Aristophon, fr.9 (The Pythagorean, from Athenaeus, 4.161f)
“Dear Gods! Do we believe that the ancient Pythagoreans,
–the real Pythagoreans, I mean–were willingly filthy,
that they happily wore rough robes?
I don’t think that any of this is true.
Instead, because they had nothing, by necessity
they discovered a noble pretext for their poverty
and established rules suitable for poor men.
But if you offer them fish or meat
And they don’t nearly eat their fingers too,
I’ll let you hang me ten times.”
In another passage (Apol. 21a), Plato says that Chaerophon asked the Pythia if anyone was wiser than Socrates and that she answered that no one was. In this, as well, Xenophon says something different (Apol.14): “When Chaerophon once asked about me at Delphi, Apollo answered that no one of the present men was more just or wise.”
How is it sensible or persuasive that Socrates, who agreed that he knew nothing, was declared the wisest of all men by the god who knows everything? If this is wisdom, knowing nothing, then knowing everything is foolishness. What need was there for Chaerophon to ask the god about Socrates? It is because itwas right to Believe Socrates when he said about himself that he was not wise. “For the man who would ask such things of a god is a fool”.
The next few weeks present almost endless opportunities for gluttony and gastronomic delights. What author could offer us more in this season than Athenaeus? As might not surprise you, he has some eating advice for all occasions.
Deipnosophists 2.69b-d
“Nikandros of Kolophon says in the second book of his Glossary that lettuce (thridaks) is called brenthis among the Kyprians, for Adonis fled to lettuce when he was mortally wounded by the boar. Amphis writes in his Lamentations:
…in the worst, accursed lettuce,
If anyone eats it who is under sixty-years old
When he shares any space with a woman
He can twist the whole night without accomplishing
What he wants. Instead of getting any help,
He presses his hand on his necessary fate.
Kallimachus adds too that Aphrodite hid Adonis in a lettuce patch—a poet’s way of saying that men who continuously eat lettuce are weakened in their sexual ability. Euboulos in his Impotent Men:
Don’t serve me lettuce at the table,
Woman, or you will blame yourself.
The story goes that once Kypris placed Adonis
In this plant after he died—
Now it is food for corpses.
“Posidonios of Apamea records the story of [Athenion] which I am going to lay out even though it is rather long, so that we may examine carefully all men who claim to be philosophers, and not merely trust in their shabby robes and unkempt beards. For, as Agathon says (fr. 12):
If I tell the truth, I won’t make you happy.
But if I am to make you happy, I will say nothing true.
Since the truth, they say, is dear to us, I will tell the whole story about this man.”
There is a conversational game Classicists sometime play when (1) they don’t know what else to talk about, (2) they want to evaluate the tastes and knowledge of interlocutors more surreptitiously than usual, or (3) they are really just excited to talk about the things we’ve lost—for we have lost far more of ancient Greek and Roman literature than we have. In some cases, the ‘game’ is just a question: what of the lost literature would you most like to have?
My favorite version of this requires a trade-off—what of what we have would you give up for what we don’t have? My usual answer in the first case is that I would love if we had another early Greek epic, the Thebais. A friend last night would prefer just one of the nine books of Sappho. (And I proposed a trade of one book of Pindar!). What would I trade for the Thebais? I am tempted to offer up some Demosthenes, but you’d need to give up something poetic, even epic, I fear to get the Theban tale).
One of the best answers I ever heard was a trade of one book of Cicero’s letters for Marcus Antonius’ pamphlet On His Own Drunkenness.
Here, from Athenaeus, are some interesting lost titles to impress, frighten or amuse people the next time you play this game (Deipnosophists, 162b):
“Archestratos of Gela in his Gastrology–which is the only epic that pleases you wise men even as you are Pythagoreans only in the fact that you keep quiet, something you do because your words fail you; you also enjoy the Erotic Skill of Sphodrios the Cynic, the Erotic Lectures of Protagoras, and the Drinking Conversations of the fine philosopher Persaeus, which were assembled from the Memoirs of Stilpo and Zeno.
In that text, he tries to prevent his dinner-guests from falling asleep, and asks how it is right to make toasts, when it is appropriated to introduce handsome boys and girls into the party, and when one must accept their flirtation,s and when they should be ejected for avoiding people alongside concerns about accompaniments to the meal, bread and other issues including the more expansive things Sophroniscus the philosopher said about kisses.
Persaeus was always turning his mind to these sorts of things, once he was entrusted, as Hermippos recounts, by Antigonos with Acrocorinth and then, thoroughly drunk, was kicked out of Corinth proper when he was outmaneuvered in the field by Aratos of Sikyon even though he had previously maintained in his Dialogues Addressed to Zeno that the wise man would absolutely be a good general, which is the only thing this fine servant of Zeno ever clearly proved!”
