86. But you, O philosophers, are far fiercer than dolphins and elephants, and are also much more untameable; although Persæus the Cittiæan, in his Recollections of Banquets, says loudly,—"It is a very consistent subject of conversation at drinking parties for men to talk of amatory matters; for we are naturally inclined to such topics after drinking. And at those times we should praise those who indulge in that kind of conversation to a moderate and temperate degree, but blame those who go to excess in it, and behave in a beastly manner. But if logicians, when assembled in a social party, were to talk about syllogisms, then a man might very fairly think that they were acting very unseasonably. And a respectable and virtuous man will at times get drunk; but they who wish to appear extraordinarily temperate, keep up this character amid their cups for a certain time, but afterwards, as the wine begins to take effect on them, they descend to every kind of impropriety and indecency. And this was the case very lately with the ambassadors who came to Antigonus from Arcadia; for they sat at dinner with great severity of countenance, and with great propriety, as they thought,—not only not looking at any one of us, but not even looking at one another. But as the wine went round, and music of different kinds was introduced, and when the Thessalian dancing-women, as their fashion is, came in, and danced quite naked, except that they had girdles round their waists, then the men could not restrain themselves any longer, but jumped up off the couches, and shouted as if they were beholding a most gratifying sight; and they congratulated the king because he had it in his power to indulge in such pastimes; and they did and said a great many more vulgar things of the same kind.
"And one of the philosophers who was once drinking with us, when a flute-playing girl came in, and when there was plenty of room near him, when the girl wished to sit down near him, would not allow her, but drew himself up and looked grave. And then afterwards, when the girl was put up to auction, as is often the fashion at such entertainments, he was exceedingly eager to buy her, and quarrelled with the man who sold her, on the ground that he had knocked her down too speedily to some one else; and he said that the auctioneer had not fairly sold her. And at last this grave philosopher, he who at first would not permit the girl even to sit near him, came to blows about her." And perhaps this very philosopher, who came to blows about the flute-playing girl, may have been Persæus himself; for Antigonus the Carystian, in his treatise on Zeno, makes the following statement:—"Zeno the Cittiæan, when once Perseus at a drinking-party bought a flute-playing girl, and after that was afraid to bring her home, because he lived in the same house with Zeno, becoming acquainted with the circumstance, brought the girl home himself, and shut her up with Persæus." I know, also, that Polystratus the Athenian, who was a pupil of Theophrastus, and who was surnamed the Tyrrhenian, used often to put on the garments of the female flute-players.
87. Kings, too, have shown great anxiety about musical women; as Parmenion tells us in his Letter to Alexander, which he sent to that monarch after he had taken Damascus, and after he had become master of all the baggage of Darius. Accordingly, having enumerated all the things which he had taken, he writes as follows:—"I found three hundred and twenty-nine concubines of the king, all skilled in music; and forty-six men who were skilful in making garlands, and two hundred and seventy-seven confectioners, and twenty-nine boilers of pots, and thirteen cooks skilful in preparing milk, and seventeen artists who mixed drinks, and seventy slaves who strain wine, and forty preparers of perfumes." And I say to you, O my companions, that there is no sight which has a greater tendency to gladden the eyes than the beauty of a woman. Accordingly Œneus, in the play of Chæremon the tragedian, speaking of some maidens whom he had seen, says, in the play called Œneus,—
And one did lie with garment well thrown back,
Showing her snow-white bosom to the moon:
Another, as she lightly danced, display'd
The fair proportions of her lefthand side,
Naked—a lovely picture for the air
To wanton with; and her complexion white
Strove with the darkening shades. Another bared