The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus Part 14

The Athenians call ???a???, which is properly _lukewarm_, et??e?a?, as Eratosthenes uses the word, saying, "Watery by nature, and lukewarm, et??e?a?."

15. And of other waters, those which come from rocks he calls "dark," as being quite useless; and he prefers to all others the waters of springs, and those which rise to the surface from a great depth, and through rich soil. As also Hesiod says--

A ceaseless spring of clear untroubled flow.

And Pindar says--

Ambrosial water, like fresh honey sweet, Which from Tilphossa's lovely fountains flows;

(Tilphossa is a fountain in Botia;) and Aristophanes says that Tiresias died from drinking of it, as at his advanced age he was unable to bear its extreme cold. And Theophrastus, in his book on Waters, says that the water of the Nile is the most productive and the sweetest of all waters, and that it is also very relaxing to the bowels of those who drink it, as it has in it a mixture of nitre. And again, in his book on Plants, he says that there is in some places water which has a procreative tendency; as for instance at Thespiae: and at Pyrrha there is a water which causes barrenness. But it happened once when there was a drought in the district around the Nile, that the water of that river became unwholesome, and many of the Egyptians died. Theophrastus states, moreover, that not only do bitter waters sometimes change their nature, but that salt water does so too, and sometimes whole rivers do so; as in the case of the fountain in Cithaeron, near which there is a temple of Jupiter; and of that in Cairo, near which there is a temple of Neptune: and the reason is, that many thunderbolts fall in those countries.

16. But there are some waters which have a good deal of body in them, and are of considerable weight; as that in Trzen,--for that gives the mouths of those who taste it a feeling of fulness. And the waters near the mines in Pangaeum, in winter, weigh ninety-six drachms to half a pint, but in summer they only weigh forty-six. For the cold contracts and condenses it; on which account that which is used in hour-gla.s.ses does not make the hours in winter the same as those in summer, but longer; for the flow is slower on account of the increased density of the water. And he says that the same is the case in Egypt, though the air there is softer. Brackish water is more earthy, and requires more working; as also does sea-water, the nature of which is warmer, and which is not exposed to the same changes as river-water. And there is one salt spring which is of invincible hardness,--I mean that of Arethusa. But as a general rule heavy waters are worse, and so are hard and cold waters, for the same reason; for they are not so easily prepared for use, some because they are very earthy, and some from the excess of cold. But those waters which are quickly warmed are light and wholesome. And in Crannon there is a spring of a gentle warmth, which keeps wine which is mixed with it of the same temperature for two or three days. But flowing waters, and waters from aqueducts, are, as a general rule, better than stagnant ones, being softer because of the collisions to which they are subjected; and on this account water derived from snow appears to be good, because its more drinkable qualities are brought to the surface, and are exposed to the influence of the air; and for the same reason they think it better than rain-water: and on the same ground, too, they prefer water from ice, because it is lighter; and the proof is, that ice is itself lighter than the rest of the water. But very cold water is hard, as being earthy; but that with much body in it, when it is warmed, is susceptible of greater heat, and when it is cold, descends to a more intense cold. And for the same reason water on the mountains is better to drink than water in the plains; for there is in such less admixture of earthy matter. And it is from the earthy particles present that waters vary in colour: at all events, the water of the lake at Babylon is red for some days after it is drawn; and that of the Borysthenes is for some time of a violet or dark colour, although it is unusually thin in quality; and a proof of this is, that at the point where it meets the Hypanis its waters flow above those of the latter while the north winds prevail.

17. And in many places there are fountains, some of which are good for drinking, and have a vinous flavour; as for instance, one in Paphlagonia, which they say the natives come to for the express purpose of drinking. Some, again, are salt, with a rather bitter flavour; as some among the Sicani in Sicily. And in the Carthaginian dominions there is a fountain on which there is something which floats resembling oil, but darker in colour, which they skim off and make into b.a.l.l.s, and use for their sheep and cattle; and in other districts, too, there are fountains of a greasy nature,--like the one in Asia concerning which Alexander wrote a letter, saying that he had found a fountain of oil.

