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
But Plato not being content with all these strange stories, introduces
the valour which was displayed, or rather which was invented by him at
Delium. For if Socrates had even taken Delium, as Herodicus the
Cratetian has reported in his Treatise to Philosocrates, he would have
fled disgracefully as all the rest did, when Pagondas sent two squadrons
of cavalry unperceived round the hill. For then some of the Athenians
fled to Delium, and some fled to the sea, and some to Oropus, and some
to Mount Parnes. And the Bœotians, especially with their cavalry,
pursued them and slew them; and the Locrian cavalry joined in the
pursuit and slaughter. When then this disorder and alarm had seized upon
the Athenians, did Socrates alone, looking proud and casting his eyes
around, stand firm, turning aside the onset of the Bœotian and
Locrian cavalry? And yet does Thucydides make no mention of this valour
of his, nor even any poet either. And how was it that he yielded to
Alcibiades the prize of preeminent valour, who had absolutely never
joined in this expedition at all? But in the Crito, Plato, that
favourite of Memory, says that Socrates had never once gone out of
Attica, except when he once went to the Isthmian games. And Antisthenes,
the Socratic philosopher, tells the same tale as Plato about the
Aristeia; but the story is not true. For this Dog flatters Socrates in
many particulars, on which account we must not believe either of them,
keeping Thucydides for our guide. For Antisthenes even exaggerates this
false story, saying,--"'But we hear that you also received the prize of
preeminent valour in the battle which took place against the
Bœotians.' 'Be quiet, my friend, the prize belongs to Alcibiades, not
to me.' 'Yes, but you gave it to him as we are told.'" But Plato's
Socrates says that he was present at Potidæa, and that he yielded the
prize of preeminent valour to Alcibiades on that occasion. But by the
universal consent of all historians the expedition against Potidæa, in
which Phormio commanded, was previous to the one against Delium.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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