“Whether domestic or civic duties occupy you, keep some time of the day for caring for the body. The chief way of caring for the body is exercise and it should always be done before eating. The work should be greater for one who has labored less and digested well and less for one who is tired and has not digested.
Good exercises include reading aloud, drilling, playing ball, running, walking. The last is not the most useful on a level road, since going up or down moves the body with a variety, unless the body is completely weak. It is better to walk out in the open than under a roof. And it is also better, should your head endure it, to walk in the sun instead of the shade. But better still in the shade than under a roof and better a straight than an indirect walk.
The end of exercise, moreover, should come with sweat or some bit of tiring which should still be on this side of fatigue. Sometimes more and sometimes less needs to be done. But one should not follow the model of athletes with their fixed rule and excessive workout.”
Quem interdiu vel domestica vel civilia officia tenuerunt, huic tempus aliquod servandum curationi corporis sui est. Prima autem eius curatio exercitatio est, quae semper antecedere cibum debet, in eo, qui minus laboravit et bene concoxit, amplior; in eo, qui fatigatus est et minus concoxit, remissior.
Commode vero exercent clara lectio, arma, pila, cursus, ambulatio, atque haec non utique plana commodior est, siquidem melius ascensus quoque et descensus cum quadam varietate corpus moveat, nisi tamen id perquam inbecillum est: melior autem est sub divo quam in porticu; melior, si caput patitur, in sole quam in umbra, melior in umbra quam paries aut viridia efficiunt, quam quae tecto subest; melior recta quam flexuosa. Exercitationis autem plerumque finis esse debet sudor aut certe lassitudo, quae citra fatigationem sit, idque ipsum modo minus, modo magis faciendum est. Ac ne his quidem athletarum exemplo vel certa esse lex vel inmodicus labor debet.
Hippocrates, Regimen 2 61
“I will now explore what kind of impact exercises have. For some are natural and some are pretty violent. Natural exercise deals with sight, hearing, voice, and thinking. The power of sight is like this. The soul, when it attends to what can be seen, moves and warms. As it warms it dries because the moisture is extracted. In hearing, when sound strikes, the soul shakes and works and as it exercises, it turns warm and dries.
A person’s soul is moved by however many thoughts it has and it also warms and is dried and it spends its moisture as it works—it can empty the flesh and make a person thin. Whenever people exercise their voice either in speaking, reading or singing, all these things move the soul. When it is moved, it warms and dries and uses up the moisture.”
“Know that Perictione used to carry Plato around in her arms. When Ariston, his father, was sacrificing to the Muses or the Nymphs on Hymêttos, the rest of the family was present for the worship and Perictione placed Plato in the nearby myrtles because they were thick and lush. While he slept, a swarm of bees placed some Hymêttian honey on his lips and buzzed their song around him, thus foretelling Plato’s eventual power of speech.”
“These things seem quite entertaining to me, but they are not true. I have also heard another reason for the bit, much more credible. I am happy with what is said by those who generally agree in Greece, who believe that the goddess is Hera and the work was made by Dionysus. For Dionysus went into Syria on the road that goes to Ethiopia. There are many signs left by Dionysus in the Shrine, among them are foreign clothing and Indian stones and Elephant horns which Dionysus brought from Ethiopia. There are also two really big phalluses that stand up at the entrance gates. This epigram has been inscribed upon them. ‘Dionysus dedicated these phalluses to Hera, his stepmother.’
This remains enough for me, but I will tell you of another oddity in the temple of Dionysus. The Greeks bear phalloi in honor of Dionysus, and they carry something in front of it, a little man carved out of wood which has huge genitals. These are called puppets. There is also one of these in the temple. On the right side of the temple, there is a small bronze man that has giant genitals.”
According to the Greek Anthology there was a temple to Apollônis, the mother of Attalos and Eumenes, at Cyzicos. The temple had at least nineteen epigrams inscribed on columns with accompanying relief images. All of the epigrams have mothers from myth and poetry as their subjects. The Eighth Epigram is on Odysseus’ mother Antikleia.
On the eighth tablet is the underworld visit of Odysseus. He addressed is own mother and asked her for news of his home (Greek Anthology 3.8)
“Wise-minded mother of Odysseus, Antikleia
You didn’t welcome your son home to Ithaka while alive.
