[1,0] THE DEIPNOSOPHISTS OF ATHENAEUS OF NAUCRATIS
BOOK I.

[1,1] ATHENAEUS is the father of this book, which he 
addresses to Timocrates. The Sophist at Dinner is its 
title, and the subject is a banquet given by a wealthy 
Roman named Larensis, who has summoned as guests 
the men of his time most learned in their several 
branches of knowledge. Not one of their excellent 
sayings has Athenaeus failed to mention. For he has 
contrived to bring into his book an account of fishes, 
their uses and names with their derivations ; also 
vegetables of ail sorts and animais of every description ; 
historians, poets, philosophers, musical instru-
ments, innumerable kinds of jests ; he has also 
described drinking - clips in ail their variety, the 
wealth of kings, the size of ships, and other matters 
so numerous that I could not easily mention them all ; 
for the day would fail me if I undertook to enumerate 
them kind by kind. In short, the plan of the discourse 
reflects the rich bounty of a feast, and the 
arrangement of the book the courses of the dinner,
Such is the delightful feast of reason which this 
wonderful steward, Athenaeus, introduces, and then, 
surpassing even himself, like the Athenian orators, 
he is so carried away by the ardour of his eloquence 
that he passes on by leaps and bounds to the further 
portions of his book.

[1,2] Now the wiseacres assumed to have been present 
at the banquet are : Masurius, a jurist, who had 
devoted no slight attention to all kinds of learning ; 
a poet, too, of unique excellence, a man second to 
none in general culture, who had pursued diligently 
the complete round of academic studies. For whatever 
the subject in which he displayed his learning, 
he made it appear as though that had been his 
only study, such was the encyclopaedic range in which 
he had been nurtured from boyhood. He was, as 
Athenaeus says, a satiric poet not inferior to any 
of the successors of Archilochus. Present, too, were 
Plutarch, Leonides of Elis, Aemilianus Maurus, and 
Zoilus, wittiest of philologians. Of philosophers there 
were Pontianus and Democritus, both of Nicomedia, 
excelling all in wide erudition ; Philadelphus of 
Ptolemais, a man not merely bred in philosophie 
contemplation, but also of tried experience in life 
generally. Of the Cynics there was one he calls 
Cynulcus (" dog-catcher ") ; for not only " two 
fleet hounds followed " him, like Telemachus going 
to the Assembly, but many more than were in 
Actaeon's pack. Of orators there was a company 
as numerous as that of the Cynics, against whom, as 
well as all the other speakers, Ulpian of Tyre inveighed. 
He, through the constant investigation
which he carries on at all hours in the streets, public 
walks, bookshops, and baths, has won a name that 
distinguishes him better than his own, Ceituceitus.
This gentleman observed a law peculiar to himself, of 
never tasting food until he had asked whether or 
not a word was to be found in literature : is, for 
example, the word dora (" season ") found signifying 
part of a day ? Is methysos (" drunken ") found 
applied to a man ? Is metra (" womb ") found as 
the name of a viand,a or the compound syagros said 
of a boar ? And among physicians there were 
Daphnus of Ephesus, pure in character as he was 
sacred in profession, no amateur in his grasp of the 
doctrines of the Academy ; Galen of Pergamum, who 
has published more works on philosophy and medicine 
than all his predecessors, and in the exposition of his 
art as capable as any of the ancients ; also Rufinus 
of Nicaea. And a musician was there, Alceides of 
Alexandria. In fact this list, as Athenaeus says, was 
more like a muster-roll than a list of guests at a banquet.

[1,3] Athenaeus dramatizes the dialogue in imitation of 
Plato. At any rate it begins thus : " Were you, 
Athenaeus, present in person at that noble assembly 
of men now known as Deipnosophists, which has been 
so much talked of about the town ? Or was the 
account you gave to your friends derived from 
someone else ?" " I was there myself, Timocrates."

" Will you not, then, consent to let us also share in 
that noble talk you had over your cups? For `to 
those who thrice wipe the mouth the gods give a 
better portion,' as, I believe, the poet of Cyrene
says. Or are we to inquire of somebody else ? "
Presently he launches into a eulogy of Larensis 
and says : " He took pride in gathering about him 
many men of culture and entertained them with 
conversation as well as with the things proper to a 
banquet, now proposing topics worthy of inquiry, 
now disclosing solutions of his own ; for he never put 
his questions without previous study, or in a hap-
hazard way, but with the utmost critical, even 
Socratic, acumen, so that all admired the keen ob-
servation shown by his questions." Athenaeus says 
of him, too, that he had been placed in charge of 
temples and sacrifices by the most excellent Emperor 
Marcus,b and administered the Greek as well as the 
national rites of Rome. He calls him also a kind of 
Asteropaeus,° because he excelled all the rest in 
both tongues, Greek as well as Latin. He says also 
that Larensis was well versed in the religious cere-
monies established by Romulus, who gave his narre 
to Rome, and by Numa Pompilius, and he was learned 
in political institutions. All this he had acquired 
unaided, by a study of ancient decrees and ordinances 
and from a compilation of laws which the jurists no 
longer teach. They were " already a sealed book " 
as the comic poet Eupolis says of Pindar's poetry,
" because of the decay of popular taste." In 
explanation, Athenaeus says that he owned so many 
ancient Greek books that he surpassed all who have 
been celebrated for their large libraries, including 
Polycrates of Samos, Peisistratus the tyrant of 
Athens, Eucleides, likewise an Athenian, Nicocrates 
of Cyprus, the kings of Pergamum, Euripides the 
poet, Aristotle the philosopher, Theophrastus, and 
Neleus, who preserved the books of the two last 
named. From Neleus, he says, our King Ptolemy, 
surnamed Philadelphus, purchased them all and 
transferred them with those which he had procured 
at Athens and at Rhodes to his beautiful capital, 
Alexandria. Therefore one will be inclined to apply 
to Larensis the words of Antiphanes a : " Thou art 
ever ranged on the side of the Muses and sound 
reason, when a work of art is put to the test." Or, 
as the lyric poet of Thebes b sings, " His delight is in 
the fair flower of the Muses, in wit which makes our 
unceasing sport about the friendly table." Again, 
by his invitations to hospitality he made all feel that 
Rome was their native land. " For who can suffer 
from homesickness when in the company of one who 
keeps his house wide open to his friends ? " ° As 
the comic poet Apollodorus says : " When a man 
enters a friend's house, he may, Nicophon, discover 
his friend's welcome as soon as he enters the door. 
