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
95. And after this again, after he had run through the accusation of
Æschines, and had explained how he had borrowed the money, and how he
never paid either interest or principal, and how, when an action was
brought against him, he had allowed judgment to go by default, and how
a branded slave of his had been put forward by him as security; and
after he had brought a good many more charges of the same kind against
him, he thus proceeded:—"But, O judges, I am not the only person to
whom he behaves in this manner, but he treats every one who has any
dealings with him in the same manner. Are not even all the wine-sellers
who live near him, from whom he gets wine for his entertainments
and never pays for it, bringing actions against him, having already
closed their shops against him? And his neighbours are ill-treated
by him to such a degree that they leave their own houses, and go and
rent others which are at a distance from him. And with respect to all
the contributions which he collects, he never himself puts down the
remaining share which is due from him, but all the money which ever
gets into this pedlar's hands is lost as if it were utterly destroyed.
And such a number of men come to his house daily at dawn, to ask for
their money which he owes them, that passers-by suppose he must be
dead, and that such a crowd can only be collected to attend his funeral.
"And those men who live in the Piræus have such an opinion of him, that
they think it a far less perilous business to sail to the Adriatic
than to deal with him; for he thinks that all that he can borrow is
much more actually his own than what his father left him. Has he not
got possession of the property of Hermæus the perfumer, after having
seduced his wife, though she was seventy years old? whom he pretended
to be in love with, and then treated in such a manner that she reduced
her husband and her sons to beggary, and made him a perfumer instead
of a pedlar! in so amorous a manner did he handle the damsel, enjoying
the fruit of her youth, when it would have been less trouble to him to
count her teeth than the fingers of her hand, they were so much fewer.
And now come forward, you witnesses, who will prove these facts.—This,
then, is the life of this sophist."
These, O Cynulcus, are the words of Lysias. But I, in the words of
Aristarchus the tragic poet,
Saying no more, but this in self-defence,
will now cease my attack upon you and the rest of the Cynics.
FOOTNOTES.
[12] διφυὴς meaning, "of double nature."
[13] Iliad, xxiv. 489.
[14] Iliad, ii. 220.
[15] Theognis.
[16] It is not known from what play this fragment comes. It is
given in the Variorum Edition of Euripides, _Inc. Fragm._ 165.
[17] From the Andromeda.
[18] This is a blunder of Athenæus; for the passage alluded to
is evidently that in the Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides. The lines as
quoted in the text here are—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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