“Yo, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want”
-Spice Girls, “Wannabe,” 1996 A.D.
Philodemus 11.34 (Greek Anthology)
White violets and songs to the lyre,
Wines from Chios and myrrh from Syria,
Drinking parties and writhing harlots—
No thanks. Not again. I would lose my mind.
But wreaths of narcissus, put ‘em ‘round me.
Give me a taste of what the flute can do.
Rub my limbs with crocus-scented oils,
And soak my pipes with Mytilene wine.
Oh, and bring me a wife, a virgin and shy.
Λευκοΐνους πάλι δὴ καὶ ψάλματα, καὶ πάλι Χίους
οἴνους, καὶ πάλι δὴ σμύρναν ἔχειν Συρίην,
καὶ πάλι κωμάζειν, καὶ ἔχειν πάλι διψάδα πόρνην
οὐκ ἐθέλω: μισῶ ταὺτα τὰ πρὸς μανίην.
ἀλλά με ναρκίσσοις ἀναδήσατε, καὶ πλαγιαύλων
γεύσατε, καὶ κροκίνοις χρίσατε γυῖα μύροις,
καὶ Μυτιληναίῳ τὸν πνεύμονα τέγξατε Βάκχῳ,
καὶ συζεύξατέ μοι φωλάδα παρθενικήν.
Apollonios the Paradoxographer is credited with a text of 51 anecdotes usually dated to the 3rd or 2nd century BCE. Some of these translations are pretty rough. Here I am pretty uncertain about number 22
Apollonius, Historiae Mirabiles 21-27
21 “Of those observed animals there is the fact that cloven-hoofed creatures alone of the animals have backward-facing ankles. In his Natural Problems, Aristotle explains that the reason for this is in the hind-legs and not the front legs. For nature has made nothing in vain.”
23“It is especially wondrous how the sun shines upon us—that it is not holy fire, and the adamant does not warm when it is inflamed; and also marvelous is the fact that the magnet stone attracts when it is day and at night it attracts less or not completely” [?]
25 “Aristotle says in his work On Drunkenness that Andrôn the Argive ate many salty things through his entire life and died without thirst and without drinking. While he was going to Ammon for a second time on a road without water and dining on dry grain, he brought no liquid. He did this for his entire life.”
26 “In his work On Life and Death, Aristotle says that a tortoise lives when deprived of a heart. But he nevertheless does not specify what kind of tortoise, whether it is a land animal or one who lives in the sea.”
27 “Aristotle, in his works on Animal Matters—for he has two publications, one On Animals and another, On Animal Matters—says that lice do not die on heads because of disease in long lives, but when they are about to die while they are suffering, they are find their way to the base of the head and leave it.”
As I open myself, without the least reserve, whenever I think that my doing so can be of any use to you, I will give you a short account of myself. When I first came into the world, which was at the age you are of now, so that, by the way, you have got the start of me in that important article by two or three years at least,—at nineteen I left the University of Cambridge, where I was an absolute pedant; when I talked my best, I quoted Horace; when I aimed at being facetious, I quoted Martial; and when I had a mind to be a fine gentleman, I talked Ovid. I was convinced that none but the ancients had common sense; that the classics contained everything that was either necessary, useful, or ornamental to men; and I was not without thoughts of wearing the ‘toga virilis’ of the Romans, instead of the vulgar and illiberal dress of the moderns. With these excellent notions I went first to The Hague, where, by the help of several letters of recommendation, I was soon introduced into all the best company; and where I very soon discovered that I was totally mistaken in almost every one notion I had entertained.
The torture known as scaphism works something like this. They take up two tubs and make them congruent with each other, and place the person to be punished in the first of them. Then, they place the second tub on top of them and arrange it such that their head, hands, and feet are jutting outward while the rest of the body remains hidden. The person is forced to eat even if they do not wish to, and this compulsion is effected by stinging their eyes. They pour honey mixed with milk into their mouths and spill it all over their face. Then, they permanently fix their eyes toward the sun, and a mass of flies completely blots out the person’s countenance. Inwardly, they are forced to do what people who eat and drink must all eventually do. Various types of worms come to life under the wounds, putrefaction, and the excrement, and under their influence the body of the enclosed is eaten away to the innards. When it is clear that the person is dead, they remove the upper tub and see the ravaged flesh and the swarms of little beasts eating and growing around their guts.
