Quaestiones Convivales

Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

"Hating a mindful drinking-companion" — Sossius Senecio, some say this proverb was originally said of billeted soldiers, who are fairly boorish and ill-mannered when they drink; for the Dorians of Sicily, it seems, called a billeted lodger a "mnamon," a rememberer. Others think the proverb enjoins amnesty for what is said and done over wine; that is why our ancestral traditions consecrate both Forgetfulness and the fennel-stalk to the god, on the ground that either nothing that goes wrong under the influence of wine deserves to be remembered, or that it deserves only a light, childlike admonition, at most.

But since you too think that forgetting what is out of place is, as Euripides truly says, wise, whereas altogether failing to remember what happens over wine not only conflicts with the table's reputation for fostering friendship, but also has against it the testimony of the most distinguished philosophers — Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, Speusippus, Epicurus, Prytanis, Hieronymus, and Dio of the Academy — men who thought it a task worthy of some effort to record conversations that took place over wine; and since you thought we ought to gather together what is useful from the discussions scattered often, now in Rome with you, now among us in Greece, when table and cup were both present and literary talk went on — with this in view I have already sent you three of the books, each containing ten questions, and I shall send the rest quickly too, if these seem not entirely lacking in taste or unfit for the god of wine.

First of all is placed the question of philosophizing over wine. For you remember that, when a debate arose at Athens after dinner as to whether philosophical talk should be used over wine, and to what measure, if it is used, Ariston, who was present, said, "Are there really people, in the gods' name, who refuse philosophy a place at wine?" And I said, "But indeed there are, my friend — people who, putting on a very solemn ironic air, say that philosophy, like a proper mistress of the house, ought not to raise her voice over wine, and that the Persians are right not to get drunk and dance with their wedded wives

but with their concubines instead. In just the same way, they think we ought to bring music and play-acting into our drinking parties, but not stir up philosophy — on the ground that she is not suited to playing along, nor are we, at such a time, disposed to be serious. They point out that even Isocrates the sophist, when pressed to say something over wine, could not bring himself to do more than this: "In the things I am skilled at,

this is not the occasion; and in the things suited to this occasion, I am not skilled." And Cato cried out and said, "Well said, by Dionysus!" — he swore off the discussion, since it was going to run through such periods as would have thrown the party of the Graces into an uproar. Yet I do not think it is the same thing to banish a rhetorical speech from a symposium and to banish a philosophical one; philosophy's is a different kind of discourse, one which,

being concerned with living, is not likely to hold itself aloof from any occasion of play or any pastime of pleasure, but to be present in all things, bringing with it measure and timeliness; or else we must suppose that neither temperance nor justice ought to be admitted into our drinking either, mocking their dignity with irony. Now if, like those who entertained Orestes, we were going to eat and drink in silence in the Thesmotheteion, that would be

no unfortunate consolation for our ignorance. But if Dionysus is, in all respects, Lysius and Lyaeus — the Looser and the Releaser — and above all he removes the bit from the tongue and gives the voice the greatest freedom, then I think it foolish and senseless, when the occasion for talk abounds, to deprive it of the best kind of talk — to inquire, in our lecture-rooms, into the duties proper to a fellow drinker and what makes a good table-companion and

how wine should be used, and yet to banish philosophy from the actual drinking parties themselves, as though it were unable to confirm in practice what it teaches in theory." And when you said it was not worth arguing further with Cato about these matters, but that some boundary and character should be sought for the kind of philosophizing proper at wine, escaping this very charge — playfully, and not without wit — leveled against wranglers and would-be sophists, you said, "But now, let us go to

dinner, so that we may join in the fray of Ares" (as Homer says), and you called us on to the discussion. I said, first, that I thought we should consider who is present: "If the party has a good many literary people in it, like the Socrateses, Phaedruses, Pausaniases, and Eryximachuses at Agathon's table, or the Charmideses, Antisthenese, and Hermogeneses at Callias's, and others like them, we shall let them philosophize as they please, no less

mixing Dionysus with the Muses than with the Nymphs; for the Nymphs make him gracious and gentle for the body, but the Muses truly gentle and gift-giving for the soul. And even if a few ordinary people are present, they will, like mute letters set among the vowels of a crowd of educated men, share in some utterance that is not wholly inarticulate, and in some understanding. But if there should be a great number

of people of the sort who put up with the sound of any bird, any bowstring, or any piece of wood sooner than the voice of a philosopher, then Pisistratus's expedient is useful. When he had a quarrel with his sons and perceived that his enemies were rejoicing at it, he called an assembly and said that he himself wished to persuade his sons, but since they were being stubborn, he would himself yield to them and follow their wishes. In just this way

a philosophical man, among drinking companions who will not accept his kind of talk, will change his tune, fall in with them, and be content with their entertainment, so long as it does not overstep propriety; knowing that men engage in rhetoric through speech, but philosophize even while keeping silent, and playing, and, by Zeus, even while being mocked and mocking in turn. "For it is not only," as Plato says, "the height of injustice to seem just without being so,"

but it is also the height of good sense to philosophize without seeming to philosophize, and, while playing, to accomplish what serious people accomplish. For just as Euripides's maenads, unarmed and without weapons of iron, wound their assailants merely with their light thyrsus-wands, so too the jests and laughter of true philosophers move and turn about, in some fashion, even those who are not entirely invulnerable." "I think, too, that there is a certain kind of narrative fit for a drinking party,

some of which history supplies and some of which can be drawn from matters close at hand, containing many examples useful for philosophy and many for piety, some inducing emulation of brave and high-minded deeds, others of kind and humane ones. If someone uses these unobtrusively to guide the drinkers along, he will remove no small part of the evils of drunkenness. Now those who

