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
20. But Phylarchus, in the twenty-fifth book of his History, (having
said that there was a law at Syracuse, that the women should not
wear golden ornaments, nor garments embroidered with flowers, nor
robes with purple borders, unless they professed that they were
public prostitutes; and that there was another law, that a man should
not adorn his person, nor wear any extraordinarily handsome robes,
different from the rest of the citizens, unless he meant to confess
that he was an adulterer and a profligate: and also, that a freewoman
was not to walk abroad when the sun had set, unless she was going
to commit adultery; and even by day they were not allowed to go out
without the leave of the regulators of the women, and without one
female servant following them,)—Phylarchus, I say, states, that "the
Sybarites, having given loose to their luxury, made a law that women
might be invited to banquets, and that those who intended to invite
them to sacred festivities must make preparation a year before, in
order that they might have all that time to provide themselves with
garments and other ornaments in a suitable manner worthy of the
occasion, and so might come to the banquet to which they were invited.
And if any confectioner or cook invented any peculiar and excellent
dish, no other artist was allowed to make this for a year; but he alone
who invented it was entitled to all the profit to be derived from
the manufacture of it for that time; in order that others might be
induced to labour at excelling in such pursuits. And in the same way,
it was provided that those who sold eels were not to be liable to pay
tribute, nor those who caught them either. And in the same way the laws
exempted from all burdens those who dyed the marine purple and those
who imported it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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