The janitor smiles at him, the dog wags his tail and
cornes to him, a slave rises to meet him and promptly 
sets a chair for him, even though not a word be 
spoken."
The rest of your rich men ought to be like that. 
For to those who do not practise such hospitality one 
may say, " Why are you so niggardly ? ' Surely thy 
tents are full of wine ; spread a bountiful feast for 
the eiders. It is fitting for thee.' a " Such was 
Alexander the Great in his munificence. Conon, 
too, after he had defeated the Lacedaemonians in 
the sea-fight off Cnidus b and surrounded Peiraeus with 
a wall, offered a hecatomb e—a real one, and not 
falsely so called—at which he feasted ail Athens. 
And when Alcibiades won first, second, and fourth 
places at Olympia in a chariot-race d—in honour of 
which even Euripides wrote a hymn e of victory—he 
sacrificed to the Olympian Zeus and entertained the 
entire assemblage. The same was done at Olympia 
by Leophron, and Simonides of Ceos wrote the hymn .f 
Empedocles of Agrigentum won a horse race at 
Olympia. Being a Pythagorean and an abstainer 
from animal food, he made an ox out of myrrh, 
frankincense, and the most costly spices, and divided 
it among the people who carne to the festival. Again 
the Chian poet, Ion, when victor with a tragedy at 
Athens, gave every Athenian a jar of Chian wine.
" For what other reason," wrote Antiphanes,g 
" would a man pray the gods to give him wealth and 
abundance of means, than that he may help his
friends and sow the harvest of gratitude, that sweet 
goddess ? For in drinking and eating we ail take the 
saure pleasure ; but it needs not rich feasts to quell 
hunger."
Xenocrates ° of Chalcedon and Speusippus the 
Academician and Aristotle wrote on the laws of 
kings.
And again,' there was Tellias of Agrigentum, a 
hospitable man who welcomed ail corners, and when 
five hundred horsemen from Gela once stopped at 
his house in the winter season, he gave each a tunic 
and a cloak.
" Your dinner-chasing sophist " is a phrase used 
by Athenaeus.
Clearchus says ° that Charmus the Syracusan had 
verses and proverbs ready for every dish served at 
his banquets. Thus, for the fish, From the sait 
depths of the Aegean am I corne." a For the shell-fish 
called " heralds he would say, " Hail, ye heralds, 
messengers of Zeus." e For the lambs' and kids' 
entrails,> " Twisted these, in no wise sound." ' For 
the squid, stuffed with mince-meat, " Wise art thou, 
wise ! " h For the boiled dressing made of tiny fish, 
" Rid me of this mob, won't you ? "' For the
skinned eel, " I draw no veil of clustering curls 
before me." a
Many such persons, he says, attended the dinner 
given by Larensis, bringing, as it were, contributions 
to a picnic, their literary lore tied up in rolls of 
bedding b He says, too, that Charmus, by having 
something ready to quote for each of the dishes 
served, as has just been explained, enjoyed the 
reputation among the Messenians of being highly 
cultivated. So also Calliphanes, he who was called 
the son of Voracious, had copied out the beginnings 
of numerous poems and speeches, and could repeat 
as many as three or four lines, thus seeking to win 
repute for wide learning.
Many others also had at their tongues' end Sicilian 
lampreys, eels that float on the water's surface, 
stomachs of tunnies caught off Pachynum, the young 
goats of Melos, the fish of Sciathos called " fasters " ; 
and among things of less note, Peloric shells, Lipara 
sprats, the Mantinean turnip, rape from Thebes, and 
beets from Ascra.
Cleanthes of Tarentum, according to Clearchus,° 
used to recite in verse everything he said at a sym-
posium. So did Pamphilus the Sicel. For example,
" Pour me out a draught to drink, and leg of partridge 
give me."
" A chamber-pot or cake with cheese d let some one bring 
me quickly."
They whose substance is secure, Athenaeus 
remarks, need not labour with their hands to feed 
their bellies.
Aristophanes a uses the expression, " carrying 
fish-baskets full of decrees."
Archestratus of Syracuse (or was it Gela ?) in a 
work which Chrysippus entitles " Gastronomia," but 
which Lynceus and Callimachus eall " The Art of 
High Living," Clearchus, " The Art of Dining," 
others, " The Art of Fine Cookery "—the poem is in 
epic verse and begins,b " Of learning I offer proof 
to all Hellas "—says : " Let all Bine at a single 
daintily-furnished table. There should be three or 
four in ail, or at most not more than five. Else we 
should presently have a tentful of freebooters, robbers 
of victuals." e He is unaware that in Plato's mess-
room there were eight and twenty a
" For these fellows are always on the lookout for 
the dinners in town, and shrewdly fly to them without 
an invitation," says Antiphanes,e who continues : 
" Men whom the people ought to support from the 
public treasury ; and just as at Olympia, it is said, 
a special ox is sacrificed for the benefit of the flies, 
so ought they on all occasions to slaughter one first 
for the benefit of the uninvited."