mix borage into the wine, and sprinkle the floor with infusions of vervain and maidenhair fern, thinking that these things instill cheerfulness and friendliness in their guests, imitating the Homeric Helen who drugged the unmixed wine, fail to notice that even that myth, after making its long way round from Egypt, ends up meaning nothing more than fitting and becoming conversation; for Helen, as they are drinking, tells them

about Odysseus: "Such a deed that steadfast man endured and performed, subduing his very self with shameful blows" — for this, it seems, was the drug that banished grief and pain: a story with a timeliness suited to the feelings and circumstances at hand. And people of taste, even when they philosophize directly, at such a time lead their discourse through what is persuasive rather than through the compulsion of formal proofs. For you see

that even Plato, in the Symposium, when discussing the end of life and the first good and theology in general, does not strain his proof or raise a cloud of dust, making his grip forceful and inescapable as is his usual habit, but instead wins the men over with gentler premises, examples, and myths." "And the inquiries themselves ought to be gentler too, and the problems familiar, and the questions

reasonable and not petty, so as not to choke the less intelligent or drive them away. For just as it is customary for the bodies of drinkers to be set in motion through dancing and choral movement, but if we force them to get up and fight in armor, or throw the discus, the party will be not only unpleasant but harmful — so too, of inquiries into the soul, the light ones stir it fittingly and beneficially, while the kind Democritus calls "contentious and

constricting" arguments must be dismissed, since they strain those engaged in them over knotty and hard-to-view matters, and vex the bystanders as well; for talk, like wine, ought to be common property, in which all will share. Those who introduce such problems would show themselves no more accommodating to fellowship than Aesop's crane and fox: the fox

poured out a rich broth over a flat stone and offered it to the crane, who was not feasted but rather made a fool of, for the broth's wateriness eluded the thinness of her mouth. In turn, the crane, inviting her to dinner, set out food for her in a narrow-necked jar, which, having a thin and long neck, allowed her to lower her own mouth easily and enjoy it, but the fox could not get her fair share. So too, then,

whenever philosophers, sinking into subtle and dialectical problems over wine, trouble the majority who cannot follow, and those in turn throw themselves into songs and silly stories and vulgar, market-place talk, the whole purpose of table-fellowship is lost and Dionysus is dishonored. Just as, when Phrynichus and Aeschylus advanced tragedy into myths and sufferings,

the saying was uttered, "What has this to do with Dionysus?" — so it has often occurred to me to say to those who drag "The Ruling Argument" into drinking parties: "My good man, what has this to do with Dionysus?" For to sing the so-called skolia, when the mixing-bowl is set in the middle and garlands are being handed round — which the god, in freeing us, sets upon our heads — perhaps that is fitting; but the other thing is neither becoming nor suited to a party. Indeed,

they say that the skolia are not, in fact, a class of songs composed obscurely, but rather this: first, everyone together sang a hymn to the god with a single voice, as in a paean; then, second, a myrtle branch was passed on to each in turn — which they called, I think, the "aisakos," because whoever received it had to sing; and after that, a lyre was passed around, and the educated man took it and sang in tune, while those without musical skill declined,

and so what was not common to all and not easy was called "skolion" — crooked. Others say that the myrtle did not go around in order, but was carried across from couch to couch to each man individually: the first singer sent it to the first man of the second couch, he to the first man of the third, then the second singer likewise to the second man, and so the crooked, much-winding path of its circuit, it seems, is what got the song called "skolion."

My brother Timon, when giving a feast, used to tell each guest to sit down wherever he wished among those arriving, since both foreigners and citizens, intimates and family members — guests of every sort, in short — were invited. Once, when many guests were already present, a certain stranger, got up like some over-dressed character out of comedy, with excessive finery and a retinue of slave-boys rather affectedly, came as far as the door of the men's dining room,

and, casting his eyes around in a circle at those already reclining, refused to go in, but turned and went away; and though many ran after him, he said he saw no place there worthy of himself. The company reclining, laughing heartily, told them to see him off from the house with good wishes; for indeed many of them had already had a fair amount to drink. But when the dinner was over, my father, addressing me as I lay reclining rather far off,

said, "Timon, you have made me and yourself judges in a dispute, since I have long had a poor reputation with him on account of that stranger. If the placing of couches had been arranged from the start, as I urged, we would not now be paying the penalty for disorder to a man skilled 'in marshaling both horses and shield-bearing men.' Indeed, they say that the general Paulus Aemilius, when, after defeating Perseus in Macedonia, he was organizing feasts, showed

remarkable order in everything and used the same arrangement elsewhere too, and said that it belonged to the same man to draw up a most formidable battle line and to give the most pleasant symposium; for both are matters of good order. And the poet is accustomed to call the best and most kingly men 'marshalers of the people.' And you people, I think, say that the great god changed disorder into order through good arrangement, taking nothing away from what exists

and adding nothing, but by setting each thing in its proper place, fashioning the most beautiful shape out of the most formless, working upon nature. But these grander and more solemn matters we learn from you philosophers; we ourselves observe that the expense laid out on dinners has nothing pleasant or generous about it unless it partakes of order. That is why it is absurd that cooks

and table-servants care intensely about what dish to bring on first, second, in the middle, or last, and, by Zeus, about the place and arrangement of perfume, garlands, and a harp-girl, should one happen to be present — while those invited to enjoy these things are made to recline haphazardly, as it happens, and simply fed, with no regard given to age, office, or anything else of the sort, by which

the one who excels is honored, the one who ranks second is trained to accept it, and the host who arranges them is exercised in judgment and in aiming at what is fitting. For it cannot be that there is a fixed seat and standing for the better man, yet no fixed place for reclining, nor that the host pledges one guest before another in the drinking, yet, in the matter of seating arrangements, overlooks the distinctions, revealing from the very start what is called 'one single Mykonos' —

in effect leveling the whole party." Such, then, was my father's defense. My brother replied that he was no wiser than Bias, so that, whereas Bias had declined to arbitrate between two friends, he himself should become the judge of so many relatives and so many companions all together — pronouncing judgment not about money but about places of honor, as though he had invited them not to entertain them warmly but to vex his own intimates. "Menelaus," he said,

