[220] Diodor. xv, 29.
[221] Cornel. Nepos, Iphicrates, c. 2; Chabrias, c. 2, 3.
[222] See an interesting Fragment (preserved by Athenæus, iv, p. 131) of the comedy called Protesilaus—by the Athenian poet Anaxandrides (Meineke, Comic. Græc. Frag. iii, p. 182). It contains a curious description of the wedding of Iphikrates with the daughter of Kotys in Thrace; enlivened by an abundant banquet and copious draughts of wine given to crowds of Thracians in the market-place:—
δειπνεῖν δ’ ἄνδρας βουτυροφάγας
αὐχμηροκόμας μυριοπληθεῖς, etc.,
brazen vessels as large as wine vats, full of broth,—Kotys himself girt round, and serving the broth in a golden basin, then going about to taste all the bowls of wine and water ready mixed, until he was himself the first man intoxicated. Iphikrates brought from Athens several of the best players on the harp and flute.
The distinction between the butter eaten, or rubbed on the skin, by the Thracians, and the olive-oil habitually consumed in Greece, deserves notice. The word αὐχμηροκόμας seems to indicate the absence of those scented unguents which, at the banquet of Greeks, would have been applied to the hair of the guests, giving to it a shining gloss and moisture. It appears that the Lacedæmonian women, however, sometimes anointed themselves with butter, and not with oil; see Plutarch, adv. Koloten, p. 1109 B.
The number of warlike stratagems in Thrace, ascribed to Iphikrates by Polyænus and other Tactic writers, indicates that his exploits there were renowned as well as long-continued.
[223] Theopomp. Fragm. 175, ed. Didot; Demosth. cont. Aristokrat. p. 664.
[224] Xenoph. Anab. vii, 2, 38; vii, 5, 8; vii, 6, 43. Xen. Hellen. i, 5, 17; Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 36.