[Since by losing the battle he showed a fool to be a bad general]
This comic fragment is found in Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists. The comic poet Damoxenus is from the 4th century BCE–he is known mostly from Athenaeus and has no Wikipedia page.
A. You see that I am
a disciple of the wise man Epicurus—
in his house in under than two years and ten months
I ‘boiled off’ ten talents.
B. What does this mean? Tell me? A. I ‘dedicated’ them.
That man was a cook as well, dear earth and gods!
B. What kind of a cook? A. Nature is the origin point
Of every kind of craft. B. The ‘origin point’, you scoundrel?
A. ‘There is nothing wiser than work’–
Every task or pursuit is easier when
You keep that saying in mind. Many things come to you!
This is why if you ever meet an uneducated cook,
one who hasn’t read Democritus completely
along with Epicurus’ Canon, rub shit in his face
and kick him out as they do from the academies!
For this is what he needs to know….”
Students often complain about the lack of verisimilitude in the heroic diet–even though the Odyssey mentions that Odysseus’ companions fish and hunt birds before they kill the cattle in Thrinacia, students find something odd about a diet of meat, bread and wine.
Apparently ancient comic poets did too–and they were concerned about the reality of heroic sexual habits as well. Obviously, as the beginning of book 1 of the Iliad makes clear, eligible ladies were not in excess supply.
[Warning: this next passage is a little, well, explicit] Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 1.46
“Sarpedon makes it clear that they ate fish when he says that being captured is similar to hunting with a fishing net. In the comic charm, Eubolos also says jokingly:
Where dies Homer say that any of the Achaeans Ate fish? They only ever roast meat—he never has Anyone of them boil it at all! And not a one of them sees a single prostitute— They were stroking themselves for ten years! They knew a bitter expedition, those men who After taking a single city went back home With assholes much wider than the city they captured.
The heroes also didn’t allow freedom to the birds in the air, but they set snares and nets for thrushes and doves. They practices for bird hunting when they tied the dove to the mast of the ship and shot arrows at it, as is clear from the Funeral Games. But Homer leaves out their consumption of vegetables, fish and birds because of gluttony and because cooking is inappropriate, he judged it inferior to heroic and godly deeds.”
Note: My small LSJ defines δέφω as “to soften by working by the hand, to make supple, to tan hides.” The 1902 LSJ uses Latin to explain: “sensu obscoeno, v. Lat. Masturbari.”
The Suda cuts to the chase on this one with “dephein: touching the genitals. So, “rubbing” (Dephomenos) instead of “flogging your genitals.”
“Excellent.
Just as if you were masturbating, say it first now gently
“let us hurry” and then again pushing on, quickly.”
[Here’s a link to the whole play. Soon, one of the interlocutors stops “because the skin is irritated by masturbation.” (῾Οτιὴ τὸ δέρμα δεφομένων ἀπέρχεται, 29)]
The verb is not common, to say the least, so later commentators found it necessary to gloss it and explain Aristophanes’ joke. I realize that I might be crossing many boundaries of propriety here, but I am a bit intrigued by the explanations of the joke, how the joke immediately becomes less funny, and the language used in the commentaries. So, here it goes:
Scholia in Knights:
[1] “ ‘Just like dephomenos’: instead of “flogging your genitals” (apodérôn to aidoion). For, when men touch their genitals they don’t complete as they began, but they move more eagerly towards the secretion of semen. This plays on that, he means start small at first but then go continuously.
[3]‘dephomenos’: They mean handling the penis. For, when men take hold of their penises they don’t move towards ejaculation the way they began, but more eagerly over time, as they are inflamed by the continuity of movement.”
From the fragments of Theognetus, another poet so forgotten that he has no home on Wikipedia. But Athenaeus preserves a fragment (3.63)
“Theognetus is responding to these kinds of people when he writes in the Phantom or the Money-Lover:
‘Man, you’re killing me! You are packed full of little speeches
From the Stoa Poikile and you’re sick.
“Wealth is not any man’s possession, it is frost.
Wisdom is truly yours, it is ice, No one ever
Lost wisdom once he found it.” Fuck me!
What kind of a philosopher has god housed me with?
You learned your letters in reverse, wretch.
Your books have turned your life upside down.
You have philosophized nonsense to heaven and earth.
They don’t give a shit about your words.’
“Pindar praises “old wine, but the blossoms of newer songs” (Ol. 9.48). Eubulus notes that:
It is strange that the escorts always praise
Old wine but rather than an old man
They prefer a young one.
Alexis says nearly the same thing except that he says “very high” instead of “always”. In fact, old wine is not only sweeter but it is better for your health. It digests foot better since it is more refined itself, it is more readily absorbed; it also gives your body strength, reddens your blood and makes it absorb more; and it offers untroubled sleep.”
