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
44. But Idomeneus tells us that the Pisistratidæ also, Hippias and
Hipparchus, instituted banquets and entertainments; on which account
they had a vast quantity of horses and other articles of luxury. And
this it was that made their government so oppressive. And yet their
father, Pisistratus, had been a moderate man in his pleasures, so that
he never stationed guards in his fortified places, nor in his gardens,
as Theopompus relates in his twenty-first book, but let any one who
chose come in and enjoy them, and take whatever he pleased. And Cimon
afterwards adopted the same conduct, in imitation of Pisistratus. And
Theopompus mentions Cimon in the tenth book of his History of the
Affairs of Philip, saying—"Cimon the Athenian never placed any one in
his fields or gardens to protect the fruit, in order that any of the
citizens who chose might go in and pick the fruit, and take whatever
they wanted in those places. And besides this, he opened his house to
every one, and made a daily practice of providing a plain meal for a
great number of people; and all the poor Athenians who came that way
might enter and partake of it. He also paid great attention to all
those who from day-to-day came to ask something of him; and they say
that he used always to take about with him one or two young men bearing
bags of money. And he ordered them to give money to whoever came to him
to ask anything of him. And they say that he also often contributed
towards the expense of funerals. And this too is a thing that he often
did; whenever he met any citizen badly clad, he used to order one of
the young men who were following him to change cloaks with him. And so
by all these means he acquired a high reputation, and was the first of
all the citizens."
But Pisistratus was in many respects very oppressive; and some say
that that statue of Bacchus which there is at Athens was made in his
likeness.
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