Athenaeus - Deipnosophists Book XIV
Book XIV. 614 d - 615 a
Hippolochus of Macedon, again, in his Letter to Lynceus mentions as jesters Mandrogenes and Straton of Athens. For at Athens there was an abundance of these clever gentry. At any rate, in the temple of Heracles, in the deme Diomeia, they were in the habit of assembling to the number of sixty, and in the city itself they bore a special name: “The sixty said so-and-so,” or, “I’ve just come from the sixty.” Among them were Callimedon the Crayfish and Deinias, also Mnasigeiton and Menaechmus, as Telephanes declares in his work On the City of Athens. So great was their reputation for light humour that Philip of Macedon, when he heard of them, sent them a talent to have their jests copied out and brought to him. Now that this king keenly loved jests is borne out by the orator Demosthenes in his Philippics. Fond of jesting also was Demetrius Poliorcetes, as Phylarchus says in the sixth book of his Histories. Demetrius used say that the court of Lysimachus differed in no respect from a scene in a comedy; for all the characters that appeared in the scene had disyllabic names, - thus poking fun at Bithys and at Paris, who were in very high favour with Lysimachus, and some others among his friends; whereas from his own court came Peucesteses and Menelauses, and even Oxythemises. When Lysimachus heard this he said: “Well, I for my part have never seen a whore appearing in a tragic scene,” referring to the flute-girl Lamia. And on this being reported to him Demetrius once more took him up and said: “But any whore at my court lives more chastely than any Penelope at his.”
Book XIV. 616 b – c
Our dinner-party did not suffer for lack of joke-lovers. Concerning one person of this sort Chrysippus again writes in the same book*: “A certain joker was on the point of having his throat cut by the public executioner, when he said that he was willing to die after he had said one more thing in the way of a swan song. On the executioner giving him permission he made jokes.” King Lysimachus, says Myrtilus, did a good thing when, as often happened, he was joked about and roused to indignation by such persons. For Telesphorus, one of his lieutenants, had once made a joke at a drinking-party at the expense of Arsinoe (she was the wife of Lysimachus), who was subject to vomiting, and he said, quoting: “You are starting trouble by bring in this vomiting woman (this Muse).” When Lysimachus heard it he commanded him to be thrown into a cage, in which he was carried about and kept like a wild beast until this punishment brought about his death.
* “On Pleasure and the Good”.
Book XIV. 620 a - b
Rhapsodists were not missing from our drinking parties either. For Larensis enjoyed the poems of Homer as no one else ever has; so much so as to make Cassander, who once ruled Macedonia, look ridiculous. For of him Carystius says in Historical Notes that he was so fond of Homer that he had the greater part of the epics at his tongue’s end. He had even made copies of the Iliad and Odyssey with his own hand.
Book XIV. 629 a – b
Not bad was the remark of the flute-player Caphisias*; one of his pupils started to play with a big blow, and practised that constantly; but Caphisias whacked him and said, “Good playing consists not in bigness, but bigness depends upon good playing.”
* One of Alexander’s artists.
Book XIV. 629 d
The less violent kinds, performed in closer order and with simpler dance-movement, have these names; daktyloi, iambike, Molossian emmeleia, kordax, Satyr’s whirl, Persian, the Phrygian nibatismos, the Thracian pig-dance, the telesiad; this last is a Macedonian dance, during a performance of which Ptolemy’s men slew Alexander, Philip’s brother, as recorded* by Marsyas in the third book of his Macedonian History.
* Script. Alex. 42, J. 2 B 739. Alexander II, son of Amyntas III, reigned over Macedonia from 370 to 368, when he was overthrown by his brother-in-law Ptolemy of Alorus; Diod. xv. 71, Plut. Pelop. 27.
Book XIV. 636 a – b
Diogenes the tragic poet, however, thinks that the pectis differed from the magadis, speaking as follows in his Semele: “And yet I hear that the turban-wearing women of Asian Cybele, the daughters of rich Phrygians, with drums and bull-roarers and booming of bronze cymbals in their two hands make loud din…celebrating her who is the wise minstrel of the gods and healer as well. And I hear that the Lydian and Bactrian maidens dwelling beside the Halys river worship the goddess of Tmolus, Artemis, in her laurel-shaded grove the while they, ‘mid plucking of triangles and pectides, thrum the magadis in responsive twanging, where also the flute, in Persian fashion, joins its welcome concord to the chorus.”
Book XIV. 639 c
Berosus, in the first book of his Babylonian History, says that in the month of Loos*, on the sixteenth day, there was held in Babylon a festival called Sacaea, extending over five days, wherein it was customary for the masters to be ruled by their slaves, and one of them, as leader of the household, was clothed in a robe similar to the king’s; he was called the zoganes. The festival is mentioned also by Ctesias in the second book of his Persian History.
* Macedonian month.
Book XIV. 657 d - e
“To cackle goose-fashion” is said of flute-players. Diphilus in Synoris: “You’ve cackled like a goose; that’s what all the fellows in Timotheus’s* house do”
* Timotheus, flute-player at Alexander’s wedding.
Book XIV. 659 d – 660 a
It is, therefore, not to be wondered at if the ancient cooks were also versed in the ritual of sacrifice; for they presided, at any rate, over weddings and festival-sacrifices. Hence Menander in The Flatterers represents the cook who served the people at the festival of Aphrodite Pandemus on the fourth day of the month as saying, in these words: “A libation! You, there, follow me and give me the viscera. Where are your eyes? A libation! Come, my slave Sosias, a libation. Good. Now pour in. Let us pray to all the Olympians, gods and goddesses alike. Take the tongue.* For this may they grant us safety, health, and blessings many, and, for us all, enjoyment of our present blessings. Be this our prayer.” And another cook says in Simonides: “How I singed that hog and cut up its meat in ritual fashion; for I understand that well.” Their skill is revealed in the Letter to Alexander from Olympias. Urging him to purchase from herself a cook versed in sacrificial rites, his mother says: “Buy Pelignas the cook from your mother. For he knows the manner in which all sacred rites of your ancestors are carried out, both the Argadistic and the Bacchic, and all the sacrifices that Olympias offers he knows. Do not neglect this, therefore, but buy him and send him to me** with all speed.”
* As a special offering to Hermes.
** i.e. the secretary.