O son of wise Ulysses, what a word
has 'scaped thy ivory fence! . . . .

For it is not right for a man to be a flatterer, nor a mocker.

Again, Epicurus, in his banquet, inquires about indigestion, so as to draw an omen from the answer: and immediately after that he inquires about fevers; for why need I speak of the general want of rhythm and elegance which pervades the whole essay? But Plato, (I say nothing about his having been harassed by a cough, and about his taking care of himself with constant gargling of water, and also by inserting a straw, in order that he might excite his nose so as to sneeze; for his object was to turn things into ridicule and to disparage them,) Plato, I say, turns into ridicule the equalized sentences and the antitheses of Agathon, and introduces Alcibiades, saying that he is in a state of excitement. But still those men who write in this manner, propose to expel Homer from their cities. But, says Demochares, "A spear is not made of a stalk of savory," nor is a good man made so by such discourses as these; and not only does he disparage

[[299]]Alcibiades, but he also runs down Charmides, and Euthydemus, and many others of the young men. And this is the conduct of a man ridiculing the whole city of the Athenians, the Museum of Greece, which Pindar styled The Bulwark of Greece; and Thucydides, in his Epigram addressed to Euripides, The Greece of Greece; and the priest at Delphi termed it, The Hearth and Prytaneum of the Greeks. And that he spoke falsely of the young men one may perceive from Plato himself, for he says that Alcibiades, (in the dialogue to which he has prefixed his name,) when he arrived at man's estate, then first began to converse with Socrates, when every one else who was devoted to the pleasures of the body fell off from him. But he says this at the very beginning of the dialogue. And how he contradicts himself in the Charmides any one who pleases may see in the dialogue itself. For he represents Socrates as subject to a most unseemly giddiness, and as absolutely intoxicated with a passion for Alcibiades, and as becoming beside himself, and yielding like a kid to the impetuosity of a lion; and at the same time he says that he disregarded his beauty.

13. But also the banquet of Xenophon, although it is much extolled, gives one as many handles to blame it as the other. For Callias assembles a banqueting party because his favourite Autolycus has been crowned at the Panathenæa for a victory gained in the Pancratium. And as soon as they are assembled the guests devote their attention to the boy; and this too while his father is sitting by. "For as when light appears in the night season it attracts the eyes of every one, so does the beauty of Autolycus attract the eyes of everybody to itself. And then there was no one present who did not feel something in his heart because of him; but some were more silent than others, and some betrayed their feelings by their gestures." But Homer has never ventured to say anything of that sort, not even when he represents Helen as present; concerning whose beauty though one of those who sat opposite to her did speak, all he said, being overcome by the truth, was this—

Sure 'tis no wonder such celestial charms
For nine long years have set the world in arms.
What winning graces, what majestic mien—
She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen![299:1]

[[300]] And then he adds—

Yet hence, O heaven, convey that fatal face;
And from destruction save the Trojan race.

But the young men who had come to Menelaus's court, the son of Nestor and Telemachus, when over their wine, and celebrating a wedding feast, and though Helen was sitting by, kept quite quiet in a decorous manner, being struck dumb by her renowned beauty. But why did Socrates, when to gratify some one or other he had tolerated some female flute-players, and some boy dancing and playing on the harp, and also some women tumbling and posture-making in an unseemly manner, refuse perfumes? For no one would have been able to restrain his laughter at him, recollecting these lines—

You speak of those pale-faced and shoeless men,
Such as that wretched Socrates and Chærephon.