In due proportion mix'd.
These things, my good Timocrates, are not, as Plato says, the sportive conversations of Socrates in his youth and beauty, but the serious discussions of the Deipnosophists; for, as Dionysius the Brazen says,—
What, whether you begin or end a work,
Is better than the thing you most require?
* * * * *
Footnotes.
[109] This is one of the fragments of unknown plays of Euripides.
[110] The original text here is very corrupt, and the meaning uncertain.
[111] This is parodied from Homer, Iliad, iv. 204,—
Ὄρσ', Ἀσκληπιάδη, καλέει κρείων Ἀγαμέμνων.
[112] Casaubon says these tools (σκευάρια) were the κρηπῖδες (boots) and κότυλος (small cup) mentioned in the following iambics.
[113] This line, and one or two others in this fragment, are hopelessly corrupt.
[114] The manes was a small brazen figure.
[115] The text here is corrupt, and is printed by Schweighauser—
Τοῦ δ' ἀγκυλητοῦ κόσσαβός ἐστι σκοπὸς
Ἐκτεμὼν ἡβῶσα χεὶρ ἀφίετο,
which is wholly unintelligible; but Schweighauser gives an emended reading, which is that translated above.
[116] See below, c. 54.
[117] Iliad, i. 470.
[118] Odyss. viii. 170.
[119] Schweighauser confesses himself unable to guess what is meant by these words.
[120] See the account of this battle, Herod, i. 82.
[121] The Gymnopædiæ, or "Festival of naked Youths," was celebrated at Sparta every year in honour of Apollo Pythæus, Diana, and Latona. And the Spartan youths danced around the statues of these deities in the forum. The festival seems to have been connected with the victory gained over the Argives at Thyrea, and the Spartans who had fallen in the battle were always praised in songs on the occasion.—V. Smith, Dict. Gr. Lat. Ant. in voc.
[122] Glaucus.
[123] The rest of this extract is so utterly corrupt, that Schweighauser says he despairs of it so utterly that he has not even attempted to give a Latin version of it.
[124] Ar. Thesm. 458.
[125] Phaselis is a town in Lycia. The land which worships Diana is the country about Ephesus and Magnesia, which last town is built where the Lethæus falls into the Mæander; and it appears that Diana was worshipped by the women of this district under the name of Leucophrys, from λευκὸς, white, and ὄφρυς, an eyebrow.
[126] The text here is hopelessly corrupt, and indeed is full of corruption for the next seven lines: I have followed the Latin version of Dalecampius.
[127] There is some corruption in this name.
[128] Hom. Odyss. xx. 17.
[129] Ibid. 13.
[130] Hom. Iliad, vii. 216.
[131] Iliad, x. 96.
[132] This is not from any extant play.
[133] Hom. Iliad, xxiii. 186.
[134] Ibid. xiv. 172.
[135] Ibid. xiv. 170.
[136] In the Thesmophoriazusæ Secundæ that is, which has not come down to us.
[137] Aristoph. Eccl. 1117.
[138] Pandrosos, according to Athenian mythology, was a daughter of Cecrops and Agraulos. She was worshipped at Athens, and had a temple near that of Minerva Polias.—Smith, Diet. Gr. and Rom. Biog.
[139] It is hardly necessary to say that this beautiful translation is by Lord Denman. It is given also at p. 176 of the translation of the Greek Anthology in this series.
[140] This refers to the Alcmæonidæ, who, flying from the tyranny of Hippias, after the death of Hipparchus, seized on and fortified the town Leipsydrium, on Mount Parnes, and were defeated and taken by the Pisistratidæ.—See Herod, v. 62.
[141] Hermias was tyrant of Atarneus and Assos, having been originally the minister of Eubulus, whom he succeeded. He entertained Aristotle at his court for many years. As he endeavoured to maintain his kingdom in independence of Persia, they sent Mentor against him, who decoyed him to an interview by a promise of safe conduct, and then seized him and sent him to Artaxerxes, by whom he was put to death.
[142] Colabri were a sort of song to which the armed dance called κολαβρισμὸς was danced.
[143] This is a parody on Iliad, i. 275,— Μήτε σὺ τόνδ' ἀγαθός περ ἐὼν, ἀποαίρεο κούρην, where Eubœus changes κούρην, maiden, into κουρεῖ, barber.
[144] There is a hiatus here in the text of Athenæus, but he refers to Ag. 284,—
πέγαν δὲ πανὸν ἐκ νήσου τρίτον
ἄθωον αἶπος Ζηνὸς ἐξεδέξατο,
where Clytæmnestra is speaking of the beacon fires, which had conveyed to her the intelligence of the fall of Troy.
[145] Iliad, xvii. 663.
[POETICAL FRAGMENTS]
QUOTED BY ATHENÆUS,
RENDERED INTO ENGLISH VERSE BY VARIOUS AUTHORS.
Apollodorus. (Book i. § 4, p. 4.)