The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 2 (of 3)Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Philosophy
The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 2 (of 3)
Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Civilization, Greco-Roman; Dinners and dining -- Greece; Greece -- Social life and customs; Homosexuality -- Greece
Stratonicus said once to the father of Chrysogonus, when he was saying
that he had everything at home in great abundance, for that he himself
had undertaken the works, and that of his sons, one could teach[13]
and another play the flute; "You still," said Stratonicus, "want one
thing." And when the other asked him what that was, "You want," said
he, "a theatre in your house." And when some one asked him why he kept
travelling over the whole of Greece, and did not remain in one city, he
said—"That he had received from the Muses all the Greeks as his wages,
from whom he was to levy a tax to atone for their ignorance." And he
said that Phaon did not play harmony,[14] but Cadmus. And when Phaon
pretended to great skill on the flute, and said that he had a chorus
at Megara, "You are joking," said he; "for you do not possess anything
there, but you are possessed yourself." And he said—"That he marvelled
above all things at the mother of Satyrus the Sophist, because she had
borne for nine months a man whom no city in all Greece could bear for
nine days." And once, hearing that he had arrived in Ilium at the time
of the Ilian games, "There are," said he, "always troubles in Ilium."
And when Minnacus was disputing with him about music, he said—"That
he was not attending to what he said, because he had got in above his
ankles." At another time he said of a bad physician—"That he made those
who were attended by him go to the shades below the very day they came
to him." And having met one of his acquaintances, when he saw his
sandals carefully sponged, he pitied him as being badly off, pretending
to think that he would never have had his sandals so well sponged if
he had not sponged them himself. And as it was a very mixed race of
people who lived at Teichius, a town in the Milesian territory, when
he saw that all the tombs about were those of foreigners, "Let us
begone, O boy," said he; "for all the strangers, as it seems, die here,
and none of the citizens." And when Zethus the harper was giving a
lecture upon music, he said that he was the only person who was utterly
unfit to discuss the subject of music, inasmuch as he had chosen the
most unmusical of all names, and called himself Zethus[15] instead of
Amphion. And once, when he was teaching some Macedonian to play on the
harp, being angry that he did nothing as he ought, he said, "Go to
Macedonia."
[Sidenote: STRATONICUS.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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