"was strange and proverbial enough, in that he offered advice though he was not asked for it; but stranger still is the man who makes himself, instead of a host, a judge and arbiter over people who neither submit their dispute to him nor are on trial — deciding who is better than whom, or worse; for they have not entered a contest, but come to dinner. Nor, indeed, is such a judgment even easy to make, since some differ in age, others in influence, others in

usefulness, and others in closeness of relation; rather, one would have to keep at hand, as though rehearsing a comparative exercise, the commonplace arguments of Aristotle or the superlatives of Thrasymachus, accomplishing nothing useful, but transferring empty reputation-mongering from the marketplace and the theaters into our drinking parties — trying to relax our other passions through good company, while stirring up this one by contrivance, a thing which I think much more properly belongs

...it is far more fitting, I think, to come together easily and simply over wine, once we have washed off the soul rather than the mud from our feet. But as things stand, we try to remove whatever enmity has arisen among our guests from anger or business dealings, while by our concern for precedence we kindle and rekindle it all over again, humbling some and puffing up others. And yet, if more frequent toasts, and further courses, and still more conversation and greeting are to follow upon the order of reclining, our banquet will become altogether like a satrap's court instead of a gathering of friends. But if we are to preserve equality among the guests in other respects, why should we not begin precisely here, and accustom ourselves, without pretension and simply, to recline together — seeing at once, from the doorway, that we have come to dinner as to a democracy, and not to some special preserve, like a city, where the rich man, once placed at table, outranks the humblest guest in the order of reclining?

When this too had been said, and those present demanded a verdict, I said that I had been chosen an arbiter, not a judge, and would take the middle course. 'Young men,' I said, 'who are entertaining fellow citizens and intimates ought to be trained, as Timon says, to distribute themselves simply and without pretension into whatever place they happen upon, taking such easiness as a fine provision for friendship. But when we play the philosopher in the presence of strangers, officials, or older men, I am afraid we may seem to be shutting pretension out at the courtyard gate only to let it in again by the side door, with a great show of indifference. In this matter something must be conceded to custom and to law as well. Or are we to do away with toasts and greetings too — the means by which, toward those we happen to meet, we show honor, not indiscriminately, but as far as possible, with “the seat, and the meats, and the fuller cups,” as the king of the Greeks says, setting precedence in the place of highest honor?

'We also praise Alcinous, because he seats his guest beside himself, making his own son rise from his place — Laodamas, a man of loving heart, who used to sit nearest him and whom he loved best of all; for to seat a suppliant in the place of one's beloved is a graceful and humane act. Such discrimination exists even among the gods: Poseidon, though he arrives last at the assembly, takes his seat in the very middle, as though that place belonged to him by right. Athena, for her part, is shown always to hold the seat next to Zeus as her own special privilege, and the poet hints at this where he says of Thetis that “she sat down beside father Zeus, and Athena made way for her,” while Pindar says outright that she “sits nearest him who breathes fire like the thunderbolt.” And yet Timon will say that one ought not take honor away from others by assigning it to one alone. But it is he, rather, who seems to do this: for the man who makes common what belongs to one in particular takes it away from him, and what belongs to a person in particular is what is owed to each according to his worth; and it is valor and effort that establish the prize of a race, just as birth, office, and the like establish their own claims.'

'And the man who thinks he avoids being burdensome to his guests by treating them all alike in fact draws trouble down on himself all the more, since he causes pain by depriving each of the honor customary to him. To my mind, however, the business of discrimination is not so very difficult. In the first place, it is not easy for many people of rival standing to converge on a single invitation; and in the second place, once several places have come to be regarded as places of distinction, there is no lack of ways to distribute them, if one can hit the mark — telling one guest he has the first place, another that he has the middle, another that he sits beside the host himself, or beside some friend, intimate, or teacher, giving each of those called men of rank his due, while to the rest I would offer gifts and friendliness, which I think leave them more at ease than an honor would. But if the claims to precedence are hard to judge and the men themselves difficult, see what device I resort to: I seat in the place of greatest distinction, if a father is present, the father, taking him as my guide; if not, a grandfather, a father-in-law, a father's brother, or anyone else who has an acknowledged and particular claim to superior honor in the eyes of the host receiving him — taking this principle from the proprieties observed in Homer. For indeed, when Achilles saw Menelaus and Antilochus quarreling over the second prize in the chariot race, and, fearing they might go further still in anger and rivalry, wished to award the prize to someone else — professing, in word, pity and honor for Eumelus, but in fact removing the cause of their dispute.'