But " some flowers bloom in summer, and some in 
the winter season " as the Syracusan poet f says. It
is not, to be sure, feasible to serve all things at the 
same time, yet it is easy to talk about them.
There have been treatises on banquets by other 
writers, and in particular by Timachidas of Rhodes, 
who wrote one in epic verse in eleven, or possibly 
more, books. There are other works by Numenius 
of Heracleia, the pupil of the physician Dieuches a ; 
Matreas of Pitane, the parodist ; and Hegemon of 
Thasos—his nick-name was " Lentil "—whom some 
place among the writers of the Old Comedy.
Artemidorus, falsely called an Aristophanean,b 
collected words pertaining to cookery. A book 
called The Banquet by Philoxenus of Leucas is 
mentioned by the comic poet Plato ' : " A. Here, 
in this solitary place, I propose to read this book 
to myself.-B. And what is it, pray ?-A. It's a 
new book on cooking by Philoxenus.-a. Show me 
what it is like. n. Listen then : ` I will begin with the 
bulb, and end with the tale of the tunny.'-B. The 
tunny ? Then it is much the best to be stationed 
right there, in the rear rank !—A. ` Smother the 
bulbs in the ashes, moisten with sauce, and eat as 
many as you will, for they exalt a man's parts. 
So much, then, for that. And now I corne to the 
ocean's offspring.' After a little he proceeds : ` For 
them the casserole is not bad, though I think the
frying-pan better.' And a little further : ' The sea-
perch, the turbot, the fish with even teeth and with
jagged teeth must rot be sliced, else the vengeance 
of the gods may breathe upon you. Rather, bake 
and serve them whole, for it is much better so. The 
wriggling polyp, if it be railler large, is much better 
boiled than baked, if you beat it until it is tender. 
But the devil may take the boiled, say I, if I can get 
two that are baked. As for the red mullet, that 
will give no strength to the glands.. For she is a 
daughter of the virgin Artemis and loathes the rising 
passion. Again, the scorpion ...'—$. May it creep 
up and take a bite out of your buttocks ! "
From this Philoxenus certain flat cakes came to 
be named " Philoxenei." Concerning him Chrysippus 
says : " I remember a certain gourmand, who was so 
far lost to all feelings of shame before his comparions, 
no matter what happened, that in the public battis 
he accustomed his hand to heat by plunging it into 
hot water, and gargled his throat with hot water that 
he might rot shrink from hot food.b For they used 
to say that he had actually won the cooks over to 
serving the dishes very hot, his object being to eat 
up everything alone, since nobody else was able to 
follow his example." The same story is told also if 
Philoxenus of Cythera, of Archytas, and several 
others, one of whom says, in a comedy by Crobylus
" A . I've got fingers that are veritably Idaean d
against these viands so excessively hot, and I like 
to give my throat a vapour bath with hot slices of 
meat.-B. He must be a chimney, not a human 
being." And Clearchus a says that Philoxenus, 
having first taken a bath, would go round among the 
houses in his own city and others as well, followed 
by slaves carrying oil, wine, fish-paste, vinegar, and 
other relishes, then he would enter a house, albeit 
a stranger's, and season whatever was cooking for 
the rest of the company, putting in what was 
lacking. When ail was ready, he would bend 
over and greedily enjoy the feast. He once 
landed at Ephesus, and finding the victualler's 
shop empty inquired the cause. When he learned 
that everything had been sold out for a wedding, he 
bathed and went uninvited to the bridegroom's house. 
And after the dinner he sang the wedding song 
beginning " Marriage, most radiant deity," b and 
delighted the whole company. For he was a dithy-
rambie poet. And the groom said, "Philoxenus, 
shall you dîne in this way to-morrow also ? " " Yes," 
said Philoxenus, " if there be no victuals for sale."
Now Theophilus ° says " Unlike Philoxenus the 
son of Eryxis ; for he, seemingly finding fault with 
nature's provision for the enjoyment of food, prayed 
that he might have the neck of a crane. But he 
might have clone much better to wish to become a 
horse or an ox or a camel or an elephant ; for in that 
case desires and pleasures are much greater and 
more intense, since their enjoyment is in proportion 
to the animais' strength." And Clearchus, speaking 
of Melanthius, says d that he prayed thus : ' Melan-
thius, it appears, has conceived a better plan than 
Tithonus. For Tithonus longed for immortality, but 
now hands in his charnber,a old age having deprived 
him of all pleasures ; whereas Melanthius, loving the 
delights of food, prayed that he might have the 
gullet of that long-necked bird,b that he might linger 
long over his pleasures." The saine authority e says 
that Pithyllus, called the gourmand, wore a cover-
ing for the tongue made of membrane, and sheathed 
his tongue besides for greater enjoyment, and, at 
the end of the feast, he would powder some dried 
fish skin and purge the tongue. And he is the only 
gourmand who is said to have eaten food with finger-
shields, desiring (the wretch !) to offer it to his tongue 
as hot as he could. Others cadi Philoxenus " the 
fish - lover," but Aristotle d calls him in general 
" dinner-lover." He also writes, I believe, as follows : 
" They deliver claptrap orations wherever crowds 
collect, wasting the livelong day in jugglers' tricks, 
and among the adventurers who corne from the 
Phasis or the Borysthenes,e though they have never 
read anything but Philoxenus's Banquet, and that 
not entire."
