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
64. But Demetrius carried his extravagance to such a height, he, I mean,
who was the descendant of Demetrius Phalereus, according to the account
of Hegesander, that he had Aristagora the Corinthian for a mistress, and
lived in a most expensive manner. And when the Areopagitæ summoned him
before them, and ordered him to live more decorously--"But even now,"
said he, "I live like a gentleman, for I have a most beautiful mistress,
and I do no wrong to any one, and I drink Chian wine, and I have a
sufficiency of everything, as my own revenues suffice for all these
expenses. And I do not live as some of you do, corrupted by bribes
myself, and intriguing with other men's wives." And hereupon he
enumerated some who acted in this manner by name. And Antigonus the
king, having heard this, made him a thesmothete. And he, being an
hipparch at the Panathenæa, erected a seat close to the statues of
Mercury for Aristagora, higher than the Mercuries themselves. And when
the mysteries were celebrated at Eleusis, he placed a seat for her close
to the temple, saying that those who endeavoured to hinder him should
repent it.
65. But Phanodemus, and also Philochorus, have related that in former
times the judges of the Areopagus used to summon before them and to
punish profligate and extravagant men, and those who had no ostensible
means of living: and many others have told the same story. At all
events, those judges sent for Menedemus and Asclepiades the philosophers
when they were young men and poor, and asked them how they managed to
look so sleek and comfortable when they spent the whole day idling with
philosophers, and had no property. And they replied that some one of the
men about the mill had better be sent for. And when he came and said
that they came every night to the mill and threshed and ground the corn,
and each earned two drachmæ, the judges of the Areopagus marvelled, and
presented them with two hundred drachmæ as a reward.
And the citizens of Abdera brought Democritus to trial, on the ground
that he had wasted the estate which he had inherited from his father.
And when he had read to them his Great World, and his treatise
concerning the Things in the Shades below, and had said that he had
spent it on these works, he was discharged.
66. But those men who are not so luxurious, as Amphis says--
Drink two entire days in every day,
Shaking their heads through their too mighty draughts.
And according to Diphilus--
Having three heads, like to Diana's statue.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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