THE DEIPNOSOPHISTS, OR THE BANQUET OF THE LEARNED.' * The first two Books, and a portion of the third, as is known to the scholar, BOOK I.-EPITOME. 1. ATHENÆUS is the author of this book; and in it he is discoursing with Timocrates: and the name of the book is the Deipnosophists. In this work Laurentius is introduced, a Roman, a man of distinguished fortune, giving a banquet in his own house to men of the highest eminence for every kind of learning and accomplishment; and there is no sort of gentlemanly knowledge which he does not mention in the conversation which he attributes to them; for he has put down in his book, fish, and their uses, and the meaning of their names; and he has described divers kinds of vegetables, and animals of all sorts. He has introduced also men who have written histories, and poets, and, in short, clever men of all sorts; and he discusses musical instruments, and quotes ten thousand jokes: he talks of the different kinds of drinking cups, and of the riches of kings, and the size of ships, and numbers of other things which I cannot easily enumerate, and the day would fail me if I endeavoured to go through them separately. And the arrangement of the conversation is an imitation of a sumptuous banquet; and the plan of the book follows the arrangement of the conversation. This, then, is the delicious feast of words which this admirable master of the 1 We have adopted the conventional title, "Banquet of the Learned;" but it may, perhaps, be more accurate to translate it, "The Contrivers of Feasts." Vide Smith's Biographical Dictionary, voc. Athenæus. feast, Athenæus, has prepared for us; and gradually surpassing himself, like the orator at Athens, as he warms with his subject, he bounds on towards the end of the book in noble strides. 2. And the Deipnosophists who were present at this banquet were, Masyrius, an expounder of the law, and one who had been no superficial student of every sort of learning; Magnus... [Myrtilus] a poet, a man who in other branches of learning was inferior to no one, and who had devoted himself in no careless manner to the whole circle of arts and learning; for in everything which he discussed, he appeared as if that was the sole thing which he had studied; so great and so various was his learning from his childhood. And he was an iambic poet, inferior to no one who has ever lived since the time of Archilochus. There were present also Plutarchus, and Leonidas of Elis, and Emilianus the Mauritanian, and Zöilus, all the most admirable of grammarians. And of philosophers there were present Pontianus and Democritus, both of Nicomedia; men superior to all their contemporaries in the extent and variety of their learning; and Philadelphus of Ptolemais, a man who had not only been bred up from his infancy in philosophical speculation, but who was also a man of the highest reputation in every part of his life. Of the Cynics, there was one whom he calls Cynulcus, who had not only two white dogs following him, as they did Telemachus when he went to the assembly, but a more numerous pack than even Actæon had. And of rhetoricians there was a whole troop, in no respect inferior to the Cynics. And these last, as well, indeed, as every one else who ever opened his mouth, were run down by Uppianus the Tyrian, who, on account of the everlasting questions which he keeps putting every hour in the streets, and walks, and booksellers' shops, and baths, has got a name by which he is better known than by his real one, Ceitouceitus. This man had a rule of his own, to eat nothing without saying κεῖται; ἢ οὐ κεῖται ; In this way, “Can we say of the word pa, that it kεrat, or is applicable to any part of the day? And is the word μέ0voos, or drunk, applicable to a man? Can the word unτpa, or paunch, be applied to any eatable food? Is the name ouaypos a compound word applicable to a boar?"—And of physicians there were present Daphnus the Ephesian, a man holy both in his art and by his manners, a man of no slight insight into the principles of the Academic school; and Galenus of Pergamos, who has published such numbers of philosophical and medical works as to surpass all those who preceded him, and who is inferior to none of the guests in the eloquence of his descriptions. And Rufinus of Mylæa. And of musicians, Alcides of Alexandria, was present. So that the whole party was so numerous that the catalogue looks rather like a muster-roll of soldiers, than the list of a dinner party. 3. And Athenæus dramatises his dialogue in imitation of the manner of Plato. And thus he begins : Tim. Were you, Athenæus, yourself present at that delightful party of the men whom they now call Deipnosophists; which has been so much talked of all over the city; or is it only from having heard an account of it from others that you spoke of it to your companions? Ath. I was there myself, Timocrates. Tim. I wish, then, that you would communicate to us also some of that agreeable conversation which you had over your cups; Make your hand perfect by a third attempt, as the bard of Cyrene1 says somewhere or other; or must we k some one else? 4. Then after a little while he proceeds to the praises of Laurentius, and says that he, being a man of a munificent spirit, and one who collected numbers of learned men about him, feasted them not only with other things, but also with conversation, at one time proposing questions deserving of investigation, and at another asking for information himself; not suggesting subjects without examination, or in any random manner, but as far as was possible with a critical and Socratic discernment; so that every one marvelled at the systematic character of his questions. And he says, too, that he was appointed superintendant of the temples and sacrifices by that best of all sovereigns Marcus;2 and that he was no less conversant with the literature of the Greeks than with that of 1 Callimachus. 2 Marcus Aurelius. |