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
And the word μονόμαχος appears not to be derived from the noun μάχη, but
rather from the verb μάχεσθαι. For as often as a word compounded of μάχη
ends in ος, as in the words σύμμαχος, πρωτόμαχος, ἐπίμαχος, ἀντίμαχος, and the
φιλόμαχος race of Perseus, spoken of by Pindar, then it is acuted on the
antepenultima; but when it has the acute accent on the penultima, then
the verb μάχεσθαι comes in; as is shown in the words πυγμάχος, ναυμάχος; in
the expression αὐτόν σε πυλαμάχε πρῶτον, in Stesichorus; and the nouns
ὁπλομάχος, τειχομάχος, πυργομάχος. But Posidippus the comic writer, in his
Pornoboscus, says--
The man who never went to sea has never shipwreck'd been,
But we have been more miserable than μονομαχοῦντες (gladiators
in single combat).
And that even men of reputation and captains fought in single combat,
and did so in accordance with premeditated challenges, we have already
said in other parts of this discussion. And Diyllus the Athenian says,
in the ninth book of his Histories, that Cassander, when returning from
Bœotia, after he had buried the king and queen at Ægæ, and with them
Cynna the mother of Eurydice, and had paid them all the other honours to
which they were entitled, celebrated also a show of single combats, and
four of the soldiers entered the arena on that occasion.
43. But Demetrius the Scepsian, in the twelfth book of Trojan Array,
says, "that at the court of Antiochus the king, who was surnamed the
Great, not only did the friends of the king dance in arms at his
entertainments, but even the king himself did so. And when the turn to
dance came to Hegesianax the Alexandrian from the Troas, who wrote the
Histories, he rose up and said--'Do you wish, O king, to see me dance
badly, or would you prefer hearing me recite my own poems very well?'
Accordingly, being ordered rather to recite his poems, he sang the
praises of the king in such a manner, that he was thought worthy of
payment, and of being ranked as one of the king's friends for the time
to come. But Duris the Samian, in the seventeenth book of his Histories,
says that Polysperchon, though a very old man, danced whenever he was
drunk,--a man who was inferior to no one of the Macedonians, either as a
commander or in respect of his general reputation: but still that he put
on a saffron robe and Sicyonian sandals, and kept on dancing a long
time." But Agatharchides the Cnidian, in the eighth book of his History
of Asia, relates that the friends of Alexander the son of Philip once
gave an entertainment to the king, and gilded all the sweetmeats which
were to be served up in the second course. And when they wanted to eat
any of them, they took off the gold and threw that away with all the
rest which was not good to eat, in order that their friends might be
spectators of their sumptuousness, and their servants might become
masters of the gold. But they forget that, as Duris also relates, Philip
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