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
50. But Antigonus the Carystian, in his essay on the Life of Dionysius
of Heraclea, who was called the Turncoat, says that Dionysius, when he
was feasting with his slaves at the festival of the Choes, and was not
able, by reason of his old age, to avail himself of the courtesan whom
they brought him, turned round and said to those who were feasting with
him—
I cannot now, so let another take her.
But Dionysius, as Nicias of Nicæa tells us in his Successions, had
been from the time he was a boy very furious in the indulgence of
his amorous propensities; and he used to go to all the common women
promiscuously. And once, when walking with some of his acquaintances,
when he came near the house where the girls are kept, and where,
having been there the day before, he had left some money owing, as he
happened to have some with him then, he put out his hand and paid it
in the presence of all of them. And Anacharsis the Scythian, when a
prize for drinking was proposed at the table of Periander, demanded the
prize, because he was the first man to be drunk of all the guests who
were present; as if to get to the end were the goal to be aimed at,
and the victory to be achieved in drinking as in running a race. But
Lacydes and Timon the philosophers, being invited to an entertainment
which was to last two days, by one of their friends, and wishing to
adapt themselves to the rest of the guests, drank with great eagerness.
And accordingly, in the first day, Lacydes went away first, as soon
as he was quite satiated with drink. And Timon, seeing him as he was
departing, said—
Now have we gain'd immortal praise and fame,
Since we have slain great Hector. . . .
But on the next day Timon went away first because he could not drink
up the goblet in which he had been pledged, and Lacydes seeing him
departing, said—
Wretched are they who dare encounter me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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