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
54. Themistocles received from the king of Persia Lampsacus, to supply
him with wine; Magnesia, for bread; Myus, for meat; and Percope and
Palæscepsis were to provide him with bedclothes and garments. The king
moreover enjoined him to wear a cloak such as is worn by the barbarians,
as he had previously bade Demaratus do; and he gave him the same
presents as he had formerly given to Demaratus, and added also a robe
such as is worn by the sons-in-law of the king, on condition of his
never reassuming the Greek attire. And Cyrus the Great gave Pytharchus
of Cyzicus, being a friend of his, seven cities, as is related by
Agathocles of Babylon; namely, Pedasus, and Olympius, and Cama, and
Tium, and Sceptra, and Artypsus, and Tortyra. But he, being made
insolent and having his head turned by this liberality, attempted to
make himself tyrant of his country, and collected an army for that
purpose. On which the people of Cyzicus went out to battle against him,
and attacked him eagerly, and so preserved their liberties.
Among the people of Lampsacus Priapus is held in high honour, being the
same as Bacchus, and having this name Priapus only as an epithet, just
as Thriambus and Dithyrambus are.
The Mitylenæans have a sweet wine which they call πρόδρομος, and others
call it πρότροπος.
55. The Icarian wine, too, is held in high estimation, as Amphis
says:--
Thurium gives the olive juice,
Lentils Gela's fields produce;
Icarian wine well merits praise,
And figs which the Cimolians raise.
The Pramnian wine, too, according to Eparchides, is produced in Icarus.
It is a peculiar kind of wine; and it is neither sweet nor thick, but
dry and hard, and of extraordinary strength; and Aristophanes says that
the Athenians did not like it, for that "the Athenian people did not
like hard and sour poets, nor hard Pramnian wines, which contract the
eyebrows and the stomach; but they prefer a fragrant wine, ripe, and
flavoured like nectar." For Semus says that there is in Icarus a rock
called the Pramnian rock; and near it is a great mountain, from which
the Pramnian wine has its name, and some call it a medicinal wine. Now
Icarus used formerly to be called the Fishy Icarus, from the number of
fish around it; just as the Echinades had their name from the
sea-urchins, and the promontory Sepias from the number of cuttle-fish
which are taken near it. And in like manner the Lagussæ islands are so
called from λαγὼς, a hare, as being full of hares. And other islands
are called Phycussæ, and Lopadussæ, for similar reasons. And according
to Eparchides, the vine which produces the Icarian Pramnian wine, is
called by the strangers the Holy vine, and by the people of Œnoe the
Dionysiac vine. And Œnoe is a city in the island.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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