Behold the greatest of the gods and dearest
Are come to this city,
For here Demeter[398:1] and Demetrius are
Present in season.
She indeed comes to duly celebrate
The sacred mysteries
Of her most holy daughter—he is present
Joyful and beautiful,
As a god ought to be, with smiling face
Showering his blessings round.
How noble doth he look! his friends around,
Himself the centre.
His friends resemble the bright lesser stars,
Himself is Phœbus.
Hail, ever-mighty Neptune's mightier son;
Hail, son of Venus.
For other gods do at a distance keep,
Or have no ears,
Or no existence; and they heed not us—
But you are present,
Not made of wood or stone, a genuine god.
We pray to thee.
First of all give us peace, O dearest god—
For you are lord of peace—
And crush for us yourself, for you've the power,
This odious Sphinx;
Which now destroys not Thebes alone, but Greece—
The whole of Greece—
I mean th' Ætolian, who, like her of old,
Sits on a rock,
And tears and crushes all our wretched bodies.
Nor can we him resist.
For all th' Ætolians plunder all their neighbours;
And now they stretch afar
Their lion hands; but crush them, mighty lord,
Or send some Œdipus
Who shall this Sphinx hurl down from off his precipice,
Or starve him justly.

[[399]] 64. This is what was sung by the nation which once fought at Marathon, and they sang it not only in public, but in their private houses—men who had once put a man to death for offering adoration to the king of Persia, and who had slain countless myriads of barbarians. Therefore, Alexis, in his Apothecary or Cratevas, introduces a person pledging one of the guests in a cup of wine, and represents him as saying—

Boy, give a larger cup, and pour therein
Four cyathi of strong and friendly drink,
In honour of all present. Then you shall add
Three more for love; one for the victory,
The glorious victory of King Antigonus,
Another for the young Demetrius.

* * * * *

And presently he adds—

Bring a third cup in honour now of Venus,
The lovely Venus. Hail, my friends and guests;
I drink this cup to the success of all of you.

65. Such were the Athenians at that time, after flattery, that worst of wild beasts, had inspired their city with frenzy, that city which once the Pythia entitled the Hearth of Greece, and which Theopompus, who hated them, called the Prytaneum of Greece; he who said in other places that Athens was full of drunken flatterers, and sailors, and pickpockets, and also of false witnesses, sycophants, and false accusers. And it is my opinion that it was they who introduced all the flattery which we have been speaking of, like a storm, or other infliction, sent on men by the gods; concerning which Diogenes said, very elegantly—"That it was much better to go ἐς κόρακας than ἐς κόλακας, who eat up all the good men while they are still alive;" and, accordingly, Anaxilas says, in his Young Woman—

The flatterers are worms which prey upon
All who have money; for they make an entrance
Into the heart of a good guileless man,
And take their seat there, and devour it,
Till they have drain'd it like the husk of wheat,
And leave the shell; and then attack some other.

And Plato says, in his Phædrus—"Nature has mingled some pleasure which is not entirely inelegant in its character of a flatterer, though he is an odious beast, and a great injury to a state." And Theophrastus, in his treatise on Flattery,

[[400]]says that Myrtis the priest, the Argive, taking by the ear Cleonymus (who was a dancer and also a flatterer, and who often used to come and sit by him and his fellow-judges, and who was anxious to be seen in company with those who were thought of consideration in the city), and dragging him out of the assembly, said to him in the hearing of many people, You shall not dance here, and you shall not hear us. And Diphilus, in his Marriage, says—