The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus Part 4

p?s??, ?pa???e??? dep?ess??,[21:3]

the word p?s?? referring not to the cups but to the men. Accordingly Alcinous says to Pontonous,

Let _all_ around the due libation pay To Jove, who guides the wanderer on his way;[21:4]

and then he goes on,

All drink the juice that glads the heart of man.

And due honour is paid at those banquets to all the most eminent men.

Accordingly, Tydides is honoured with great quant.i.ties of meat and wine; and Ajax receives the compliment of a whole chine of beef. And the kings are treated in the same way:--

A rump of beef they set before the king:[21:5]

that is, before Menelaus. And in like manner he honours Idomeneus and Agamemnon

With ever br.i.m.m.i.n.g cups of rosy wine.[22:1]

And Sarpedon, among the Lycians, receives the same respect, and has the highest seat, and the most meat.

They had also a way of saluting in drinking one another's health; and so even the G.o.ds,

In golden goblets pledged each other's health;

that is, they took one another by the right hand while drinking. And so some one de?de?t' ??????a, which is the same as if he had said ?de????t?, that is, took him by the right hand. He drank to him, proffering him the goblet in his right hand. They also gave some of their own portion to those to whom they wished to show attention; as, Ulysses having cut off a piece of chine of beef which was set before himself, sent it to Demodocus.

24. They also availed themselves at their banquets of the services of minstrels and dancers; as the suitors did, and in the palace of Menelaus

A band amid the joyous circle sings High airs attempered to the vocal strings; While, warbling to the varied strain, advance Two sprightly youths to form the bounding dance.[22:2]

And though Homer uses ??p?, _warbling_, here, he is really speaking only of the exercise of the dance. But the race of bards in those days was modest and orderly, cultivating a disposition like that of philosophers. And accordingly Agamemnon leaves his bard as a guardian and counsellor to Clytaemnestra: who, first of all, going through all the virtues of women, endeavoured to inspire her with an ambition of excelling in virtuous and ladylike habits; and, after that, by supplying her with agreeable occupation, sought to prevent her inclinations from going astray after evil thoughts: so that aegisthus could not seduce the woman till he had murdered the bard on a desert island. And the same is the character of that bard who sings under compulsion before the suitors; who bitterly reproached them for laying plots against Penelope.

We find too that using one general term, Homer calls all bards objects of veneration among men.

Therefore the holy Muse their honour guards In every land, and loves the race of bards.[23:1]

And Demodocus the bard of the Phaeacians sings of the intrigue between Mars and Venus; not because he approves of such behaviour, but for the purpose of dissuading his hearers from the indulgence of such pa.s.sions, knowing that they have been brought up in a luxurious way, and therefore relating to them tales not inconsistent with their own manners, for the purpose of pointing out to them the evil of them, and persuading them to avoid such conduct. And Phemius sings to the suitors, in compliance with their desire, the tale of the return of the Greeks from Troy; and the sirens sing to Ulysses what they think will be most agreeable to him, saying what they think most akin to his own ambition and extensive learning. We know, say they,

Whate'er beneath the sun's bright journey lies, Oh stay and learn new wisdom from the wise.[23:2]

25. The dances spoken of in Homer are partly those of tumblers and partly those of ball-players; the invention of which last kind Agallis, the Corcyrean auth.o.r.ess, who wrote on grammar, attributes to Nausicaa, paying a compliment to her own countrywoman; but Dicaearchus attributes it to the Sicyonians. But Hippasus gives the credit of both this and gymnastic exercises to the Lacedaemonians. However, Nausicaa is the only one of his heroines whom Homer introduces playing at ball. Demoteles, the brother of Theognis the Chian sophist, was eminent for his skill in this game; and a man of the name of Chaerephanes, who once kept following a debauched young man, and did not speak to him, but prevented him from misbehaving. And when he said, "Chaerephanes, you may make your own terms with me, if you will only desist from following me;" "Do you think,"

said he, "that I want to speak to you?" "If you do not," said he, "why do you follow me?" "I like to look at you," he replied, "but I do not approve of your conduct."

The thing called f?????????, which appears to have been a kind of small ball, was invented by Atticus the Neapolitan, the tutor in gymnastics of the great Pompey. And in the game of ball the variation called ??past??

used to be called fa????da and I think that the best of all the games of ball.

26. There is a great deal of exertion and labour in a game of ball, and it causes great straining of the neck and shoulders. Antiphanes says,

Wretch that I am, my neck's so stiff;

and again Antiphanes describes the fa????da thus:--

The player takes the ball elate, And gives it safely to his mate, Avoids the blows of th' other side, And shouts to see them hitting wide; List to the cries, "Hit here," "hit there,"

"Too far," "too high," "that is not fair,"-- See every man with ardour burns To make good strokes and quick returns.

And it was called fa????da from the rapid motion of those who played, or else because its inventor, as Juba the Mauritanian says, was Phaenestius, a master of gymnastics. And Antiphanes,

To play Phaeninda at Phaenestius' school.

And those who played paid great attention to elegance of motion and att.i.tude; and accordingly Demoxenus says:--

A youth I saw was playing ball, Seventeen years of age and tall; From Cos he came, and well I wot The G.o.ds look kindly on that spot.

For when he took the ball or threw it, So pleased were all of us to view it, We all cried out; so great his grace, Such frank good humour in his face, That every time he spoke or moved, All felt as if that youth they loved.

Sure ne'er before had these eyes seen, Nor ever since, so fair a mien; Had I staid long most sad my plight Had been to lose my wits outright, And even now the recollection Disturbs my senses' calm reflection.

