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
It is, therefore, with good reason that many cities, and especially
the city of the Lacedæmonians, as Chamæleon says in his book on
Simonides, will not admit either rhetoric or philosophy, on account
of the jealousy, and strife, and profitless discussions to which they
give rise; owing to which it was that Socrates was put to death; he,
who argued against the judges who were given him by lot, discoursing
of justice to them when they were a pack of most corrupt men. And it
is owing to this, too, that Theodorus the Atheist was put to death,
and that Diagoras was banished; and this latter, sailing away when he
was banished, was wrecked. But Theotimus, who wrote the books against
Epicurus, was accused by Zeno the Epicurean, and put to death; as is
related by Demetrius the Magnesian, in his treatise on People and
Things which go by the same Name.
93. And, in short, according to Clearchus the Solensian, you do not
adopt a manly system of life, but you do really aim at a system which
might become a dog; but although this animal has four excellent
qualities, you select none but the worst of his qualities for your
imitation. For a dog is a wonderful animal as to his power of smelling
and of distinguishing what belongs to his own family and what does not;
and the way in which he associates with man, and the manner in which
he watches over and protects the houses of all those who are kind to
him, is extraordinary. But you who imitate the dogs, do neither of
these things. For you do not associate with men, nor do you distinguish
between those with whom you are acquainted; and being very deficient
in sensibility, you live in an indolent and indifferent manner. But
while the dog is also a snarling and greedy animal, and also hard in
his way of living, and naked; these habits of his you practise, being
abusive and gluttonous, and, besides all this, living without a home
or a hearth. The result of all which circumstances is, that you are
destitute of virtue, and quite unserviceable for any useful purpose in
life. For there is nothing less philosophical than those persons who
are called philosophers. For whoever supposed that Æschines, the pupil
of Socrates, would have been such a man in his manners as Lysias the
orator, in his speeches on the Contracts, represents him to have been;
when, out of the dialogues which are extant, and generally represented
to be his work, we are inclined to admire him as an equitable and
moderate man? unless, indeed, those writings are in reality the work of
the wise Socrates, and were given to Æschines by Xanthippe, the wife of
Socrates, after his death, which Idomeneus asserts to be the case.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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