While I was saying such things, Lamprias, who was sitting off to one side as was his habit, spoke up loudly and asked those present whether they would allow him to reprove a judge who was talking nonsense. When everyone urged him to speak freely and spare me nothing, he said: 'Who, indeed, would spare a philosopher who distributes birth, wealth, and office at a dinner as though it were a theater, or grants front seats as if by decree of some Amphictyonic council, so that not even over wine can we escape vanity? For reclining places ought to be arranged not with a view to distinction but to pleasure, and one ought not to weigh the worth of each individual by himself, but rather the relation and harmony of one person to another, as though various elements were being brought together into a single partnership. The builder does not set Attic stone, or Laconian, ahead of the foreign kind on account of its noble birth; the painter does not give the leading place to the most costly color; the shipwright does not put the pine of the Isthmus, or the cypress of Crete, first — rather, each thing is arranged so that, when combined and fitted with the rest, it will make the common work strong, beautiful, and useful. And you see that the god whom Pindar calls our “master craftsman” does not everywhere set fire above and earth below, but arranges them as the needs of bodies require. This, Empedocles says, is why “among sea-roaming, heavy-shelled mussels, and stony-skinned whelks and tortoises, you will see the earthy part dwelling uppermost upon the flesh” — not the place nature would assign it, but the one that the arrangement suited to the common task requires it to occupy. Disorder, then, is a bad thing everywhere, but among human beings — especially when they are drinking — it shows its own vice most clearly, through insolence and countless other evils, which it is the part of a man skilled in order and harmony to foresee and guard against.'

We agreed that he was right to say this, and asked, 'Why, then, do you begrudge us men skilled in order and harmony?' 'There is no begrudging at all,' he said, 'so long as you are prepared to obey me as I rearrange and reorder the party, just as Epaminondas rearranged his phalanx.' We all agreed to let him do so. He then ordered the slaves to clear the middle of the room, and, looking each of us over, said: 'Listen, since I am about to arrange you together — I want to explain beforehand. It seems to me that Pammenes of Thebes was not unjust in charging Homer with being inexperienced in matters of love, because he arranged tribe with tribe and mixed clan with clan, when he ought rather to have interposed lover among beloved, so that the phalanx might be of one spirit, held together throughout by a living bond. That is the kind of banquet I too wish to make of ours.

'I shall not place rich man next to rich, young next to young, official next to official, or friend next to friend; for such an arrangement is inert and idle when it comes to increasing and generating goodwill. Instead, fitting to each man’s need what suits him, I direct that the lover of learning be placed next to the eager student, the difficult man next to the gentle one, the garrulous old man next to a young man fond of listening, the boaster next to the ironist, and the irritable man next to the man of few words. And if I happen to notice a rich man of generous disposition, I will bring to him, raising him up from some corner, a decent poor man, so that there may be an outflow, as it were, from a full cup into an empty one. A sophist I forbid to recline beside a sophist, and a poet beside a poet — for “beggar envies beggar, and singer envies singer” — even though Sosicles here and Modestus, when they put their heads together in this way, strike sparks into flame and risk producing the finest results; yet I separate men who are quarrelsome and abusive, and the quick-tempered, inserting some mild man between them, like a cushion against friction. Men fond of the gymnasium, of hunting, and of farming, however, I bring together; for of likenesses, one kind is combative, like that of fighting cocks, another mild, like that of jackdaws. I also bring drinkers together with one another, and lovers together — not only “those who have felt the bite of a boy's love,” as Sophocles says, but also those smitten with women, and those smitten with unmarried girls; for warmed by the same fire they will take to one another more readily, like iron being welded — unless, by heaven, they happen to be in love with the same person.'

From this there arose an inquiry about the places themselves. For different peoples honor different places: among the Persians, the seat in the very middle, where the king reclines, is the seat of honor; among the Greeks, it is the first place; among the Romans, it is the last place of the middle couch, which they call the 'consular' place; while among some of the Greeks around the Pontus, such as the people of Heraclea, it is, on the contrary, the first place of the middle couch that holds this rank. But it was chiefly about the so-called 'consular' place that we were most at a loss. For among us this place held first rank in honor, and yet the reason for it was established as being neither that it was the first place nor that it was the middle one.

Moreover, of the circumstances associated with it, some were not peculiar to this place alone, while others seemed to deserve no serious attention. Still, three of the explanations offered had some force. The first was that the consuls, having overthrown the kings and reorganized everything along more democratic lines, withdrew themselves from the central, kingly position and yielded to a lower one, so that not even this feature of their office and authority might weigh oppressively on their companions. The second was that, of the two couches assigned to the invited guests, the third couch — and the first place upon it — belongs above all to the host; for there, like a charioteer or a helmsman stationed on the right, he can reach out to oversee the service, and is not, in terms of the nearest places, cut off from showing kindness and conversing with those present.

For the place just below him belongs to his wife or children, while the place just above him is fittingly given to whichever guest is held in the highest honor, so that he may be near the host. This place was thought to have a third peculiarity as well: its natural suitability for business. For the Roman consul is not like Archias, the Theban commander of the garrison, so that, if letters or messages requiring attention should reach him in the middle of dinner, he could simply remark, 'business in the morning,' push the letter aside, and take up his drinking cup instead — no; he must be intent and watchful at just such moments.

For it is not only true, as Aeschylus says, that 'night in travail brings forth cares for the wise helmsman,' but every pleasure of drinking and relaxation likewise carries with it, for a general or magistrate, matters requiring attention. So that he may be able both to hear what he must and to give orders and instructions, he holds this particular place; for here, where the second couch joins the third, the angle formed by the bend leaves an opening that allows a secretary, an attendant, a bodyguard, or a messenger from the camp to approach, converse, and inquire, without troubling him or being troubled by any of his fellow diners, while he keeps his hand and voice free and unobstructed on the upper side.

Craton, our son-in-law, and Theon, our companion, on one occasion when some unruliness had broken out at a drinking party and then subsided, raised the subject of the office of symposiarch, thinking that I, as the wearer of the garland, ought not to overlook a custom that had entirely fallen out of use, but should call it back and reestablish the traditional oversight and ordering of drinking parties under proper authority. This view was shared by the others as well, so that a clamor of encouragement arose from everyone.

