Jesting with highly-praised felicity,
Loved by the citizens of fair Syracuse.
But he who once has heard Bœotus' song,
Will find but little pleasure in Eubœus."
57. After all this discussion had been entered into on many occasions, once when evening overtook us, one of us said,—Boy, bring a light (λύχνειον). But some one else used the word λυχνεὼς, and a third called it λοφνίας, saying that that was the proper name for a torch made of bark; another called it πανός; and another φανός.—This one used the word λυχνοῦχος, and that one λύχνος. Some one else again said ἐλάνη, and another said ἕλαναι, insisting on it that that was the proper name for a lamp, being derived from ἔλη, brightness; and urging that Neanthes used this word in the first book of his History of Attalus. Others, again, of the party made use of whatever other words they fancied; so that there was no ordinary noise; while all were vying with one another in adducing every sort of argument which bore upon the question. For one man said that Silenus, the dictionary-maker, mentioned that the Athenians call lamps φανοί. But Timachidas of Rhodes asserts that for φανὸς, the word more properly used is δέλετρον, being a sort of lantern which young men use when out at night, and which they themselves call ἕλαναι. But Amerias for φανὸς uses the word γράβιον. And this word is thus explained by Seleucus:—"Γράβιον is a stick of ilex or common oak, which, being pounded and split, is set on fire, and used to give light to travellers. Accordingly Theodoridas of Syracuse, in his Centaurs, which is a dithyrambic poem, says—
The pitch dropp'd down beneath the γράβια,
As if from torches.
Strattis also, mentions the γράβια in his Phœnician Women."
58. But that what are now called φανοὶ used to be called λυχνοῦχοι, we learn from Aristophanes, in his Æolosicon—
I see the light shining all o'er his cloak,