The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus Part 47

_A._ No lentils bring to me, I like them not: For if one eats them, they do taint the breath.)--

Since then, on this account, these wise men guard against the lentils, at all events cause some bread to be given to us, with a little plain food; no expensive dishes, but any of those vulgar lentils, if you have them, or what is called lentil soup. And when every one laughed, especially at the idea of the lentil soup, he said, You are very ignorant men, you feasters, never having read any books, which are the only things to instruct those who desire what is good. I mean the books of the Silli of Timon the Pyrrhonian. For he it is who speaks of lentil soup, in the second book of his Silli, writing as follows:--

The Teian barley-cakes do please me not, Nor e'en the Lydian sauces: but the Greeks, And their dry lentil soup, delight me more Than all that painful luxury of excess.

For though the barley-cakes of Teos are preeminently good, (as also are those from Eretria, as Sopater says, in his Suitors of Bacchis, where he says--

We came to Eretria, for its white meal famed;)

and also, the Lydian sauces; still Timon prefers the lentil soup to both of them put together.

51. To this our admirable entertainer, Laurentius himself, replied, saying,--O you men who drive the dogs, according to the Jocasta of Strattis, the comic poet, who in the play ent.i.tled The Phnician Women, is represented as saying--

I wish to give you both some good advice: When you boil lentils, pour no perfume o'er them.

And Sopater, too, whom you were mentioning just now, in his Descent to h.e.l.l, speaks in these terms:--

Ulysses, king of Ithaca--'Tis perfume On lentils thrown: courage, my n.o.ble soul!

And Clearchus the Peripatetic philosopher, in his treatise on Proverbs, gives the saying, "Perfume thrown on lentils;" as a proverb which my grandfather Varro also mentions, he, I mean, who was nicknamed Menippius. And many of the Roman grammarians, who have not had much intercourse with many Greek poets or historians, do not know where it is that Varro got his Iambic from. But you seem to me, O Cynulcus, (for you delight in that name, not using the name by which your mother has called you from your birth,) according to your friend Timon, to be a n.o.ble and great man, not knowing that the lentil soup obtained mention from the former Epicharmus, in his Festival, and in his Islands, and also from Antiphanes the comic poet; who, using the diminutive form, has spoken of it in his Wedding, under the following form of expression--

A little lentil soup (???????), a slice of sausage.

And Magnus immediately taking up the conversation, said,--The most universally excellent Laurentius has well and cleverly met this hungry dog on the subject of the lentil soup. But I, like to the Galatians of the Paphian Sopater, among whom it is a custom whenever they have met with any eminent success in war to sacrifice their prisoners to the G.o.ds,--

I too, in imitation of those men, Have vow'd a fiery sacrifice to the G.o.ds-- Three of these secretly enroll'd logicians.

And now that I have heard your company Philosophise and argue subtlely, Persisting firmly, I will bring a test, A certain proof of all your arguments: First smoking you. And if then any one When roasted shrinks and draws away his leg, He shall be sold to Zeno for his master For transportation, as bereft of wisdom.

52. For I will speak freely to them. If you are so fond of contentment, O philosopher, why do you not admire those disciples of Pythagoras, concerning whom Antiphanes says, in his Monuments--

Some miserable Pythagoreans came Gnawing some salt food in a deep ravine, And picking up such refuse in a wallet.

And in the play which is especially ent.i.tled the Wallet, he says--

First, like a pupil of Pythagoras, He eats no living thing, but peels some husks Of barley which he's bought for half an obol, Discolour'd dirty husks, and those he eats.

And Alexis says, in his Tarentines--

For, as we hear, the pupils of Pythagoras Eat no good meat nor any living thing, And they alone of men do drink no wine.

But Epicharides will b.i.t.c.hes eat; The only one of all the sect; but then He kills them first, and says they are not living.

And proceeding a little farther, he says--

_A._ Shreds of Pythagoras and subtleties And well-fill'd thoughts are their sufficient food.

Their daily meals are these--a simple loaf To every man, and a pure cup of water.

And this is all.

_B._ You speak of prison fare.

_A._ This is the way that all the wise men live.

These are the hards.h.i.+ps that they all endure.

_B._ Where do they live in such a way?

_A._ Yet they procure Dainties after their sort for one another; Know you not Melanippides and Phaon, Phyromachus and Pha.n.u.s are companions?

And they together sup on each fifth day On one full cotyla of wheaten meal.

And, in his Female Pythagorean, he says--

_A._ The banquet shall be figs and grapes and cheese, For these the victims are which the strict law Allows Pythagoras' sect to sacrifice.

_B._ By Jove, as fine a sacrifice as possible.

And a few lines afterwards, he says--

One must for a short time, my friend, endure Hunger, and dirt, and cold, and speechlessness, And sullen frowns, and an unwashen face.

