The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 3 (of 3)Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Philosophy
The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 3 (of 3)
Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Civilization, Greco-Roman; Dinners and dining -- Greece; Greece -- Social life and customs; Homosexuality -- Greece
him to be shipwrecked near Myconos, and while every one else perished,
Coiranus alone was saved by a dolphin. And when, at last, he died of
old age in his native country, as it so happened that his funeral
procession passed along the sea-shore close to Miletus, a great shoal
of dolphins appeared on that day in the harbour, keeping only a very
little distance from those who were attending the funeral of Coiranus,
as if they also were joining in the procession and sharing in their
grief."
The same Phylarchus also relates, in the twentieth book of his History,
the great affection which was once displayed by an elephant for a boy.
And his words are these: "But there was a female elephant kept with
this elephant, and the name of the female elephant was Nicæa; and to
her the wife of the king of India, when dying, entrusted her child,
which was just a month old. And when the woman did die, the affection
for the child displayed by the beast was most extraordinary; for it
could not endure the child to be away; and whenever it did not see him,
it was out of spirits. And so, whenever the nurse fed the infant with
milk, she placed it in its cradle between the feet of the beast; and if
she had not done so, the elephant would not take any food; and after
this, it would take whatever reeds and grass there were near, and,
while the child was sleeping, beat away the flies with the bundle. And
whenever the child wept, it would rock the cradle with its trunk, and
lull it to sleep. And very often the male elephant did the same."
[Sidenote: LOVE.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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