'Since, then,' I said, 'this is the wish of all of you, I choose myself as your symposiarch, and I direct the rest of you to drink as you please for the present, but I ask Craton and Theon, as the proposers and lawgivers of this decree, to set out briefly, in some general outline, what sort of man ought to be chosen symposiarch, what goal the one chosen should keep in view in exercising his office, and how he should manage the affairs of the party; I leave it to them to divide the discussion between themselves.' They made a show of reluctance at first, declining the task; but when everyone urged them to obey the ruler and do as they were told, Craton spoke first, saying that just as the ruler of guardians ought, as Plato says, to be the most fit for guarding, so the ruler of drinkers ought to be the most fit for drinking.

'Such a man is one who is neither easily overcome by drunkenness nor unwilling to drink; rather, as Cyrus said, writing to the Spartans, that he was more kingly than his brother in other respects and also carried a great deal of unmixed wine well. For the man who misbehaves in his cups is insolent and unseemly, while the man who is altogether sober is disagreeable, and better suited to be a tutor than to preside over a drinking party. Pericles, for his part, whenever, having been elected general, he put on the military cloak, used to make a habit of addressing himself first, as though reminding himself: “Take care, Pericles — you rule free men, you rule Greeks, you rule Athenians.” Let our symposiarch, in the same way, say to himself, “You rule friends,” so that he may neither permit unseemliness nor take away enjoyment.

'The ruler over drinkers must also be at home with earnestness and no stranger to play, but blended well between the two — though tending, like a fine wine, a little more by nature toward the austere side; for wine itself will draw character toward moderation, softening and relaxing it. Just as Xenophon said that the grimness and rusticity of Clearchus, which elsewhere seemed unpleasant, appeared in battle pleasant and cheerful because of the confidence it inspired, so too a man who is not harsh by nature, but dignified and austere, becomes more agreeable and endearing once relaxed by drinking. Further still, he must possess, above all, an experienced knowledge of each of his fellow drinkers — what change wine produces in him, toward what disorder he is most liable to slip, and how he bears unmixed wine. For it is not merely that there is one mixture of wine with water for one man and another for another — a thing the king's own wine-pourers know, now pouring more, now less — but there is also, for each man, a particular blending with wine peculiar to himself, which it is fitting for the symposiarch to know, and, knowing it, to observe; so that, like a musician, tightening the string of drink for one and loosening and sparing it for another, he may bring their natures, out of difference, into evenness and harmony — taking care that equal shares are not measured out by the pint or the ladle, but that what is fitting and suitable to each is allotted according to some measure of occasion and bodily strength. And if this is difficult, the symposiarch ought certainly to know, at the very least, the general facts concerning natures and ages — for instance, that old men grow drunk more quickly than the young, and men who are already unsteady grow drunk faster than those still at rest; and a man who knows such things would preside over the good order and harmony of a symposium far better than one who does not. And indeed, that...'

the symposiarch must be on familiar and friendly terms with everyone, and be underhandedly hostile to none of the guests, is obvious to all; for he will be tolerable neither in giving orders, nor fair in distributing portions, nor blameless in his jesting with the company. “Such a ruler of the symposium,” he said, “Theon, I have fashioned for you, as it were out of wax, and now hand him over to you from my discourse.” And Theon said, “Well, I accept the man thus fashioned and fit for company; but whether I shall be able to use him in every respect and not disgrace the work, I do not know. It seems to me most fitting that such a man should keep our symposium orderly, and not allow it to become now a democratic assembly, now a sophist’s lecture-hall, then again a gambling-den, and after that a stage and an actors’ platform. Do you not see some men playing the demagogue and pleading cases over dinner, others rehearsing and reading aloud some composition of their own, others acting as judges of mimes and dancers? Alcibiades and Theodorus turned Polytion’s banquet into a mystery-initiation, mimicking torch-processions and hierophantic rites. None of this, I think, ought the ruler to countenance; rather he will give room, in speech and spectacle and games alike, only to what serves the true end of a symposium—

and that end was to work an intensification of friendship, or its birth, through pleasure, among those present; for a symposium is a passing of time over wine that ends in friendship by way of charm. But since excess is everywhere cloying and unmixed wine is in many cases harmful, while a blending of things, when it comes about at the right time and with due measure, removes the too-much by which pleasant things are spoiled and beneficial things made painful—clearly the president will provide the drinkers with a blended kind of pastime as well. Hearing many people say that a coastal walk is a sea-voyage, and a coastal sail the pleasantest of journeys, he will in the same way mix play with seriousness, so that those at play may somehow keep hold of something serious, and in turn those being serious may take heart again, like seasick men gazing from close by toward the land of play. For it is possible to use laughter for many beneficial ends, and to make seriousness pleasant—just as among sea-hedgehog plants and rough restharrow the flowers of soft gillyflowers grow. But whatever forms of play come revelling into symposia without any serious purpose, these he will carefully urge his fellow drinkers to guard against, lest unnoticed, like men who have taken henbane, they run wild into insolence and licentiousness under the guise of so-called ‘commands,’ ordering

stammerers to sing, or bald men to have their hair combed, or the lame to hop on one leg. So it was with Agapestor the Academic, who had a thin, wasted leg: his fellow drinkers, mocking him, ordered everyone to stand on the right foot and drain the cup, or else pay a forfeit; but when the turn to give orders came round to him, he bade everyone drink just as they would see him drink. Then, a narrow jar being brought, he set his weak leg into it and drained the cup, while all the others, finding it impossible when they tried, paid the forfeit. Agapestor, then, was charming, and one ought to make retaliations of this easy and cheerful kind; and indeed one should grow accustomed to giving commands aimed at pleasure and benefit, ordering things that are fitting and possible and that adorn the one performing them—bidding singers to sing, orators to speak, philosophers to resolve some difficulty,

poets to recite some verses. For each person is led gladly and eagerly to that in which he happens to be at his best. Now the king of the Assyrians proclaimed by herald a prize for whoever should discover a new pleasure; but the king of a symposium might well set forth a fine prize and honor for the one who introduces play free of insolence, and beneficial delight, and laughter that is companion not to mockery and insolence but to charm and kindliness—since it is on this point that most symposia founder, for want of proper guidance. It belongs to a temperate man to guard against enmity and anger—the kind that arises in the marketplace from greed, in gymnasia and wrestling-schools from rivalry, in offices and honors from love of glory, and at dinner and over wine from play.”