“…I have read just a little bit from Coelius and from a speech of Cicero, but pretty much in secret and only in bits. One worry trips over another so much that meanwhile my sole respite is to take a book to hand. For our young daughters are staying in town with Matidia—therefore they cannot come to visit me in the evening because of the sharpness of the air….[ …]
Send me something which seems to you to be particularly well-written so I may read it, either your own or someone from Cato, Cicero, Salust, Gracchus, or from some other poet—for I need a rest—and especially that kind of reading which will raise my spirit and shake me from the worries which have fallen over me. Also, if you have any excerpts from Lucretius or Ennius—euphonious lines or those which give a good sense of character.”
…<legi ex Coe>|lio paululum et ex Ciceronis oratione, sed quasi furtim, certe quidem raptim: tantum instat aliud ex alio curarum, quom interim requies una librum in manus sumere. Nam parvolae nostrae nunc apud Matidiam in oppido hospitantur: igitur vespera ad me ventitare non possunt propter aurae rigorem…
Mitte mihi aliquid quod tibi disertissimum videatur, quod legam, vel tuum aut Catonis aut Ciceronis aut Sallustii aut Gracchi aut poetae alicuius, χρῄζω γὰρ ἀναπαύλης, et maxime hoc genus, quae me lectio extollat et diffundat ἐκ τῶν κατειληφυιῶν φροντίδων; etiam si qua Lucretii aut Ennii excerpta habes εὔφωνα <στίχι>α1et sicubi ἤθους ἐμϕάσεις.
Apollonius Paradoxographus, Historiae Mirabiles 49
“These things are worth knowing. Theophrastos has explained them in is work On Enthusiasm. For he says that music heals when suffering afflicts the soul and the body such as desperation, phobias, and the madnesses of belief which are more serious. For instrumental flute music, he continues, heals both hip pain and epilepsy.
Similarly is the power attributed to Aristoxenos the musician when he came—for he was getting a prophecy from the prophet of his sister Pasiphilê—for resuscitated a person in Thebes who was bewitched by the sound of a trumpet. For when he heard it he yelled out so much that he behaved indecently. If someone at any point even in war should blow the trumpet, then he should suffer much worse in his madness. So, he exposed him bit by bit to the flute—and, as one might say, he used this as an introduction for him to endure the trumpet as well.
The flute heals even if some part of the body is in pain. When the body is subject to flute music, let the instrumental music persist for five days at least. The toil will be surprisingly less on the first day and the second. This application of the flute treatment is common even elsewhere, but especially so in Thebes up to this day.”
There are similar accounts from Pythagorean Traditions
Porphyry, On the Life of Pythagoras
30. “[Pythagoras] healed psychic and bodily sufferings with rhythm, songs, and incantations. He adapted these treatments to his companions, while he himself heard the harmony of everything because he could understand the unity of the spheres and the harmonies of the stars moving with them. It is not our nature to hear this in the least.”
32. “Diogenes says that Pythagoras encouraged all men to avoid ambition and lust for fame, because they especially inculcate envy, and also to stay away from large crowds. He used to convene gatherings at his house at dawn himself, accompanying his singing to the lyre and singing some ancient songs of Thales. And he also sang the songs of Hesiod and Homer, as many as appeared to calm his spirit. He would also dance some dances which he believed brought good mobility and health to the body. He used to take walks himself but not with a crowd, taking only two or three companions to shrines or groves, finding the most peaceful and beautiful places.”
33. “He loved his friends overmuch and was the first to declare that friends possessions are common and that a friend is another self. When they were healthy, he always talked to them; when they were sick, he took care of their bodies. If they were mentally ill, he consoled them, as we said before, some with incantations and spells, others by music. He had songs and paeans for physical ailments: when he sang them, he relieved fatigue. He also could cause forgetfulness of grief, calming of anger, and redirection of desire.”
“Pythagoras believed that music produced great benefits for health, should someone apply it in the appropriate manner. For he was known to use this kind of cleansing and not carelessly. And he also called the healing from music that very thing, a purification. And he used a melody as follows during the spring season. He sat in the middle someone who could play the lyre and settled around him in a circle people who could sing. They would sing certain paeans as he played and through this they seemed to become happy, unified, and directed.
At another time they used music in the place of medicine, and there were certain songs composed against sufferings of the mind, especially despair and bitterness—songs which were created as the greatest aids. He also composed others against rage, desires, and every type of wandering of the soul. There was also another kind of performance he discovered for troubles: he also used dancing.
He used the lyre as an instrument since he considered flutes to induce arrogance as a dramatic sound which had no type of freeing resonance. He also used selected words from Homer and Hesiod for the correction of the soul.”
“And you yourself, bestie Geminus, were clear in holding the same opinion about the man in your letter in which you write verbatim: “in other types of composition it is easy to fall somewhere between praise and blame—but in ornament, what does not succeed, fails completely. For this reason, it seems right to me not to interrogate these men for their few failures but for the greater number of their successes.”
