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
47. And Theopompus gives a regular catalogue of men fond of drinking
and addicted to drunkenness; and among them he mentions the younger
Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, whose eyes were a good deal injured
by wine. And Aristotle, in his Polity of the Syracusans, says that
he sometimes was drunk for three months at a time together, owing to
which he had got somewhat weak in the eyes. And Theophrastus says
that his companions also, who were flatterers of the supreme power,
pretended not to see well, and to be led by the hand by Dionysius, and
not to be able to see the meat that was served up before them, nor the
cups of wine, on which account they got the name of Dionysiocolaces,
or flatterers of Dionysius. Nysæus also, who was tyrant of Syracuse,
drank a great deal, and so did Apollocrates; and these men were the
sons of the former Dionysius, as Theopompus tells us in the fortieth
and forty-first books of his History; and he writes thus about Nysæus:
"Nysæus, who was afterwards tyrant of Syracuse, when he was taken for
the purpose of being put to death, and knew that he had only a few
months to live, spent them wholly in eating and drinking." And in his
thirty-ninth book he says: "Apollocrates, the son of Dionysius the
tyrant, was an intemperate man, and addicted to drinking; and some
of his flatterers worked upon him so as to alienate him as much as
possible from his father." And he says that Hipparinus, the son of
Dionysius, who behaved like a tyrant when drunk, was put to death.
And about Nysæus he writes as follows: "Nysæus, the son of the elder
Dionysius, having made himself master of Syracuse, got a four-horse
chariot, and put on an embroidered robe, and devoted himself to
gluttony and hard drinking, and to insulting boys and ravishing women,
and to all other acts which are consistent with such conduct. And he
passed his life in this manner." And in his forty-fifth book the same
historian, speaking of Timolaus the Theban, says: "For though there
have been a great many men who have been intemperate in their daily
life, and in their drinking, I do not believe that there has ever
been any one who was concerned in state affairs, more intemperate,
or a greater glutton, or a more complete slave to his pleasures than
Timolaus, whom I have mentioned." And in his twenty-third book,
speaking of Charidemus of Oreum, whom the Athenians made a citizen, he
says: "For it was notorious that he spent every day in the greatest
intemperance, and in such a manner that he was always drinking and
getting drunk, and endeavouring to seduce free-born women; and he
carried his intemperance to such a height that he ventured to beg a
young boy, who was very beautiful and elegant, from the senate of the
Olynthians, who had happened to be taken prisoner in the company of
Derdas the Macedonian."
[Sidenote: ARCADION.]
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