How is it that it is said, ‘Love, too, teaches a man poetry, even one unmusical before’—this question was raised at Sossius’s house, when some verses of Sappho had been sung, since Philoxenus too says that even the Cyclops ‘healed his love with tuneful Muses.’ It was said, then, that Love is a formidable force in bringing men to every kind of daring and innovation, just as Plato too called him bold and ‘an undertaker of everything’: for he makes the silent talkative and the shy attentive, the careless and lazy diligent and industrious; and what one might marvel at most, a stingy and petty man, once he has fallen into love, is softened as iron is by fire, becoming gentle and pliant and sweeter—so that the jest does not seem altogether absurd, that ‘the purse of lovers is tied with a leek-leaf.’

It was also said that being in love resembles being drunk; for it makes men warm and cheerful and expansive, and once they are in this state they are borne along especially toward song and metrical speech. They say that Aeschylus composed his tragedies while drinking and growing warm with wine. And Lamprias, our grandfather, was, when drinking, most inventive and most eloquent of himself; he used to say that, like frankincense, he gave off vapor under the effect of heat. And indeed men who take the greatest pleasure in seeing their beloved take no less pleasure in praising them than in seeing them; and Love, talkative about everything, is most talkative of all in praise. For lovers are themselves persuaded, and wish everyone to be persuaded, that they love people who are noble and good. This is what drove the Lydian Candaules to bring in a spectator into the bedroom

to view his own wife—for lovers do not wish to be believed on their own testimony alone. That is also why, when writing praises of the beautiful, they adorn them with melodies and meters and songs, as though gilding statues, so that they may be heard by more people and remembered; for even if they give a horse or a cock, or anything else, to their beloved, they want the gift itself to be beautiful and conspicuously and extravagantly adorned. Above all, in bringing flattering speech, they wish to appear pleasant and splendid and extraordinary, of the sort a poet is.” Sossius, however, having praised what had been said, remarked that one could do no worse than to take as a starting point what Theophrastus has said about music: “Indeed,” he said, “I recently read the book. Theophrastus says that there are three origins of music: grief, pleasure,

and inspired possession—each of these turning the voice aside from its accustomed course and inclining it. For griefs have a tendency to slide into the mournful and lamenting strain of song; that is why we see orators, in their perorations, and actors, in their lamentations, gently approaching melody and stretching out the voice. Again, intense joys of the soul, in those lighter of temperament, lift up the whole body as well and summon it to rhythmic movement, as they leap and clap their hands if they cannot dance—‘frenzies and cries of those roused, with head thrown back in tumult,’ as Pindar says. But more refined people, when in this state of feeling, let loose only the voice into singing and the uttering of measures and melodies. Most of all, inspired possession

drives both body and voice out of their accustomed and settled course. Hence Bacchic rites employ rhythms, and prophesying in oracular verse comes to those possessed by the god; and of madmen one can see few who babble without meter and song. Since this is so, if you wish to look closely, unfolding love to the light, and examine it, you would find no other passion possessing sharper griefs, or more violent joys, or greater ecstasies and derangements; rather, just as one can see, in Sophocles, a city

‘at once full of incense-smoke, and at once of paeans and groans,’ so too is the soul of a man in love. It is, then, nothing strange or wonderful if Love, containing and comprising within himself all the origins there are of music—grief, pleasure, inspired possession—is in other respects too fond of speech and talkative, and, more than any other passion, inclined and prone toward the making of songs and verses.” There was talk about King Alexander, to the effect that he did not drink much but spent much time over wine, conversing with his friends. Philinus showed that those who said this were talking nonsense, from the royal journals, in which it is written most frequently and repeatedly

that ‘on this day he slept off the drinking,’ and sometimes ‘the following day too’; that is why he was also rather sluggish in sexual matters, but quick and spirited, which are marks of bodily heat. It is also said that his skin gave off a most pleasant fragrance, so that it filled his tunics with a spicy sweetness—which too seems to be a mark of heat; for that reason the driest and hottest regions of the inhabited world produce cassia and frankincense: for Theophrastus says that fragrance arises through a kind of concoction of moisture, when the harmful moisture is drawn off by heat. Callisthenes too seems to have fallen into disfavor with him because he was reluctant to dine on account of the drinking—since, when the so-called great cup of Alexander was passed to him, he pushed it away, saying

that he did not wish, by drinking of Alexander’s cup, to need the help of Asclepius. So much, then, for Alexander’s heavy drinking. As for Mithridates, who made war on the Romans, they say that in the contests he held he set prizes for gluttony and for heavy drinking, and that he himself won both, and altogether drank more than any man of his time, which is why he was also surnamed Dionysus. We ourselves said that this was one of the things believed at random—

namely the explanation given for the surname; for when he was an infant, a thunderbolt burned his swaddling clothes but did not touch his body, except that a trace of the fire remained on his forehead, hidden beneath his hair, while he was still a child; and again, when he was already a man, a thunderbolt fell into his bedroom while he slept, and, though it fell upon him, his quiver, hanging beside him, was pierced through and its arrows