Phaenias says r that Philoxenus, the poet of 
Cythera, who was devoted to dainty food, was once 
dining with Dionysius, and when he saw that a large 
mullet had been set before Dionysius, while a small 
one had been served to himself, he took it up in his 
hands and placed it to his ear. When Dionysius 
asked him why he did that, Philoxenus answered that
he was writing a poem on Galatea and desired to ask 
the mullet some questions about Nereus a and his 
daughters. And the creature, on being asked, had 
answered that she had been caught when too young, 
and therefore had not joined Nereus's company ; but 
her sister, the one set before Dionysius, was older, 
and knew accurately all he wished to learn. So 
Dionysius, with a laugh, sent him the mullet that 
had been served to himself. Moreover, Dionysius 
was fond of drinking deep in company with Philo-
xenus. But when Philoxenus was detected in the 
act of seducing the king's mistress Galatea, he was 
thrown into the quarries. There he wrote his Cyclops, 
telling the story of what had happened to him, and 
representing Dionysius as Cyclops, the flute-girl as 
the nymph Galatea, and himself as Odysseus b
There lived in the days of Tiberius a man named 
Apicius, an exceedingly rich voluptuary, from whom 
many kinds of cakes are called Apician. He had 
lavished countless sums on his belly in Minturnae, 
a city of Campania, and lived there eating mostly 
high-priced prawns, which grow bigger there than 
the largest prawns of Smyrna or the lobsters of 
Alexandria. Now he heard that they also grew to 
excessive size in Libya, so he sailed forth without a 
day's delay, encountering very bad weather on the 
voyage. When he drew near those regions, fisher-
men sailed to meet him before he left his skip (for 
the report of his coming had spread far and wide 
among the Libyans), and brought to him their best 
prawns. On seeing them he asked if they had any
that were larger, and on their answering that none 
grew larger than those they had brought, he be-
thought him of the prawns in Minturnae and told 
the pilot to sail back by the same route to Italy 
without so much as approaching the shore.
Aristoxenus, the Cyrenaic philosopher, practised 
literally the system of philosophy which arose 
in his country,¢ and from him a kind of ham 
specially prepared is called Aristoxenus ; in his 
excess of luxury he used to water the lettuce in his 
garden at evening with wine and honey, and taking 
them up in the morning used to say that they were 
blanched cakes produced by the earth for him.
When the Emperor Trajan was in Parthia, many 
days' journey away from the sea, Apicius caused 
fresh oysters to be sent to him in packing skilfully 
devised by himself. He was better served than 
Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, when he desired 
anchovy, he also living too far away from the sea ; 
for a cook made an imitation of the fish and served 
this to him. At any rate, the cook in Euphron,b the 
comic poet, says : " A. I was a pupil of Soterides, 
who, when Nicomedes was twelve days' journey 
from the sea and desired an anchovy in the middle 
of winter, served it to him—Zeus be my witness !—
so that all cried out in wonder.—B. But how could 
that be ?—A. He took a fresh turnip and eut it in 
slices thin and long, shaping it just like the anchovy. 
Then he parboiled it, poured oil upon it, sprinkled
sait to taste, spread on the top exactly forty seeds 
of black poppy, and satisfied the king's desire in 
far-away Scythia. And when Nicomedes had tasted 
the turnip, he sang the praise of anchovy to his 
friends. The Cook and the poet are just alike : the 
art of each lies in his brain."
Archilochus, the poet of Paros, speaks of Pericles 
as bursting uninvited into a drinking Company " litre 
a Myconian." It appears that the people of My-
conos b had a bad narre for greed and avarice 
because they were poverty-stricken and lived on 
a wretched island ; at any rate, the greedy 
Ischomachus is called Myconian by Cratinus e : 
" How could you, of all persons, be generous, being 
the son of Ischomachus the Myconian ? "
A brave man I, among brave men I have corne to 
dine. For common are the goods of friends .a
But the passage from Archilochus is this : e 
" Though drinking much wine—and that unmixed 
with water—thou hast not paid the scot . . . and 
uninvited, too, thou camest, as an intimate friend 
might do. Nay, thy belly hath perverted thy heart 
and soul to shamelessness."
Eubulus,f the comic poet, says, I believe : " There 
are, among our guests invited to dinner, two in-
vincibles, Philocrates and—Philocrates ! For I count 
him, though one, as two (and lusty too) ; yes, even
as three Once, they say, he had been asked out 
to dine by some friend who told him to corne when 
the shadow on the dial measured twenty feet.a So 
at dawn he began to measure when the sun was 
rising, and when the shadow was too long by more 
than a couple of feet he came to dine, and said that 
he had arrived a little late because of business 
engagements—though he had corne at daybreak ! "
Amphisb the comic poet says that" whosoever islate 
at a free dinner ° you may guess would desert right 
soon the ranks in battle " ; and Chrysippus says, " The 
goblet which costs nothing thou shalt not neglect." 
Again, " The free goblet must not be neglected ; 
nay, it must be pursued." Antiphanes ° also says : 
" That is the life the gods lead, when you can dine 
at others' expense with no thought of the reckoning." 
And again : " My life is blessed indeed ! I must 
ever discover some new device to get a morsel for 
my jaws."
These jests r have I brought from home to the 
banquet, after careful rehearsal, for I, too, wanted 
to have my house-rent ready to pay when I carne.