And of waters which are warm by nature some are sweet, as that at aegae in Cilicia, and that at Pagasae, and that at Larissa in the Troas, and that near Magnesia, and that in Melos, and that in Lipara, and that in Prusa,--the Prusa, I mean, near Mount Olympus in Mysia,--which is called the Royal fountain. But that in Asia near Tralles, and those near the river Characometes, and near the city of Mysia, are so oily that those who bathe in them have no need of oil. And there is a similar fountain in the village of Dascylum. There is also one at Carura of an exceeding dryness and heat: and there is another near Menoscome, which is a village in Phrygia, of a rougher and a more nitrous quality; as there is too in a village in Phrygia, called The Lion's Village. And there is a spring near Dorylaeum, which is very delicious to drink; but those which are at Baiae or Baium, a harbour in Italy, are utterly undrinkable.

18. I myself weighed the water which comes from the fountain called Pirene in Corinth, and found it lighter than any other water in Greece.

For I did not believe Antiphanes the comic writer, who says that in many respects Attica is superior to all other districts, and also that it has the best water of any; for he says:--

_A._ Have you remark'd, my friend, That none can with this favour'd land contend In honey, loaves, and figs?

_B._ Aye, figs indeed!

_A._ In myrtles, perfumes, wools, in choicest breed Of cattle, and in cheese; and on what ground Can fountains like the Attic springs be found?

Eubulus, the writer of comedies, somewhere or other says that Chaeremon the tragedian called water the body of the river:--

But when we pa.s.s'd the folds, and cross'd the water, The river's lucid body, all our troops In the pure crystal bathed their weary limbs.

There is a fountain in Tenos the water of which cannot be mixed with wine. And Herodotus, in his fourth book, says that the Hypanis, at a distance of five days' journey from its head, is thin and sweet to the taste; but that four days' journey further on it becomes bitter, because some bitter spring falls into it. And Theopompus says that near the river Erigone all the water is sour; and that those who drink of it become intoxicated, just like men who have drunk wine.

19. But Aristobulus of Ca.s.sandra says that there is a fountain in Miletus called the Achillean, the stream of which is very sweet, while the sediment is brackish: this is the water in which the Milesians say that their hero bathed when he had slain Trambelus the king of the Leleges. And they say, too, that the water in Cappadocia never becomes putrid, but there is a great deal in that district, of an admirable quality, though it has no outlet unless it flows underground. And Ptolemy the king, in the Seventh Book of his Commentaries, says that as you go to Corinth through the district called Contoporia, when you have got to the top of the mountain there is a fountain whose waters are colder than snow, so that many people are afraid to drink of it lest they should be frozen; but he says that he drank of it himself. And Phylarchus states that at Cleitor there is a spring which gives those who drink of it a distaste for the smell of wine. And Clearchus tells us that water is called white, like milk; and that wine is called red, like nectar; and that honey and oil are called yellow, and that the juice which is extracted from the myrtle-berry is black. Eubulus says that "water makes those who drink nothing else very ingenious,

But wine obscures and clouds the mind;"

and Philetas borrows not only the thought, but the lines.

20. Athenaeus then, having delivered this lecture on water, like a rhetorician, stopped awhile, and then began again.

Amphis, the comic writer, says somewhere or other--

There is, I take it, often sense in wine, And those are stupid who on water dine.

And Antiphanes says--

Take the hair, it well is written, Of the dog by whom you're bitten.

Work off one wine by his brother, And one labour with another; Horns with horns, and noise with noise, One crier with his fellow's voice; Insult with insult, war with war, Faction with faction, care with care; Cook with cook, and strife with strife, Business with business, wife with wife.

The ancients applied the word ???at?? even to unmixed water. Sophron says--

Pour unmix'd water (?d?? ???at??) in the cup.

21. Phylarchus says that Theodorus the Larissaean was a water-drinker; the man, I mean, who was always so hostile to king Antigonus. He a.s.serts also that all the Spaniards drink water, though they are the richest of all men, for they have the greatest abundance of gold and silver in their country. And he says, too, that they eat only once a day, out of stinginess, though they wear most expensive clothes. And Aristotle or Theophrastus speaks of a man named Philinus as never having taken any drink or solid food whatever, except milk alone, during the whole of his life. And Pythermus, in his account of the tyrants of Piraeus, mentions Glaucon as having been a water-drinker. And Hegesander the Delphian says that Anchimolus and Moschus, sophists who lived in Elis, were water-drinkers all their lives; and that they ate nothing but figs, and for all that, were quite as healthy and vigorous as any one else; but that their perspiration had such an offensive smell, that every one avoided them at the baths. And Matris the Athenian, as long as he lived, ate nothing except a few myrtle-berries each day, and abstained from wine and every other kind of drink except water. Lamprus, too, the musician, was a water-drinker, concerning whom Phrynichus says, "that the gulls lamented, when Lamprus died among them, being a man who was a water-drinker, a subtle hypersophist, a dry skeleton of the Muses, an ague to nightingales, a hymn to h.e.l.l." And Machon the comic poet mentions Moschion as a water-drinker.