set ablaze. The seers, then, declared that he would have the greatest strength from archery and light-armed troops, but most people called him Dionysus after the thunderbolts, on account of the resemblance of the event. From this there was talk about men who drank a great deal; among these they reckoned also the boxer Heracleides, whom the Alexandrians affectionately called Heraclous, who lived in the time of our fathers. This man, when at a loss for a drinking-companion to stay with him,

used to invite some for the morning drink, others for lunch, others still for dinner, and last of all some for the revel afterward; and as the first group departed, the second would join in, then in turn the third and the fourth—and he, without any interruption, held out for all of them and carried through all four bouts of drinking together. Among those who lived with Drusus, son of Tiberius Caesar, the physician who used to urge everyone on in their drinking was caught taking five or six bitter almonds beforehand each time, so as not to get drunk; and when he was prevented from this and watched, he could not hold out even a little while. Now some thought that almonds have a certain biting and cleansing quality upon the flesh, such that they even remove freckles from the face; and so, when taken beforehand, by their bitterness they scour the pores and produce an irritation, by which

they draw down the moisture evaporating from the head. To us, however, it seemed rather that the power of bitterness is a drying one, one that consumes moisture; that is why, to the taste, of all the flavors the bitter is the most unpleasant—for the little vessels of the tongue, being soft and moist, as Plato says, are strained unnaturally by the power of dryness, as the moisture is drawn out of them. And bitter drugs are also used to dry up wounds, as the poet says: ‘and upon it he laid a bitter root, rubbing it with his hands, a pain-killing root, which held off all pains: the wound dried, and the blood ceased.’ For he rightly called ‘bitter to the taste’ that which has a drying power. And it is evident, too, that the powders athletes use, with which they wipe away their sweat, are bitter

to the taste and astringent, their bitterness coming from the intensity of their tartness. “So then,” I said, “since this is so, it is reasonable that the bitterness of almonds helps against unmixed wine, by drying the inner parts of the body and not allowing the veins to become filled—since it is by their distension and disturbance, they say, that drunkenness comes about. A strong proof of this argument is what happens with foxes: if, after eating bitter almonds, they do not also drink water afterward, they die, as their moisture is suddenly drained away all at once.” The question was raised concerning old men, why they take more pleasure in stronger, less-diluted drink. Now those who supposed that their condition, being chilled and hard to warm, was for that reason suited to the intensity of a strong mixture, seemed to be saying something common and ready at hand, but not sufficient for the cause, nor even true.

For the same thing has happened in the case of the other senses as well. Old men are hard to move and hard to affect in their perception of qualities, unless these strike them in a concentrated and forceful way; and the cause is the slackness of their condition—for when relaxed and weakened, it tends to need a hard blow to be struck. That is why, in taste, they welcome above all pungent flavors, and their sense of smell has undergone something similar with respect to odors: for it is stirred more pleasantly by strong, undiluted scents. Touch, on the other hand, is unresponsive to wounds—for sometimes, when they receive injuries, they feel scarcely any pain. Very similar is the case of hearing: musicians, as they grow old, tune their instruments sharper and harder, as if rousing the organ of perception by the blow of an intense sound. For what tempering is to iron for sharpness, breath provides to the body

for sense-perception; and when this slackens and relaxes, the organ of perception is left sluggish and earthy, needing something forceful to prick it, such as unmixed wine is. While we were casting about for arguments on the matter before us, it seemed that the case of sight ran counter to this. For older people read letters by holding them far from their eyes, and cannot read them close up; and indicating this, Aeschylus

says of someone that not even from close by—for it is not clearer from nearby; and Sophocles indicates the same thing about old men still more plainly: ‘for a heavy blow in speech scarcely makes its way through the pierced ear, but though he sees far off, close up he is altogether blind.’ If, then, the senses of old men respond more readily to intensity and forcefulness, how is it that in reading they cannot bear the illumination reflected from close by,

but rather, by drawing the book farther away, do they weaken its brightness with the air, just as wine is diluted with water? Now there were some who said, in reply to this, that people do not draw books away from their eyes so as to make the light softer, but rather so as to gather in and take hold of more radiance, filling with bright air the space between the eyes and the letters. Others,

however, held with those who say the rays combine: for since a cone extends from each of the two eyes, having its apex at the eye and its base and seat encompassing the object seen, it is likely that up to a certain point each of the cones travels separately; but once they have gone farther off and fallen in with one another, they make a single light. That is why each of the things seen appears as one and not two,

even though it appears to both eyes at once: the cause is the joining of the cones into the same point and their coalescence, which produces one vision out of two. This being so, old men who bring the letters close, before the rays have yet mingled, but still touch the object separately with each ray, grasp it more feebly; whereas those who set it farther off, once the light has already been mixed and has become abundant, grasp it

more precisely — just as those who hold something with both hands together succeed where they cannot with one hand alone. My brother Lamprias had not read Hieronymus's clever remark, that we see by means of the images that fall upon our sight from visible objects, and that these images set out large and coarse-grained at first; that is why they disturb old men at close range, since their vision is slow-moving and hard, but once the images have been carried into

the air and have acquired some interval of travel, the earthy parts break off and fall away, while the fine parts, drawing near the eyes, fit smoothly and evenly into the passages, so that the old men, being less disturbed, perceive more clearly. The same is true of the scents of flowers, which strike us more fragrantly from a distance; but if you bring them too close, they do not smell as pure or unmixed. The reason is that much of what is earthy and

