' says that Phuromachus was a great eater, on whom he wrote this epigram:--
This lowly ditch now holds Phuromachus,
Who used to swallow everything he saw,
Like a fierce carrion crow who roams all night.
Now here he lies wrapped in a ragged cloak.
But, O Athenian, whosoe'er you are,
Anoint this tomb and crown it with a wreath,
If ever in old times he feasted with you.
At last he came sans teeth, with eyes worn out,
And livid, swollen eyelids; clothed in skins,
With but one single cruse, and that scarce full;
Far from the gay Lenæan Games he came,
Descending humbly to Calliope.
Amarantus of Alexandria, in his treatise on the Stage, says that Herodorus, the Megarian trumpeter, was a man three cubits and a half in height; and that he had great strength in his chest, and that he could eat six pounds of bread, and twenty litræ of meat, of whatever sort was provided for him, and that he could drink two choes of wine; and that he could play on two trumpets at once; and that it was his habit to sleep on only a lion's skin, and when playing on the trumpet he made a vast noise. Accordingly, when Demetrius the son of Antigonus was besieging Argos, and when his troops could not bring the battering ram against the walls on account of its weight, he, giving the signal with his two trumpets at once, by the great volume of sound which he poured forth, instigated the soldiers to move forward the engine with great zeal and earnestness; and he gained the prize in all the games ten times; and he used to eat sitting down, as Nestor tells us in his 'Theatrical Reminiscences.' And there was a woman, too, named Aglais, who played on the trumpet, the daughter of Megacles, who, in the first great procession which took place in Alexandria, played a processional piece of music; having a head-dress of false hair on, and a crest upon her head, as Posidippus proves by his epigrams on her. And she too could eat twelve litræ of meat and four choenixes of bread, and drink a choenus of wine, at one sitting.
There was besides a man of the name of Lityerses, a bastard son of Midas, the King of Celænæ, in Phrygia, a man of a savage and fierce aspect, and an enormous glutton. He is mentioned by Sositheus, the tragic poet, in his play called 'Daphnis' or 'Lityersa'; where he says:--
"He'll eat three asses' panniers, freight and all,
Three times in one brief day; and what he calls
A measure of wine is a ten-amphorae cask;
And this he drinks all at a single draught."
And the man mentioned by Pherecrates, or Strattis, whichever was the author of the play called 'The Good Men,' was much such another; the author says:--
"A.--I scarcely in one day, unless I'm forced,
Can eat two bushels and a half of food.
B.--A most unhappy man! how have you lost
Your appetite, so as now to be content
With the scant rations of one ship of war?"
And Xanthus, in his 'Account of Lydia,' says that Cambles, who was the king of the Lydians, was a great eater and drinker, and also an exceeding epicure; and accordingly, that he one night cut up his own wife into joints and ate her; and then, in the morning, finding the hand of his wife still sticking in his mouth, he slew himself, as his act began to get notorious. And we have already mentioned Thys, the king of the Paphlagonians, saying that he too was a man of vast appetite, quoting Theopompus, who speaks of him in the thirty-fifth book of his 'History'; and Archilochus, in his 'Tetrameters,' has accused Charilas of the same fault, as the comic poets have attacked Cleonymus and Pisander. And Phoenicides mentions Chærippus in his 'Phylarchus' in the following terms:--
"And next to them I place Chærippus third;
He, as you know, will without ceasing eat
As long as any one will give him food,
Or till he bursts,--such stowage vast has he,
Like any house."
And Nicolaus the Peripatetic, in the hundred and third book of his 'History,' says that Mithridates, the king of Pontus, once proposed a contest in great eating and great drinking (the prize was a talent of silver), and that he himself gained the victory in both; but he yielded the prize to the man who was judged to be second to him, namely, Calomodrys, the athlete of Cyzicus. And Timocreon the Rhodian, a poet and an athlete who had gained the victory in the pentathlum, ate and drank a great deal, as the epigram on his tomb shows:--
"Much did I eat, much did I drink, and much
Did I abuse all men; now here I lie:--
My name Timocreon, my country Rhodes."
And Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, in one of his prefaces, says that Timocreon came to the great king of Persia, and being entertained by him, did eat an immense quantity of food; and when the king asked him, What he would do on the strength of it? he said that he would beat a great many Persians; and the next day having vanquished a great many, one after another, taking them one by one, after this he beat the air with his hands; and when they asked him what he wanted, he said that he had all those blows left in him if any one was inclined to come on. And Clearchus, in the fifth book of his 'Lives,' says that Cantibaris the Persian, whenever his jaws were weary with eating, had his slaves to pour food into his mouth, which he kept open as if they were pouring it into an empty vessel. But Hellanicus, in the first book of his Deucalionea, says that Erysichthon, the son of Myrmidon, being a man perfectly insatiable in respect of food, was called Æthon. Also Polemo, in the first book of his 'Treatise addressed to Timæus,' says that among the Sicilians there was a temple consecrated to gluttony, and an image of Demeter Sito; near which also there was a statue of Himalis, as there is at Delphi one of Hermuchus, and as at Scolum in Boeotia there are statues of Megalartus and Megalomazus.
THE LOVE OF ANIMALS FOR MAN
From the 'Deipnosophistæ'
And even dumb animals 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." This Secundus was a slave of Nicomedes, the king of Bithynia; as Nicander informs us in the sixth book of his essay on 'The Revolutions of Fortune.' And at Ægium, 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 Hermeas 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, and 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 palæstra 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."
The dolphin is in fact an animal which is very fond of men, and very intelligent, and one very susceptible of gratitude. Accordingly, Phylarchus, in his twelfth book, says:--
"Coiranus the Milesian, 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, Coiranus 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 seashore close to Miletus, a great shoal of dolphins appeared on that day in the harbor, keeping only a very little distance from those who were attending the funeral of Coiranus, 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:--
"Now 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, intrusted 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; 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."