" For we bards ever sacrifice without smoke." 9
Yet the notion of eating alone was not unknown
among the ancients. Antiphanes a : " You eat 
alone ! That's a wilful injury to me." Ameipsias b : 
" To the devil with you, solitary eater and house-
breaker
THE LIFE OF THE HEROES IN HOMER C
Homer saw that moderation is the first and most 
appropriate virtue of the young, harmoniously joining 
together and enhancing all that is fair ; and since he 
wished to implant it anew from beginning to end so 
that his heroes might spend their leisure and their 
endeavour on noble deeds and be helpful to each 
other and share their goods with one another, he 
made their way of living frugal and contented. For 
he considered that passions and pleasures become 
very strong, and that foremost among them and 
innate are the desires for eating and drinking, and 
that they who abide resolutely in frugality are wel]-
disciplined and self-controlled in all the exigencies 
of life. He has, therefore, ascribed a simple manner 
of life to ail, the same, too, for kings as for subjects, 
for young as for old, when he says d : " And to his 
sicle she drew a polished table ; and the grave 
housekeeper brought bread and set it before them." 
" And the carver took platters of meat and set them 
before them." e Now this meat, too, was roasted, and 
was for the most part beef. Excepting this he never 
places before them anything, whether at a festival
or a wedding or any other gathering. And yet he 
often makes Agamemnon entertain his chieftains at 
dinner ; no entrées served in fig-leaves, no rare tit-
bit or milk-cakes, or honey-cakes, does Homer serve as 
choice dainties for his kings, but only viands by which 
body and soul might enjoy strength. And so after 
the duel a Agamemnon especially " rewarded Ajax 
with the chine of oxen." b And to Nestor,° by this 
time an old man, and to Phoenix,d he gives roast 
meat, meaning to restrain us from riotous desires. 
And it was so with Alcinoils, whose choice inclined 
to a luxurious life ; he feasted the Phaeacians, who 
lived most luxuriously, and entertained the stranger 
Odysseus ; he shows him the well-appointed house 
and garden, and then causes the same simple fare 
to be placed before him. Menelaus, also, when he 
celebrated the nuptials of his children,e at the time 
when Telemachus came to visit him, " took and set 
before them the roasted ox-chine, which they had 
served to him as his own meed of honour." And 
Nestor also, though a king who had many subj ects, 
sacrificed cattle to Poseidon at the seaside by the 
hand of the children most near and dear to him, 
exhorting them in these words f : " Nay then, let 
one go to the field for a heifer," and the rest. For 
that sort of sacrifice, made by men who are devoted 
and loyal, is holier and more acceptable to the gods. 
Even the suitors, insolent though they were, and
recklessly given over to pleasure, are not represented 
as eating fish or birds or honey-cakes, for Homer 
strenuously excludes the tricks of the culinary art, 
the viands which Menander calls aphrodisiac, and 
that mentioned in many authors under the name of 
lastaurokakabos a (as Chrysippus says in his work On 
Pleasure and the Good), the preparation of which 
is rather elaborate.
The Priam of Homer, too, reproaches his sons 
for consuming what custom prohibits : " Plunderers 
of lambs and kids belonging to your own country-
men!"
Philochorus ° records that at Athens no one was 
allowed to taste the flesh of an unshorn lamb, because 
at one time there had occurred a dearth of these 
animais.
Although Homer describes the Hellespont as 
teeming with fish,d and pictures the Phaeacians as 
devoted to the sea, and although he knows that in 
Ithaca there are several harbours and many islands 
near the shore abounding in fish and wild fowl, and 
moreover counts the sea's bounty in supplying fish 
as an element of prosperity, he nevertheless never 
represents anyone as eating any of these creatures. 
What is more, he does not place fruit upon the board 
either, though it was abundant and he mentions it in 
a delightful passage,e representing it as never failing 
throughout the year: " Pear upon pear," he says, 
and ail the rest. What is more, he also does not 
picture the wearing of chaplets or the use of unguents, 
any more than the burning of intense. On the 
contrary, his characters are free of ail such con-
ventions, and the foremost of them are singled out 
for freedom and independence. Even to the gods 
he ascribes a simple regimen of nectar and ambrosia. 
He pictures human beings as honouring the gods in 
their diet, denying to them the use of frankincense 
or myrrh or wreaths or similar luxuries. And even 
this simple food they do not enjoy greedily, accord-
ing to him, but like an excellent physician, he forbids 
satiety, saying, " when they had banished desire for 
eating and drinking." a And after his heroes had 
satisfied their appetite some would be off to athletic 
practice, " amusing themselves with discus and 
spear," ' in sport training themselves for serious 
work ; while others would listen to the harpists as 
they set to melody and rhythm the deeds of heroes. 
It is no wonder, therefore, that men nurtured in this 
fashion should be free from the excitements of body 
and soul.e By way, then, of showing that moderate 
living is healthful, beneficial, and adapted for ail, 
he has portrayed Nestor,d wisest of men, as offering 
wine to the physician Machaon when he was wounded 
in the right shoulder, although Nestor was a bitter 
foe of passion ; and the wine he gives is Pramneian, 
too, which we know was heavy and filling. It 
was no " cure for thirst," e but rather a device for 
stuffing the belly ; at any rate, although Machaon 
has already drunk, Nestor urges him to continue, 
saying, " Be seated, and drink." f He then scrapes 
some goat's milk cheese over the wine and adds an 
onion as a relish g to make him drink more. And 
yet in another passage h Homer says that wine 
relaxes and enervates bodily vigour. As for Hector,
Hecuba,a hoping that he will stay in the city the 
rest of the day, invites him to pour a libation and 
drink, thinking to incite him to gaiety. But he puts 
:t off and goes forth to action. She insistently praises 
wine, but he rejects it, though panting for breath 
when he cornes before her. She urges him to pour 
a libation and drink, but he thinks it unholy when he 
is covered with the blood of battle. Still, Homer 
recognizes the usefulness of wine in moderation when 
he says b that he who quaffs too eagerly injures 
himself. He also understands various degrees of 
mixing ; e for Achilles would not have directed that 
" the purer sort be mixed " had not sonie sort of 
mixing been a daily custom. It may be that the 
poet was not aware that wine is too easily carried off 
through the pores if there be no admixture of solid 
food, a fact well known to physicians in practice ; 
at any rate, for patients suffering from cardiac dis-
orders they mix some cereal food and wine together 
in order to retain its effect. Nestor, however, gives 
Machaon his wine mixed with meal and cheese ; and 
the poet makes Odysseus combine the advantages 
derived from food and wine together in the verse,e 
" The man who has had his fill of wine and food." 