Ctesibius also of Chalcis, a philosopher, was no bad player. And there were many of the friends of Antigonus the king who used to take their coats off and play ball with him. Timocrates, too, the Lacedaemonian, wrote a book on playing ball.

27. But the Phaeacians in Homer had a dance also unconnected with ball playing; and they danced very cleverly, alternating in figures with one another. That is what is meant by the expression,

In frequent interchanges,

while others stood by and made a clapping noise with their fore-fingers, which is called ???e??. The poet was acquainted also with the art of dancing so as to keep time with singing. And while Demodocus was singing, youths just entering on manhood were dancing; and in the book which is called the Manufacture of the Arms, a boy played the harp,

Danced round and sung in soft well measured tune.

And in these pa.s.sages the allusion is to that which is called the hyporchematic[25:1] style, which flourished in the time of Xenodemus and Pindar. And this kind of dance is an imitation of actions which are explained by words, and is what the elegant Xenophon represents as having taken place, in his Anabasis, at the banquet given by Seuthes the Thracian. He says:

"After libations were made, and the guests had sung a paean, there rose up first the Thracians, and danced in arms to the music of a flute, and jumped up very high, with light jumps, and used their swords. And at last one of them strikes another, so that it seemed to every one that the man was wounded. And he fell down in a very clever manner, and all the bystanders raised an outcry. And he who struck him having stripped him of his arms, went out singing Sitalces. And others of the Thracians carried out his antagonist as if he were dead; but in reality, he was not hurt. After this some aenianians and Magnesians rose up, who danced the dance called Carpaea, they too being in armour. And the fas.h.i.+on of that dance was like this: One man, having laid aside his arms, is sowing, and driving a yoke of oxen, constantly looking round as if he were afraid. Then there comes up a robber; but the sower, as soon as he sees him, s.n.a.t.c.hes up his arms and fights in defence of his team in regular time to the music of the flute. And at last the robber, having bound the man, carries off the team; but sometimes the sower conquers the robber, and then binding him alongside his oxen, he ties his hands behind him, and drives him forward. And one man," says he, "danced the Persian dance, and rattling one s.h.i.+eld against another, fell down, and rose up again: and he did all this in time to the music of a flute. And the Arcadians rising up, all moved in time, being clothed in armour, the flute-players playing the tune suited to an armed march; and they sung the paean, and danced."

28. The heroes used also flutes and pipes. At all events Agamemnon hears "the voice of flutes and pipes," which however he never introduced into banquets, except that in the Manufacture[26:1] of Arms, he mentions the flute on the occasion of a marriage-feast. But flutes he attributes to the barbarians. Accordingly, the Trojans had "the voice of flutes and pipes," and they made libations, when they got up from the feast, making them to Mercury, and not, as they did afterwards, to Jupiter the Finisher. For Mercury appears to be the patron of sleep: they drop libations to him also on their tongues when they depart from a banquet, and the tongues are especially allotted to him, as being the instruments of eloquence.

Homer was acquainted also with a variety of meats. At all events he uses the expression "various meats," and

Meats such as G.o.dlike kings rejoice to taste.

He was acquainted, too, with everything that is thought luxurious even in our age. And accordingly the palace of Menelaus is the most splendid of houses. And Polybius describes the palace of one of the Spanish kings as being something similar in its appointments and splendour, saying that he was ambitious of imitating the luxury of the Phaeacians, except as far as there stood in the middle of the palace huge silver and golden goblets full of wine made of barley. But Homer, when describing the situation and condition of Calypso's house, represents Mercury as astonished; and in his descriptions the life of the Phaeacians is wholly devoted to pleasure:

We ever love the banquet rich, The music of the lyre,

and so on. And

How goodly seems it, etc. etc.

lines which Eratosthenes says ought to stand thus:--

How goodly seems it ever to employ Far from all ills man's social days in joy, The plenteous board high heap'd with cates divine, While tuneful songs bid flow the generous wine.[27:1]

When he says "far from all ills," he means where folly is not allowed to exhibit itself; for it would be impossible for the Phaeacians to be anything but wise, inasmuch as they are very dear to the G.o.ds, as Nausicaa says.

29. In Homer, too, the suitors amused themselves in front of the doors of the palace with dice; not having learnt how to play at dice from Diodorus of Megalopolis, or from Theodorus, or from Leon of Mitylene, who was descended from Athenian ancestors: and was absolutely invincible at dice, as Phanias says. But Apion of Alexandria says that he had heard from Cteson of Ithaca what sort of game the game of dice, as played by the suitors, was. For the suitors being a hundred and eight in number, arranged their pieces opposite to one another in equal numbers, they themselves also being divided into two equal parties, so that there were on each side fifty-four; and between the men there was a small s.p.a.ce left empty. And in this middle s.p.a.ce they placed one man, which they called Penelope. And they made this the mark, to see if any one of them could hit it with his man; and then, when they had cast lots, he who drew the lot aimed at it. Then if any one hit it and drove Penelope forward out of her place, then he put down his own man in the place of that which had been hit and moved from its place. After which, standing up again, he shot his other man at Penelope in the place in which she was the second time. And if he hit her again without touching any one of the other men, he won the game, and had great hopes that he should be the man to marry her. He says too that Eurymachus gained the greatest number of victories in this game, and was very sanguine about his marriage. And in consequence of their luxury the suitors had such tender hands that they were not able to bend the bow; and even their servants were a very luxurious set.