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
also sent all over the country people to lie in wait, as it were, for
every one who was travelling, and they brought them to him; and he put
them to death without any trial, torturing and racking them into the
bargain. And he also instituted prosecutions for treason against several
people, saying that they were co-operating with the exiles to effect
their return. And some of the parties prosecuted fled out of fear before
the trials came on, and some were condemned before the tribunals, he
himself giving his own vote and collecting those of the others. And he
brought about in the city a scarcity of the things necessary for life,
stinting the citizens of their proper quantity of barley and wheat. He
also sent out heavy-armed soldiers over the country, to hunt out any of
those who had fled and who could be found within the borders of the
land, or any of the Athenians who were escaping beyond the borders. And
whoever was detected he beat to death; and some of them he exhausted
beforehand with tortures; and he caused proclamation to be made, that
all must be in their houses by sunset, and that no one should presume to
walk abroad with a lantern-bearer.
53. "And he not only plundered the property of the citizens, but that of
foreigners also, laying his hands even on the property of the god which
was laid up at Delos; sending Apellicon into the island, who was a Scian
by birth, but who had become a citizen of Athens, and who lived a most
whimsical and ever-changing course of life. For at one time he was a
philosopher, and collected all the treatises of the Peripatetics, and
the whole library of Aristotle, and many others; for he was a very rich
man; and he had also stolen a great many autograph decrees of the
ancients out of the temple of the Mighty Mother, and whatever else there
was ancient and taken care of in other cities; and being detected in
these practices at Athens he would have been in great danger if he had
not made his escape; and a short time afterwards he returned again,
having paid his court to many people, and he then joined himself to
Athenion, as being a man of the same sect as he was. And Athenion,
having embraced the doctrines of the Peripatetics, measured out a
chœnix of barley, as four days' allowance for the ignorant Athenians,
giving them what was barely food enough for fowl, and not the proper
nutriment for men. And Apellicon, coming in great force to Delos, and
living there more like a man exhibiting a spectacle than a general with
soldiers, and placing guards in a very careless manner on the side of
Delos, and leaving all the back of the island unguarded, and not even
putting down a palisade in front of his camp, went to rest. And Orobius,
the Roman general, hearing of this, who was at that time in command at
Delos, watching for a moonless night, led out his troops, and falling on
Apellicon and his soldiers, who were all asleep and drunk, he cut the
Athenians and all those who were in the army with them to pieces, like
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