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 χαριτογλωσσεῖν (to speak so as to please) is used by
Æschylus in the Prometheus Vinctus--
You shall know this for true; nor is it mine
χαριτογλωσσεῖν.
And when Ulpian said again, But what, my friends, is meant by cooks'
instruments? for these things were mentioned, and were thought worthy of
being enumerated in the Arcadian banquets: and also where is the word
ἀσώτιον (abode of luxury) to be found? For I know that the adjective
ἄσωτος is common enough. And Alexis speaks of a luxurious extravagant man
in his Cnidia, saying--
Diodorus, most extravagant of men,
In two brief years did make his patrimony
Into a football, with such headlong speed
Did he devour everything.
And again, in the Phædrus, he says--
You tell me of a very slow proceeding;
For in five days the little Epicharides
Made ducks and drakes of all his father's property,
So quickly and entirely did he swallow it.
60. And Ctesippus the son of Chabrias carried his extravagance and
intemperance to such a height, that he sold even the stones of his
father's tomb, on which the Athenians had spent a thousand drachmæ, to
furnish means for his luxury. And accordingly Diphilus says in his Men
offering Sacrifices to the Dead--
If Chabrias's son, the young Ctesippus,
Had not become a friend of Phædimus,
I should have brought a wholesome law forward
To cause his father's monument to be finished.
That each of all the citizens should give
A stone of size to fill a waggon, and
I say that that would not be much for him.
And Timocles, in his Demosatyri, says--
Ctesippus, the fine son of Chabrias,
Has ceased to shave himself three times a-day.
A great man among women, not with men.
And Menander, in his "Anger," says this of him--
And I too once was a young man, O woman,
Nor did I then five several times a-day
Bathe, as I now do bathe; nor at that time
Had I a soft cloak, such as now I have,
Nor such perfumes as now; now I will paint myself,
And pluck my hair, by Jove. Aye, I will be
Ctesippus, not a man; and in brief time
I too, like him, will eat up all the stones,
For I'll not be content with earth alone.
And perhaps it was on account of this extravagant luxury and debauchery
that Demosthenes has handed down his name in his treatise on Immunities.
But those who have devoured their patrimony ought to be punished in such
a way as this, like the Nauclerus of Menander. For Menander says--
O dearest mother of all mortals, Earth,
How kind you are to all possess'd of sense;
How worthy of all honour! Sure that man
Who like a spendthrift eats his patrimony,
Should be condemn'd to sail about for ever
And never reach the shore; that he might feel
To what great good he'd been insensible.
61. And Axionicus speaks of a certain Pythodelus as a very intemperate
man, in his Etrurian, saying--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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