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
There is a fountain in Tenos the water of which cannot be mixed with
wine. And Herodotus, in his fourth book, says that the Hypanis, at a
distance of five days' journey from its head, is thin and sweet to the
taste; but that four days' journey further on it becomes bitter, because
some bitter spring falls into it. And Theopompus says that near the
river Erigone all the water is sour; and that those who drink of it
become intoxicated, just like men who have drunk wine.
19. But Aristobulus of Cassandra says that there is a fountain in
Miletus called the Achillean, the stream of which is very sweet, while
the sediment is brackish: this is the water in which the Milesians say
that their hero bathed when he had slain Trambelus the king of the
Leleges. And they say, too, that the water in Cappadocia never becomes
putrid, but there is a great deal in that district, of an admirable
quality, though it has no outlet unless it flows underground. And
Ptolemy the king, in the Seventh Book of his Commentaries, says that as
you go to Corinth through the district called Contoporia, when you have
got to the top of the mountain there is a fountain whose waters are
colder than snow, so that many people are afraid to drink of it lest
they should be frozen; but he says that he drank of it himself. And
Phylarchus states that at Cleitor there is a spring which gives those
who drink of it a distaste for the smell of wine. And Clearchus tells us
that water is called white, like milk; and that wine is called red, like
nectar; and that honey and oil are called yellow, and that the juice
which is extracted from the myrtle-berry is black. Eubulus says that
"water makes those who drink nothing else very ingenious,
But wine obscures and clouds the mind;"
and Philetas borrows not only the thought, but the lines.
20. Athenæus then, having delivered this lecture on water, like a
rhetorician, stopped awhile, and then began again.
Amphis, the comic writer, says somewhere or other--
There is, I take it, often sense in wine,
And those are stupid who on water dine.
And Antiphanes says--
Take the hair, it well is written,
Of the dog by whom you're bitten.
Work off one wine by his brother,
And one labour with another;
Horns with horns, and noise with noise,
One crier with his fellow's voice;
Insult with insult, war with war,
Faction with faction, care with care;
Cook with cook, and strife with strife,
Business with business, wife with wife.
The ancients applied the word ἄκρατον even to unmixed water. Sophron
says--
Pour unmix'd water (ὕδωρ ἄκρατον) in the cup.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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