To a hard drinker he gives the " sweet draught," as 
he calls it : f " In it stood casks of wine, the old 
sweet draught."
Homer also represents young girls and women as 
bathing their guests, evidently believing that when 
men have lived honorable and chaste lives, women 
do not kindle violent passion in them. This is an
ancient practice ; at any rate, the daughters of 
Cocalus bathed Minos, as though it were customary, 
when he came to Sicily.a
By way of denouncing drunkenness the poet 
portrays Cyclops, for all his great size, as completely 
overcome, when drunk, by a small person b ; like-
\vise the centaur Eurytion ; c and so he changes the 
men who visited Circe into lions and wolves because 
of their self-indulgence, whereas Odysseus is saved 
because he obeys the admonition of Hermes,d and 
therefore coules off unscathed. But he makes Elpenor, 
who indulges too freely in vine, and is given to luxury, 
break his neck by a fall.e And Antinoüs, the very one 
who says t to Odysseus " the sweet wine is affecting 
thee," could not abstain from drinking himself ; 
therefore he too was " affected," and lost his life 
with the cup still in his hand. Homer also represents 
the Greeks as drunk when they sailed away,9 and that 
is why they fell to quarrelling and were destroyed. 
He also tells how Aeneas,h though most skilled in 
counsel among the Trojans, because of his outspoken 
language inspired by drink and because of the 
boastful threats he had uttered to the 'I'ro_jans when 
in his cups, resisted the onslaught of Achilles, and 
so nearly lost his lite. Agamemnon, too, says some-
where of himself,i " Since I was undone by yielding 
to my baleful spirit, or because I was drunken with 
vine, or because the gods themselves did blast me," 
thus putting drunkenness in the sanie scale with 
madness. (Witte this interpretation have tliese same 
verses been cited by Dioscurides, disciple of Iso-
crates.) And Achilles, when reviling Agamemnon, 
calls him " Heavy with wine, with the eyes of a 
dog." a
Thus spoke " the Thessalian wit," that is, the wise 
man of Thessaly.b Athenaeus is perhaps alluding 
to the old saying.
In the matter of meals, the heroes of Homer took 
first the so-called akratisma,° or breakfast, which he 
calls ariston e This he mentions once in the Odyssey e : 
" Odysseus and the godlike swineherd kindled a fire 
and prepared breakfast." And once in the Riad t : 
" Quickly they set to work and prepared breakfast." 
He calls the morning meal embroma ; we call it 
akratismos, because we eat pieces of bread sopped in 
unmixed (akratos) wine. So Antiphanes 8 retains the 
Homeric usage : " While the cook is getting break-
fast," immediately continuing, " Have you time to 
join me at breakfast ? " Cantharus h also identifies 
ariston and akratismos : " A. Let us, then, take 
breakfast here.-B. Not so ; we will breakfast at 
the Isthmus." Aristomenes : " I'll get a little 
breakfast, a bite or two of bread, and then corne 
back." But Philemon says that the ancients had four 
meals, akratisma, ariston, hesperisma (" evening meal ") 
and deipnon (" dinner "). Now the akratisma they 
called breaking the fast, the ariston (" luncheon ") they 
called deipnon, the evening meal dorpestos, the dinner
epidorpis. In Aeschylus may be found the proper 
order of these terms, in the verses wherein Palamedes 
is made to say : a " I appointed captains of divisions 
and of hundreds over the host, and meals I taught 
them to distinguish, breakfasts, dinners, and suppers, 
third." The fourth meal is mentioned by Homer in 
these words : b " Go thon when thou hast supped," re-
ferring to what some call deilinon,which cornes between 
our ariston (" luncheon ") and deipnon (" dinner "). 
So ariston, in Homer, is the meal eaten in the early 
morning, wliereas deipnon is the noon meal which we 
to-day eall ariston, and dorpon is the evening meal. 
Perhaps, also, deipnon in Homer is sometimes syn-
onymous with ariston ; for of the morning meal lie 
somewhere said : ° " They then took their deipnon, 
and after that began to arm for battle ; " that is, 
immediately after sunrise and the deipnon, they go 
forth to fight.
In Homer men feast sitting.d Certain authorities 
also think that a separate table is set before each 
diner. In the case of Mentes,e at any rate, they 
assert that a " polished table " was placed before 
him when he visited Telemachus,f although the 
tables had already been set out. But this is not a 
conclusive settlement of the question ; for it is 
possible that Athena dined from the saure table as 
Telemachus. Throughout the banquet the tables 
remained before them fully spread, as is still the 
custom to-day among many foreign peoples, " com-
pletely covered o'er with divers good things," as 
Anacreon a has it. After the guests withdrew, " the 
maids carried away much food as well as the table 
and the cups." b But the banquet in the scene at 
Menelaus's palace e is peculiar. For after eating, the 
guests converse ; then they wash their hands and 
eat once more, and stil] later, after their lamentation, 
they bethink a them of supper. The notion that the 
tables were removed is seemingly refuted by the 
verse in the Iliade : " He had been eating and 
drinking, and the table stil] stood beside him." 
