The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 1 (of 3)Athenaeus, of Naucratis
General
The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 1 (of 3)
Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Civilization, Greco-Roman; Dinners and dining -- Greece; Greece -- Social life and customs; Homosexuality -- Greece
saying expressly that barley-cakes are set before the guests at the
copides, (for that is the meaning of the word βάρακες, which does not
mean cheesecakes, as Lycophron asserts, nor barley-meal porridge, as
Eratosthenes believes,) and loaves, and a particular sort of broth very
highly seasoned. Moreover, what the copis is, is very perspicuously
explained by Molpis in his treatise on the Polity of the Lacedæmonians,
where he writes, They also have feasts which they call copides. But the
copis is a supper consisting of barley-cakes, loaves, meat, raw
vegetables, soup, figs, sweetmeats, and warmed wine. Moreover,
sucking-pigs are not called ὀρθαγορίσκοι, as Polemo pronounces the word,
but ὀρθραγορίσκοι, since they are sold at early dawn (πρὸς τὸν ὄρθρον), as
Persæus relates in his treatise on the Lacedæmonian Polity. And
Dioscorides, in the second book of his Polity, and Aristocles, in
the first book of the treatise which he also wrote concerning the
Lacedæmonian Polity, make the same statement. Besides, Polemo says, that
supper is called ἄïκλον by the Lacedæmonians, and that all the rest of
the Dorians give it the same name. For Alcman says--
At the mill and also at the suppers (ταῖς συναικλείαις),
where he uses συναίκλειαι as equivalent to συνδείπνια. And in a subsequent
passage he says--
Alcman prepared an ἄïκλον.
But the Lacedæmonians do not call that portion which is given after the
supper ἄïκλον, nor that which is given after supper at the phiditia;
for that consists of bread and meat: but that is called ἐπάïκλον, being,
as it were, an addition to the ἄïκλον, which is regularly appointed as
a part of the phiditia; and that is what I imagine the name implies.
For the preparation of what is called the ἐπάïκλα is not simple, as
Polemo supposed, but of a two-fold nature. For that which they give
to the boys is very slight and trifling, being merely meal steeped in
oil, which Nicocles, the Lacedæmonian, says that they eat after supper,
wrapped up in leaves of the bay-tree, from which those leaves are called
καμματίδες,[227:1] and the cakes themselves are called κάμματα. And that it
was a custom of the ancients to eat the leaves of the bay-tree at
dessert, Callias or Diocles asserts in the Cyclopes, speaking thus--
You will eat the leaves meant for supper,
And this belongs to the figures which . . .
But what they serve up at the phiditia of the men is prepared of some
few regular animals, one of those who are rich men providing them for
the phiditia, or sometimes several men club together to furnish it. But
Molpis tells us that the ἐπάïκλα are also surnamed ματτύη."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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