Instead, he is shocked when his glance falls upon his sweet mother
Now wandering along the banks of Akheron.”
Of course, this scene plays upon book 11 of the Odyssey doubly: the image recalls Odysseus describing his mother in the Odyssey and it also plays upon the Odyssey’s catalogue of heroic mothers motif, which it in turn shares with the fragmentary Hesiodic Catalogue Of Women.
11.84-89
“Then came the spirit of my mother who had passed away,
The daughter of great-hearted Autolykos, Antikleia
Whom I left alive when I went to sacred Troy.
When I saw her I cried and pitied her in my heart,
But I could not allow her to come forward to touch
The blood before I had learned from Teiresias.”
Attalos, Eumenes and Apollônis? These were members of the Attalid clan who ruled from Pergamon during the Hellenistic period (after 241 BCE). Attalus I married Apollônis who was from Cyzicos.
“When they were waging war and many different kinds of things were happening in the battles, then indeed among them when the Athenians were winning, the poet Alcaeus went running and fled, but the Athenians captured his armor and dedicated it in the temple of Athena at Sigeion. Alcaeus wrote a poem about this and sent it to Mytilene where he explained his suffering to his best friend Melanippos. Peirander, Kypselos’ son, made peace between the Athenians and Mytileneans after they entrusted the affair to his judgment. He resolved it so that each side would keep what they previously possessed.”
“What does Herodotus say about what happened at [the battle between the Athenians and Mytileneans]? Instead of mentioning the excellence of Pittakos, he narrates the flight of the poet Alkaios from battle, how he dropped his weapons. By not describing great deeds and by not passing over the shameful ones, he has taken the side of those who claim that envy and joy at someone else’s misfortune comes from the same weakness.”
“Drink and get drunk with me, Melanippos.
Why would you say that once you cross the great eddying
River of Acheron you will see the pure light of the sun again?
Come on, don’t hope for great things.
For even the son of Aiolos, Sisyphos used to claim
He was better than death because he knew the most of men.
Even though he was so very wise, he crossed
The eddying river Acheron twice thanks to fate
And Kronos’ son granted that he would have toil
Beneath the dark earth. So don’t hope for these things.
As long as we are young, now is the time we must
Endure whatever of these things the god soon grants us to suffer.”
“Alcman, a Laconian from Messoa, contrary to Krates who mistakenly claims he was a Lydian from Sardos. The son of Damas or Titaros. He lived around the time of the 27th Olympaid [=672-668 BCE] when Alyattes’ father Ardys was the Lydian king. Alcman, who was especially lusty, was the inventor of love songs. He descended from enslaved peoples. He wrote six books, Lyric Poems and The Woman Who Dived. He was the first to try singing poems apart from hexameters. Like other Spartans, he used the Doric Dialect. There was also another Alcman. One of the lyric poets too, whom Messene produced. The plural of Alcman is Alcmanes.”
“So great a pile of purple
Isn’t enough to ward off danger,
Nor is that well-wrought snake
Of gold, nor the Lydian
Crown, that sweet joy of
The young women nor even
Nanno’s hair nor
Divine Areta or nor even
Sulakis and Kleêsisêra–
No! You won’t go to Ainêsimbrota to say
“If Astaphis were mine
And Philulla would look at me
Along with gorgeous Damareta and Wianthemis.
Oh, but Hagêsikhora watches me…”
I like Angela, Pamela, Sandra and Rita
And as I continue you know they getting sweeter
So what can I do? I really beg you, my Lord
To me is flirting it’s just like sport, anything fly
It’s all good, let me dump it, please set in the trumpet
A little bit of Monica in my life
A little bit of Erica by my side
A little bit of Rita is all I need
A little bit of Tina is what I see
A little bit of Sandra in the sun
A little bit of Mary all night long
A little bit of Jessica, here I am
A little bit of you makes me your man
Roman mosaic of Egypt representing the Greek poet Alkman drinking wine. Jerash, Jordan. (late 2nd-3rd century AD)
A proverb (in Arsenius and elsewhere; this version is from the Etymologicum Magnum)
“[Comparing] a cat to Athena. This is used for those who poorly compare serious things with minor because of some minor similarity, as the proverb applies—as if someone compares Athena with a cat because they both have gray eyes.”