Accordingly we must read the line thus : " Eating 
and drinking stil], while the table stood beside him." f 
Or else we must explain the contradiction by the 
special circumstances. For how could it have been 
decent for Achilles, then in mourning, to have a 
table set before him just as it is for revellers through-
out an entire symposium ? Loaves of bread were 
served in baskets, but at dinner only roast meat was 
known. " Homer," observes Antiphanes,g " never 
made broth when he sacrificed oxen, nor did he boil 
the flesh or the brains, but he roasted even the 
entrails. So very old-fashioned was he."
Now of the meat, also, portions were equally 
divided, whence he calls banquets " equal " because 
of the equality observed. Dinners were called daites 
from daleisthai, " to divide," and wine as well as 
meat was equally apportioned : " By this time we 
had satisfied our souls with the equal feast." h
Again : " Your health, Achilles ! Of the equal 
feast we are in no want." a Hence Zenodotus was 
convinced that an " equal " feast meant a " goodly 
feast." For since food is a necessary good for man, 
Homer, he asserts, calls it " equal," using an extended 
form of the word b ; for primitive men, who, of course, 
did not have abundant food, would fall upon it pell-
mell as soon as it appeared, and forcibly snatch and 
wrest it from those who had it, so that in the midst 
of this disorder bloodshed would actually occur. So it 
was,probably,that the word atasthalia (" wickedness ") 
came into use, because it was amid festivity (thalia) 
that men first sinned against one another.e But 
when, through Demeter's bounty, they came to have 
plenty, they would divide it equally to each, and in 
this way men came to sup in orderly fashion. Thus, 
also, cornes the conception of " loaf " a as a due 
portion, and of cake divided up into equal portions, and 
of " goblets " e for drinkers challenging in their turn. 
In fact, those ternis arose when men were progress-
ing toward fair dealing. And so the ineal is called 
dais from daiesthai " divide," that is, to distribute in 
equal portions ; and the roaster of meat is daitros,t 
or " divider," because he gave an equal portion to 
everybody. In faet, it is only of human beings that 
the poet uses the word dais, but when he cornes to 
beasts, never. But Zenodotus, unaware of the 
etymology of the word, Sorites in his edition of 
Homer,9 " gave their bodies to be a prey to dogs
and a feast (dais) to birds," dignifying by this name 
the food of vultures and other birds of prey, although 
man alone progresses from primitive violence to fair 
dealing. Hence only man's food can be dais, and 
his " lot " is what is given to everybody. In Homer 
the feasters were not in the habit of carrying home 
anything left over, but after satisfying themselves 
they left it behind where they had dined. The 
housekeeper would take and keep it, so that if a 
stranger arrived she might have something to give 
him.
Now Homer even represents the men of those 
times as eating fish and birds .a In Thrinacia, any-
way, Odysseus's companions catch " fishes and fowls 
and whatever came to their hands, with bended 
books." b For surely the hooks had not been forged 
in Thrinacia, but must have been brought with them 
on the voyage, which proves that they had had 
practice and skill in catching fish. Moreover, the 
poet compares c those companions of Odysseus who 
had been snatched up by Scylla, to fish caught on a 
long pole and flung out upon the shore. He thus 
shows a more exact understanding of this art than 
the authors of systematic poems and treatises on it, 
I mean Caecalus of Argos, Numenius of Heracleia, 
Pancrates of Arcadia, Poseidonius of Corinth, and 
Oppian of Cilicia, who was born a little before us a 
These make a considerable number of writers on 
angling in epicverse that we have found,whilein prose 
there are the works of Seleucus of Tarsus, Leonidas of
Byzantium, and Agathocles of Atrax. a Still, Homer 
never mentions such food in connexion with banquets, 
evidently because these viands were not considered 
appropriate to the heroes of high rank, any more 
than he mentions the eating of young animais. But 
they also ate oysters as well as fish, though the 
eating of thern affords little benefit or pleasure, 
especially as they lie deep at the bottom of the sea, 
and there is no way of getting them except by diving 
to the bottom. " Verily, a nimble man he, who 
diveth easily ; " b of whom he also says, " Many would 
he satisfy by diving for oysters."
Before every feaster in Homer a cup is set. In 
the case of Demodocus,° at least, there are furnished 
a basket, a table, and a cup " for drinking whensoe'er 
his heart bade him." And " the mixing-bowls are 
crowned with the beverage," that is, they are filled 
to the brim, so as to be " crowned " with the wine. 
This they did because they regarded it as a good 
omen. And " the young men distribute it to ail, 
after the drink-offering has been poured into the 
cups." e The word " ail " refers to the men, not to 
the cups. At any rate, Alcinoils says to Pontonoiis,f 
" Serve wine to ail in the hall," continuing, " So, then, 
he measured it out to ail, after he had poured the 
drink-offering into the cups."