22. But Aristotle, in his book on Drunkenness, says, that some men who have been fond of salt meat have yet not had their thirst stimulated by it; of whom Archonides the Argive was one. And Mago the Carthaginian pa.s.sed three times through the African desert eating dry meal and never drinking. And Polemo the Academic philosopher, from the time that he was thirty years of age to the day of his death, never drank anything but water, as is related by Antigonus the Carystian. And Demetrius the Scepsian says that Diocles of Peparethus drank cold water to the day of his death. And Demosthenes the orator, who may well be admitted as a witness in his own case, says that he drank nothing but water for a considerable length of time. And Pytheas says, "But you see the demagogues of the present day, Demosthenes and Demades, how very differently they live. For the one is a water-drinker, and devotes his nights to contemplation, as they say; and the other is a debauchee, and is drunk every day, and comes like a great potbellied fellow, as he is, into our a.s.semblies." And Euphorion the Chalcidean writes in this way:--"Lasyrtas the Lasionian never required drink as other men do, and still it did not make him different from other men. And many men, out of curiosity, were careful to watch him, but they desisted before they ascertained what was the truth. For they continued watching him for thirty days together in the summer season, and they saw that he never abstained from salt meat, and yet that, though drinking nothing, he seemed to have no complaint in his bladder. And so they believed that he spoke the truth. And he did, indeed, sometimes take drink, but still he did not require it.

A change of meat is often good, And men, when tired of common food, Redoubled pleasure often feel, When sitting at a novel meal.

23. The king of Persia, as Herodotus relates in his first book, drank no water, except what came from the river Choaspes, which flows by Susa.

And when he was on a journey, he had numbers of four-wheeled waggons drawn by mules following him, laden with silver vessels containing this water, which was boiled to make it keep. And Ctesias the Cnidian explains also in what manner this water was boiled, and how it was put into the vessels and brought to the king, saying that it was the lightest and sweetest of all waters. And the second king of Egypt, he who was surnamed Philadelphus, having given his daughter Berenice in marriage to Antiochus the king of Syria, took the trouble to send her water from the river Nile, in order that his child might drink of no other river, as Polybius relates. And Heliodorus tells us, that Antiochus Epiphanes, whom Polybius calls Epimanes,[74:1] on account of his actions, mixed the fountain at Antioch with wine; a thing which Theopompus relates to have been also done by the Phrygian Midas, when he wished to make Silenus drunk in order to catch him. And that fountain is, as Bion relates, between the Maedi and the Paeonians, and is called Inna. But Staphylus says, that Melampus was the first who invented the idea of mixing wine with water. And Plistonicus says that water is more digestible than wine.

24. Now men who drink hard before eating, are usually not very comfortable in their digestion, which are apt to get out of order by such a system, and what they eat often turns sour on the stomach. So that a man who has a regard for his health, ought to take regular exercise, for the sake of promoting frequent perspiration; and he ought also to use the bath regularly for the sake of moistening and relaxing his body. And besides this, and before he bathes, he should drink water, as being an excellent thing,--drinking warm water usually in winter and spring, and cold water in summer, in order not to weaken the stomach.

But he should only drink in moderation before the bath or the gymnasium, for the sake of diffusing what he drinks throughout his system beforehand, and in order to prevent the unmixed strength of wine from having too much effect on his extremities. And if any one thinks it too much trouble to live on this system, let him take sweet wine, either mixed with water or warmed, especially that which is called p??t??p??, the sweet Lesbian wine, as being very good for the stomach.

Now sweet wines do not make the head heavy, as Hippocrates says in his book on Diet, which some ent.i.tle, "The Book on Sharp Pains;" others, "The Book on Barleywater;" and others, "The Book against the Cnidian Theories." His words are: "Sweet wine is less calculated to make the head heavy, and it takes less hold of the mind, and pa.s.ses through the bowels easier than other wine." But Posidonius says, that it is not a good thing to pledge one's friends as the Carmani do; for they, when at their banquets they wish to testify their friends.h.i.+p for each other, cut the veins on their faces, and mingle the blood which flows down with the liquor, and then drink it; thinking it the very extremest proof of friends.h.i.+p to taste one another's blood. And after pledging one another in this manner, they anoint their heads with ointment, especially with that distilled from roses, and if they cannot get that, with that distilled from apples, in order to ward off the effects of the drink, and in order also to avoid being injured by the evaporation of the wine; and if they cannot get ointment of apples, they then use that extracted from the iris or from spikenard, so that Alexis very neatly says--

His nose he anoints, and thinks it plain 'Tis good for health with scents to feed the brain.