And later after this you say these things an addition: “Even though I am able to mount a defense for all of these passages or most of them, I do not dare to speak against you. But I do take this one point hard—that it is not possible to succeed impressively in every way unless you take these kind of risks and enter those situations in which it is necessary to stumble”.
We don’t diverge from one another—for you agree that it is necessary that one who has great aims sometimes stumbles while I say that Plato in reaching for sublime, magnificent, and surprising phrases did not succeed all the time, but that his mistakes occupy only a small portion of his total attempts. I also add that this is one way in which Plato is less than Demosthenes—for his heightened style at times slips into emptiness and unpleasantry; for Demosthenes this happens never or rarely at all. That’s enough about Plato.”
“Your language is so clear and distinct that the analysis of Palaemon, the dignity of Gallio, the duration of Delphidius, the discipline of Agroecius, the fortitude of Alcimus, the tenderness, the rigor of Magnus, and the sweetness of Victorius are not only not superior but are also barely its equal. So that I might not seem to have flattered you or tried to gain favor from you with an exaggerated catalog of rhetoricians, I do not doubt but insist that you are only to be compared to the acrimony of Quintilian and the glory of Palladius.
This is the reason if anyone after you takes a liking to Latia and gives thanks to this friendship for it and desires to be admitted as a third to your community—if he has any humanity all. This is rather more serious, however, evne though this ambition or desire is not about to cause you too much trouble, since few now hold much respect for this course of study. And, at the same time, due to a natural fault, it is fixed and well-rooted in human chests that those who do not understand arts, do not admire the artists. Goodbye.”
tua vero tam clara, tam spectabilis dictio est, ut illi divisio Palaemonis gravitas Gallionis, abundantia Delphidii Agroecii disciplina, fortitudo Alcimi Adelphii teneritudo, rigor Magni dulcedo Victorii non modo non superiora sed vix aequiperabilia scribant. sane ne videar tibi sub hoc quasi hyperbolico rhetorum catalogo blanditus quippiam gratificatusque, solam tibi acrimoniam Quintiliani pompamque Palladii comparari non ambigo sed potius adquiesco. 4. quapropter si quis post vos Latiae favet eruditioni, huic amicitiae gratias agit et sodalitati vestrae, si quid hominis habet, tertius optat adhiberi. quamquam, quod est gravius, non sit satis ambitus iste fastidium vobis excitaturus, quia pauci studia nunc honorant, simul et naturali vitio fixum est radicatumque pectoribus humanis, ut qui non intellegunt artes non mirentur artifices. vale.
“The child is bathed and her ass-situation is fine.
The cake is baking and the sesame buns are shaped—
Everything else is complete—but we need a penis.”
According to a scholion, sesame cakes are made for weddings to ensure an abundance of offspring (vet σησαμὴ R: πλακοῦς γαμικὸς ἀπὸ σησάμων πεποιημένος διὰ τὸ πολύγονον, ὥς φησι Μένανδρος. RV)
Later, a Slave remarks on the girl’s rear end:“Master, she’s got a five-year ass” ὦ δέσποτα, ὅσην ἔχει τὴν πρωκτοπεντετηρίδα. (876).
A scholion relates this to the frequency of the completion of the Dionysia. Another adds that at this point they are grabbing the girl and showing her genitals to the audience. (Schol V. ad Aristop. Pax 867b ἁπτόμενος γὰρ αὐτῆς τῆς πυγῆς <φησι> καὶ θαυμάζων καὶ τοῖς θεαταῖς ἐπιδεικνύμενος τὸ αἰδοῖον. V Although, here we should probably imagine a male actor with female genital apparatus).
Nicolas Chamfort [Quoted in Maximes, Pensées, Caractères et Anecdotes, 1796]:
“In sum,” he added, “I was reminded of Seneca, and in honor of Seneca, I wanted to open my veins. But he was rich, that one. He had everything he wanted – a well-warmed bath, and in truth, every comfort available. But me, I am a poor devil, and I didn’t have any of that stuff. I hurt myself pretty badly, and here I am still. But I have the bullet in my head, that is the main thing. A little bit earlier, a little bit later – that would have done it!”
«Enfin, ajouta-t-il, je me suis souvenu de Sénèque, et en l’honneur de Sénèque j’ai voulu m’ouvrir les veines; mais il était riche, lui ; il avait tout à souhait, un bain bien chaud, enfin toutes ses aises; moi je suis un pauvre diable, je n’ai rien de tout cela : je me suis fait un mal horrible, & me voilà encore ; mais j’ai la balle dans la tête, c’est-là le principal. Un peu plus tôt, un peu plus tard, voilà tout. »
