Carrying a trencher.”
For such are the begging priests of Cybele. Hence Antisthenes replies appropriately to their request for alms:
“I do not maintain the mother of the gods,
For the gods maintain her.”
Again, the same writer of comedy, expressing his dissatisfaction with the common usages, tries to expose the impious arrogance of the prevailing error in the drama of the Priestess, sagely declaring:
“If a man drags the Deity
Whither he will by the sound of cymbals,
He that does this is greater than the Deity;
But these are the instruments of audacity and means of living
Invented by men.”