53. But you, my philosophical friends, practise none of these things.

But what is far worse than any of them, you talk about what you do not in the least understand; and, as if you were eating in an orderly manner, you take in mouthfuls like the man in that sweet poet Antiphanes; for he says, in his Runaway Slave-catcher--

Taking a moderate mouthful, small outside, But large within his hand, as women do.

And in the same way you eat a great deal and eat very fast; when it is in your power, according to the words of the same poet which he uses in the Thombycius, "to buy for a single drachma food well suited to you, such as garlic, cheese, onions, and capers; for all these only cost a drachma." And Aristophanes says, in his Pythagoreans--

What? do we think, I ask you in G.o.d's name, That these philosophers of olden time, The pupils of Pythagoras, went thus In dirt and rags all of their own accord?

I don't believe one word of such a thing.

No; they were forced to do so, as they had not A single farthing to buy clothes or soap.

And then they made a merit of economy, And laid down rules, most splendid rules for beggars.

But only put before them fish or meat; And if they do not their own fingers bite For very eagerness, I will be bound To let you hang me ten times over.

And it is not foreign to the present discussion to mention an epigram which was made with reference to you, which Hegesander the Delphian has quoted, in the sixth book of his Commentaries--

Men drawing up your eyebrows, and depressing Your scornful nostrils till they reach the chin, Wearing your beards in sacks, strippers of dishes, Wearing your cloak outside, with unshod feet Looking like oil, and eating stealthily Like hungry vagrants 'neath night's friendly cover, Cheaters of youth, spouters of syllables, Pretenders to vain wisdom, but pretending To make your only object Virtue's self.

54. But Archestratus of Gela, in his treatise on Gastronomy, (which is the only poetical composition which you wise men admire; following Pythagoras in this doctrine alone, namely silence, and doing this only because of your want of words; and besides that, you profess to think well of the Art of Love of Sphodrias the Cynic, and the Amatory Conversation of Protagorides, and the Convivial Dialogues of that beautiful philosopher Persaeus, compiled out of the Commentaries of Stilpon and Zeno, in which he inquires, How one may guard against guests at a banquet going to sleep; and, How one ought to use drinking of healths; and, When one ought to introduce beautiful boys and girls into a banquet; and when one ought to treat them well as if they were admired, and when one ought to send them away as disregarding them; and also, concerning various kinds of cookery, and concerning loaves, and other things; and all the over-subtle discussions in which the son of Sophroniscus has indulged concerning kissing. A philosopher who was continually exercising his intellect on such investigations as these, being entrusted, as Hermippus relates, with the citadel of Corinth by Antigonus, got drunk and lost even Corinth itself, being outwitted and defeated by Aratus the Sicyonian; who formerly had argued in his Dialogues against Zeno the philosopher, contending that a wise man would in every respect be a good general; and this excellent pupil of Zeno proved this especial point admirably by his own achievements. For it was a witty saying of Bion the Borysthenite, when he saw a brazen statue of his, on which was the inscription, PERSaeUS OF CITIUM, THE PUPIL OF ZENO, that the man who engraved the inscription had made a blunder, for that it ought to have been, Persaeus the servant (????t?ea not ??t?ea) of Zeno; for he had been born a slave of Zeno, as Nicias of Nicaea relates, in his History of Philosophers; and this is confirmed by Sotion the Alexandrian, in his Successions. And I have met with two books of that admirable work of Persaeus, which have this t.i.tle, "Convivial Dialogues."

55. But Ctesibius the Chalcidian, the friend of Menedemus, as Antigonus the Carystian relates in his Lives, being asked by somebody, What he had ever got by philosophy? replied, The power of getting a supper without contributing to it himself. On which account Timon somewhere or other said to him--

Oh you mad dinner hunter, with the eyes Of a dead corpse, and heart both bold and shameless.

And Ctesibius was a man who made very good guesses, and was a very witty man, and a sayer of amusing things; on which account every one used to invite him to their parties; he was not a man like you, you Cynic, who never sacrificed to the Graces, nor even to the Muses. And therefore Virtue avoiding you, and all like you, sits by Pleasure, as Mnasalces, the Sicyonian says, in his Epigrams--

Here I most miserable Virtue sit By Pleasure's side, and cut my hair for grief, Crush'd in my spirit; for profane Delight Is judged by all my better, and my chief.

And Baton the comic writer says in his Homicide--

Now I invite those moderate philosophers, Who ne'er allow themselves a single pleasure, Who keep on looking for the one wise man In all their walks and conversations, As if he were a slave who'd run away.

O wretched man, why, when you have a ticket, Will you refuse to drink? Why dost thou now Do so much wrong to the G.o.ds? why dost thou make Money of greater value than the rate Which nature puts on it? You drink but water, And so must be a worthless citizen; For so you cheat the farmer and the merchant; But I by getting drunk increase their trade.