As I have posted about before, there is confusion in early Greek between weasels and cats because both are used in an early period to rid the home of rodents and cats are not as well-represented until the Hellenistic period or later. This complicates finding evidence for ancient Greek representations of cat sounds (I cannot find any) and weasel sounds (very little evidence). But there are some interesting things to say about cats.
The first thing to note is that there are different names and spellings for the felix domesticus. The early Αἴλουρος appears in Herodotus (with an extra syllable). By the early Byzantine period we find an interesting etymology based on the cat’s twirling tail.
Etym. Magnum.
“Ailouros: An animal. The name comes from twisting, turning and moving the tail. Also an ailourios, some call a root this”
“Attic speakers say aielouros; Greeks say ailouros”
αἰέλουρος ᾿Αττικοί, αἴλουρος ῞Ελληνες.
N.B. This form does appear in Herodotus, Sophocles, and more!
Additional evidence gives us little information about the ailouros. It is clear that Herodotus’ cat is the cat as we might recognize it. In other early Greek authors, the evidence gets a bit muddy. This scholion to Aristophanes provides some interesting information. It conflates names and animals, I think, but presents some catty behavior.
Schol. ad Aristophanes Pl. 693
“Stinkier than a weasel”: There are two kinds of weasels, one is wild, which is twofold. It is called an ailouros and another small animal which has red skin. And there is also a *hêmeron. This is the creature which homer calls a ktis but is commonly called katis. This one has really the worst smelling excrement. And when this animal defecates and excretes it throws dirt over it and covers what it excreted. You should also know that that ktis to which, according to the language in homer, the lexicographers of that divine man do not understand, that it is syncope for katis. This animal, they say, is a birdeater, and a complete troublemaker, like an ailouros.”
“People claim that cats hate and dread everything that smells bad. For this reason, they dig a hole and hide their fecal matter so that they might make it invisible when they cover it with earth.”
*I cannot find more information about this type of weasel. We need a weasel-specialist.
What I suspect might be going on here–apart from the delightful description of whatever animal this is as a bird-eater and a troublemaker–is that this scholiast is building a phonetic bridge between the Homeric weasel (ktis) and the latter Greek word for domesticated cat (kattês). The overlapping conceptual space of cat and weasel in the galea (γαλέη) facilitates this, I think. You will note from the passages below some behavior that seems feline and some that does not.
Schol. at Arist. Clouds 169a
“Now he says that the spotted lizard is the small and red wild weasel, not the ailouros or the hêmeron weasel, this is the ktis or also the katis about which Homer also says “he placed a hat well made from a weasel on his head.” This wild weasel scrambles up and down and runs around the walls”
“Home-born”: A kattês which was born in the home. “Does A homeborn cat, after eating my partridge, expects to live in my home? [=Greek Anthology 7.205, attributed to Agathias Scholasticus]
γαλῆ γαλέα mostly describes a weasel but sometimes indicates a cat, since both were used domestically to catch mice.
Aelian 6.41.30-32
“this is also a particular quality of mice. Whenever they hear the trilling of a weasel or the hissing of a serpent they transfer their young from one mouse hole to another”
This passage is the only place I could find evidence of the sound that weasels make. This verb is used to indicate the trilling or squeaking of multiple types of animals, usually small ones like mice and weasels.
This is not the only place where this sibilant verb is used to describe a snake’s hiss. Again, in a scholion to Aristophanes, we get a description of multiple animals sounds that includes the sssssscary snake:
Schol ad. Aristoph. Pl. 689
“Each of the animals has its own particular voice—so a goat maaaas, a cow moooos, a raven crows and other animals are similar. Thus a snake also hisses [surizei].
The verb used here, however, seems to be denominative from σῦριγξ, a noun which has a bit of a messy prehistory.
The verb trizein is used for many different animals. A unique compound appears to evoke the panicked squeaking of a dying mouse. In Latin, mice pipitare.