25. But one ought to avoid thick perfumes, and to drink water which is thin and transparent, and which in respect of weight is light, and which has no earthy particles in it. And that water is best which is of a moderate heat or coldness, and which, when poured into a brazen or silver vessel, does not produce a blackish sediment. Hippocrates says, "Water which is easily warmed or easily chilled is always lighter." But that water is bad which takes a long time to boil vegetables; and so too is water full of nitre, or brackish. And in his book upon Waters, Hippocrates calls good water drinkable; but stagnant water he calls bad, such as that from ponds or marshes. And most spring-water is rather hard. But Erasistratus says that some people test water by weight, and that is a most stupid proceeding. "For just look," says he, "if men compare the water from the fountain Amphiaraus with that from the Eretrian spring, though one of them is good and the other bad, there is absolutely no difference in their respective weights." And Hippocrates, in his book on Places, says that those waters are the best which flow from high ground, and from dry hills, "for they are white, and sweet, and are able to bear very little wine, and are warm in winter and cold in summer." And he praises those most, the springs of which break towards the east, and especially towards the north-east, for they must inevitably be clear, and fragrant, and light. Diocles says that water is good for the digestion, and not apt to cause flatulency, that it is moderately cooling, and good for the eyes, and that it has no tendency to make the head feel heavy, and that it adds vigour to the mind and body. And Praxagoras says the same; and he also praises rain-water. But Euenor praises water from cisterns, and says that the best is that from the cistern of Amphiaraus, when compared with that from the fountain in Eretria.

26. But that water is undeniably nutritious is plain from the fact that some animals are nourished by it alone, as for instance, gra.s.shoppers.

And there are many other liquids which are nutritious, such as milk, barleywater, and wine. At all events, animals at the breast are nourished by milk; and there are many nations who drink nothing but milk. And it is said that Democritus, the philosopher of Abdera, after he had determined to rid himself of life on account of his extreme old age, and when he had begun to diminish his food day by day, when the day of the Thesmophorian festival came round, and the women of his household besought him not to die during the festival, in order that they might not be debarred from their share in the festivities, was persuaded, and ordered a vessel full of honey to be set near him: and in this way he lived many days with no other support than honey; and then some days after, when the honey had been taken away, he died. But Democritus had always been fond of honey; and he once answered a man, who asked him how he could live in the enjoyment of the best health, that he might do so if he constantly moistened his inward parts with honey, and his outward man with oil. And bread and honey was the chief food of the Pythagoreans, according to the statement of Aristoxenus, who says that those who eat this for breakfast were free from disease all their lives.

And Lycus says that the Cyrneans (and they are a people who live near Sardinia) are very long-lived, because they are continually eating honey; and it is produced in great quant.i.ties among them.

27. When he says, men have adjourned the investigation into all such matters, he uses the word ??at???e??? instead of ??aa???e???.

The word ???st?? is used in the same sense as ??st??, _i.e._ _fasting_ (just as we find st???? and ?sta???) by Cratinus, when he says--

For you are not the first who's come to supper After a lengthen'd fast,

And the word ???pe???? is used by Diphilus for _hungry_--

I'm glad when those who set them up as wise, Are naked seen and hungry.

And Antiphanes says--

_A._ At all events he's one complaint, For he is hungry ever.

_B._ The keen Thessalian race you paint, Who can be sated never.

And Eubulus says--

Then Zethus was advised to seek the plain, The holy plain of Thebes; for there men sell The cheapest loaves and cakes.

Again advice came to the great Amphion, The sweet musician, pointing out to him The famous Athens for his resting-place.

Whose sons at hunger ne'er repine, but feed On air and sweetest hopes.

28. The word ???s?t??, _eating once a day_, occurs too in Alexis--

When you meet with a man who takes only one meal, Or a poet who music pretends not to feel; The man half his life, the bard half his art, loses; And sound reason to call either living refuses.