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
Xenophon also, in his Banquet, mentions jesters; introducing Philip, of
whom he speaks in the following manner:—"But Philip the jester, having
knocked at the door, told the boy who answered, to tell the guests who
he was, and that he was desirous to be admitted; and he said that he
came provided with everything which could qualify him for supping at
other people's expense. And he said, too, that his boy was in a good
deal of distress because he had brought nothing, and because he had had
no dinner." And Hippolochus the Macedonian, in his epistle to Lynceus,
mentions the jesters Mandrogenes and Strato the Athenian. And at Athens
there was a great deal of this kind of cleverness. Accordingly, in the
Heracleum at Diomea[62] they assembled to the number of sixty, and they
were always spoken of in the city as amounting to that number, in such
expressions as—"The sixty said this," and, "I am come from the sixty."
And among them were Callimedon, nicknamed the Crab, and Dinias, and
also Mnasigeiton and Menæchmus, as Telephanes tells us in his treatise
on the City. And their reputation for amusing qualities was so great,
that Philip the Macedonian heard of it, and sent them a talent to
engage them to write out their witticisms and send them to him. And
the fact of this king having been a man who was very fond of jokes is
testified to us by Demosthenes the orator in his Philippics.
[Sidenote: JESTERS.]
Demetrius Poliorcetes was a man very eager for anything which could
make him laugh, as Phylarchus tells us in the sixth book of his
History. And he it was who said, "that the palace of Lysimachus was
in no respect different from a comic theatre; for that there was no
one there bigger than a dissyllable;"[63] (meaning to laugh at Bithys
and Paris, who had more influence than anybody with Lysimachus, and at
some others of his friends;) "but that his friends were Peucesteses,
and Menelauses, and Oxythemises." But when Lysimachus heard this, he
said,—"I, however, never saw a prostitute on the stage in a tragedy;"
referring to Lamia the female flute-player. And when this was reported
to Demetrius, he rejoined,—"But the prostitute who is with me, lives in
a more modest manner than the Penelope who is with him."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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