There are also special honours at dinner for the 
bravest. For example, Tydeides is honoured " with 
meat and full cups," g and Ajax is rewarded " with 
chines eut the whole length," h and the chieftains
also receive the sarne : " The chine of an ox, which 
they set before him," a meaning Menelaus. So 
Agamemnon honours Idomeneus " with full cup," 
and Sarpedon is honoured among the Lycians in the 
same way, and also with meat and a special chair.c
Drinking a health was accompanied by a hand-
clasp. Thus the gods " at the golden cups clasped 
one another," that is, gave each other the right hand 
as they pledged one another ; and someone " clasped 
Achilles," d instead of " gave him the right hand," 
i.e. he pledged him while extending the cup in his 
right hand.e They used also to present a part of 
their own portion to anyone they liked, just as 
Odysseus cuts off for Demodocus some of the chine 
which they had served to him .i
They were also in the habit, as the suitors show, 
of employing at symposia singers accompanied by the 
lyre, and dancers. At Menelaus's palace " the 
divine minstrel sang," g and two tumblers whirled 
about as leaders in the mirth ; this word molpe 
(" mirth ") is for our paidia (" sport "). Yet there 
was a certain sobriety in the minstrel tribe, who took 
the place of the philosophers of our time?' 
Agamemnon, for example, leaves a minstrel behind 
to guard and counsel Clytaemnestra? His business 
was first to dilate on the virtues of women and 
inspire emulation for uprightness, and secondly, to 
furnish pleasant entertainment to divert her mind 
from low thoughts. Hence Aegisthus could not 
corrupt the lady until he had murdered the bard on 
a desert island. The same character is found also
in the bard who sang under compulsion before the 
suitors, for he spoke out his detestation of the 
suitors who beset Penelope. We may say in general 
that Homer calls all bards " reverend " in men's 
eyes, " for this is why the Muse bath taught them 
in the ways of Song, and loved the tribe of minstrels." a 
Demodocus at the Phaeacian court sings of the 
amours of Ares and Aphrodite,b not in approval of 
such passion, but to deter his hem-ers from illicit 
desires, or else because he knew that they had been 
brought up in a luxurious mode of life and therefore 
offered for their amusement what was most in keep-
ing with their character. And to the suitors Phemius 
sings with the same intent the return of the Achaeans.c 
The Sirens also sing to Odysseus the things most 
likely to please him, reciting what would appeal to 
his ambition and knowledge. " For we know," say 
they, " all other things and all that shall befall upon 
the fruitful earth as well." d
The dances in Horner are, in some cases, per-
formed by tumblers, in others, accompanied by bail-
playing, the invention of which is ascribed to Nausicaa 
by Agallis, the Corcyraean savante, who naturally 
favoured her own countrywoman. But Dicaearchus e 
credits it to the Sicyonians, while Hippasus f makes 
the Lacedaemonians pioneers in this as in all gym-
nastic exercises. Nausicaa is the only one of his 
heroines whom Homer introduces playing bail. 
Famous bail-players were Dernoteles, brother of 
Theocritus the Chian sophist ; also one Chaere-
phanes. He, when following a licentious young man,
would not converse with him, and moreover prevented 
the young fellow from indulging his passion. So the 
young man said, " Chaerephanes, if you will stop fol-
lowing me you shall have of me anything you desire." 
" What ! " he replied ; " I converse with you ? " 
" Why, then," said the young man, " do you persist 
in following me ? " To this he answered, ` I like to 
look at you, but I do not approve of your morals."
The folliculus, as it was called (it was apparently 
a kind of ball), was invented by Atticus of Naples, 
traîner of Pompey the Great, as an aid in physical 
exercise. The ball-game now called harpastuin was 
formerly called phaininda, which is the kind I like 
best of ail.
Great are the exertion and fatigue attendant upon 
contests of bail-playing, and violent twisting and 
turning of the neck. Hence Antiphanes a : " Damn 
me, what a pain I've got in my neck ! " He describes 
the game of phaininda thus : b " He seized the bail 
and passed it with a laugh to one, while the other 
player he dodged ; from one he pushed it out of the 
way, while he raised another player to his feet amid 
resounding shouts of ` out of bounds,' ` too far,'
right beside him," over his head," on the ground,' 
up in the air,' ` too short,' ` pass it back in the 
scrimmage.' " The game was called phaininda either 
from the players shooting ° the bail or because, accord-
ing to Juba the Mauretanian,' its inventor was the 
traîner Phainestius. So Antiphanes ° : " You went 
to play phaininda in the gymnasium of Phainestius."
Ball-players also paid attention to graceful movement, 
Damcxenus, at any rate, says : a " A youngster, 
perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, was once 
playing ball. He came from Cos ; that island, it is 
plain, produces gods. Whenever he cast his eye upon 
us seated there, as he caught or threw the bail, we 
shouted togethcr, ` What rhythm ! what modesty of 
manner, what skill ' Whatever he said or did, 
gentlemen, he seemed a miracle of beauty. Never 
before have I heard of or seen such grace. Some-
thing would have happened to me if I had stayed 
longer ; as it is, I feel that I am not quite weil." 
Even Ctesibius, the philosopher of Chalcis, liked to 
play bail, and many of King Antigonus's friends 
would strip for a game with him. Timocrates the 
Laconian wrote a treatise on hall-playing.
But the Phaeacians in Homer also dance without 
a bail. And they dance rapidly in turn, I suppose 
(since this is the meaning of "tossing rapidly to and 
fro"), while others stand by and beat time by 
snapping the fingers, which is expressed by the verb 
" snap."  The poet also knows of the practice of 
dancing with song accompaniment. For Demodocus 
sang while " boys in their first bloom " d danced, and 
in the Forging of the Arms  a boy played the lyre 
while others opposite him "frisked about to the 
music and the dance." Here there is an allusion to 
the style of the hyporcheme, which became popular