Batrakhomuomakhia 88
“He was squeezing his hands together and he was squeaking while he died”
καὶ χεῖρας ἔσφιγγε καὶ ὀλλύμενος κατέτριζε.
An Anecdote from Aelian
“Aristeides the Lokrian, after he was bitten by a Tartessian weasel and was dying, said “It would have been much better to die after being bitten by a lion or leopard than, if there would be some excuse for death other than this creature.” I think he felt the shamefulness of the bite to be more burdensome than death itself.
At a moment of anxiety about the consequences and sustainability of globalization, consider that Seneca himself (1st century AD) reflected on how a more modest, earlier globalization affected the world.
The first passage is an idealization of the local. And the second passage is his reflection on a world where distant places are drawn together:
Seneca, Medea 329-334
Our fathers knew simple times
Far removed from corruption.
Each was a provincial–held to his own shore
And grew old in his ancestral field.
Rich in little,
Save only for what his native land provided,
He did not know abundance.
Seneca, Medea 364-374.
Now, in our day, the sea gives way
And suffers all laws. No celebrated Argo
Fitted together by Pallas’s hands,
Royal rowers aboard, is called for.
Any old skiff wanders the deep.
Every border has been breached.
Cities have planted walls in new lands.
In a world open for business
Nothing is where it used to be:
The Indian drinks the cold Araxes river,
And the Persians drink the Alba and the Rhine.
329-334
Candida nostri saecula patres
videre, procul fraude remota.
sua quisque piger litora tangens
patrioque senex factus in arvo,
parvo dives,
nisi quas tulerat natale solum,
non norat opes.
364-374.
Nunc iam cessit pontus et omnes
patitur leges: non Palladia
compacta manu regum referens
inclita remos quaeritur Argo—
quaelibet altum cumba pererrat;
terminus omnis motus et urbes
muros terra posuere nova,
nil qua fuerat sede reliquit
pervius orbis:
Indus gelidum potat Araxen,
Albin Persae Rhenumque bibunt.
“Mênodorus and Hêlodôros, the sons of Hêliodôros, greet you
Traveler, beneath me, the words—dear Heliodôros,
Eighteen years old, he had his father’s name.
With him lies his brother on the edge of adulthood,
Mênodorus, who has earned all the pity on Aeida.
Instead of a lovely marriage bed, they get a tomb;
Instead of a bride, a stone, and instead of a wedding, terrible grief for their parents.
I grieve for the pitiable mother who put her hands over their eyes.”
“Paniskos [writes] to my spouse, Ploutogenia, mother of my daughter, many greetings.
Above all, I pray for your good fortune every day from the paternal gods. I want you to know, sister, that we have been staying in Koptos near your sister and her children, so do not feel any annoyance at coming to Koptos, since your relatives are here. And just as you wholly desire to embrace her much and you pray to the gods each day, so too does she long to embrace you with your mother.
As soon as you receive this letter, make ready so that you may come immediately if I send for you. And, when you come, bring with you: ten skins of wool, six jars of olives, four of honey, my shield—only the unused one—and my helmet. Oh, bring my lances too. Bring also all the parts for the tent. If you find the occasion, come here with good people. Have Nonnos come too. Bring all of our clothing when you come. Also bring your golden jewelry when you come, but don’t wear those things openly on the boat.
Greetings to my lady and my daughter Heliodôra. Hermias says hello.
On the other side: “Give this to my wife and my daughter. From their father Paniskos.”
“There are many other examples which provide proof for this, but the clearest one of all is that from reading. In this case, if someone sets a person who is illiterate and unaccustomed to reading but not a fool and then place next to him a child who can read, give the child a book and order them to read what is written, it is clear that the man would not be able to believe that while reading one must first understand the image of each letter, then the value of its sound, and then the possible combinations with other letters, all things that require a great deal of time.
When he sees the child reading without pausing seven or five lines, he will not easily be able to believe that the child has not read the book before. He will straight out deny it if the reader observes the rhythm, the pauses, the rough breathings and the smooth breathings too. We should not bar for ourselves, then, anything which is useful because it appears to be difficult at first. No, we must use the force of habit, the means by which humans achieve all good things and even more so when it concerns the matters upon which our very safety depends.”