turbid is carried along with the scent and spoils its fragrance when it is taken in from close by; but from farther off, the turbid and earthy part flows around and falls away, while the pure and warm element in it, owing to its fineness, is preserved for the sense. We, however, holding to the Platonic principle, said that the ray-like breath issuing from the eyes is mixed with the light surrounding bodies and forms with it a single compound,

so that one body arises out of both, sympathetic through and through. One is blended with the other according to a ratio of proportion and quantity: for it is not necessary that one be destroyed by being overpowered by the other, but rather that a single power be produced from both, brought together from a midpoint by harmony and communion. Since, then, the stream from the eyes of the elderly — whether one should call it a current flowing through the pupil, or a breath,

or a light-like ray — is weak and feeble, no blending occurs between it and the external light, nor mixture, but rather destruction and overwhelming, unless they draw the letters far from their eyes and so relax the excessive brightness of the light, so that what meets the sight is not abundant and unmixed but of like nature and proportionate to it. This, indeed, is also the cause of the condition of animals that

feed by night: for their sight, being feeble, is overwhelmed and mastered by the light of day, unable to blend, from so weak and slight a source, with a light so great and strong; but toward the dim and faint light, such as that of a star, it sends out a ray sufficient and proportionate, so that the sense can share and cooperate with it. Theon the grammarian, when we were dining at the house of

Mestrius Florus, raised a puzzle to Themistocles the Stoic: why is it that Chrysippus, though he mentions many paradoxical and strange things — such as that salt fish becomes sweeter if soaked in brine, and that the locks of wool yield less to those who tear them apart by force than to those who work them apart gently, and that people who have fasted eat more slowly than those who have eaten beforehand — gave the cause of none of them? Themistocles

replied that Chrysippus proposed these merely as examples, in an offhand way, since we are easily and unreasonably taken in by what is plausible, and then again disbelieve what runs contrary to the plausible; and turning to Theon he said, "But you, my excellent friend, why trouble yourself over these matters? If you have become a seeker and observer of causes for us, do not camp so far from your own concerns, but tell us for what reason Homer, in

the river, and not in the sea, though it was near, has Nausicaa doing her washing — even though seawater is presumably warmer, more translucent, and better for cleansing." Theon said, "But that difficulty Aristotle resolved long ago, the very one you have set before us. For seawater has earthy and rough matter dispersed through it, and this mixed-in matter produces its saltiness; and it is for this reason that

the sea more readily buoys up swimmers and supports heavy weights, since fresh water, being pure and unmixed, yields more because of its lightness and weakness. Hence, owing to its fineness, fresh water penetrates and passes through and dissolves stains more than seawater does. Or does this not seem to you a plausible account from Aristotle?" "Plausible," I said, "but not true. For I observe that people often thicken water with ash and stones,

or, if these are not at hand, with dust, on the ground that earthy matter, by its coarseness, is better able to wash away dirt, while water itself, owing to its fineness and weakness, cannot do this as effectively. So the coarse matter of the sea is never fit for washing... but rather for its pungency: for this pungency, by opening and unstopping the pores, carries off

the dirt. But since everything oily is hard to wash out and leaves a stain, and the sea is oily, this would rather be the reason why it does not wash well. That the sea is indeed oily, Aristotle himself has said: for salt contains an oily element, and salt water makes lamps burn better; moreover the sea itself, when sprinkled on flames, blazes up together with them, and

of all waters, seawater burns most readily; and this, I think, is also why it is the warmest. Not only that, but in another way too: since the goal of washing is drying, and what becomes driest appears cleanest, the liquid that does the washing must depart quickly along with the dirt, just as hellebore must depart quickly along with the disease. Now fresh water

the sun draws off easily, owing to its lightness, whereas salt water, being caught in the pores because of its roughness, is hard to dry." Theon took this up and said, "That is nothing to the point: for Aristotle, in that same book, says that those who bathe in the sea dry off faster than those who use fresh water, if they stand in the sun." "So he does say," I replied, "but I should have thought you would rather trust Homer, who says the

opposite. For Odysseus, after the shipwreck, meets Nausicaa looking dreadful, "befouled with brine," and says to her attendant maidens, "Stand off there apart, that I myself may wash the brine from my shoulders." And going down into the river he wiped from his head the crust of salt — the poet having marvelously observed what actually happens. For when men come up out of the sea and stand in the sun, the

heat disperses the finest and lightest part of the moisture, while the salty and rough part is left behind and settles and remains upon their bodies as a salty crust, until they wash it off with fresh, sweet water." At Sarapion's victory celebration, when he had trained the chorus for the tribe of Leontis and won, we were dining as fellow-tribesmen by adoption, and talk arose naturally about the eager

rivalry that had taken place. For the contest had been an intensely fought one, since Philopappus the prince had presided splendidly and magnificently, sponsoring all the tribes together. He happened to be dining with us and, out of kindness as much as love of learning, was both telling and hearing old stories in turn. A question of the following sort was then put forward by Marcus the grammarian.

He said that Neanthes of Cyzicus reports, among the local legends, that the tribe of Aiantis had the privilege that its chorus was never judged last. Whether he said this to establish it historically... or whether it is not spurious, let the inquiry into the reason be set before everyone in common. When our companion Milon said, "But what if the story is false?", Philopappus replied, "There is nothing

terrible in that," he said, "if we suffer the same thing as the wise Democritus did, out of love of learning. For he too, it seems, tasting a cucumber, and finding its flavor honey-sweet, asked the serving-woman where it had been bought; and when she told him it was from a certain garden, he told her to get up and lead him there and show him the place. When the woman, astonished, asked what he wanted,

he said, "I must find the cause of its sweetness, and I shall find it by seeing the place for myself." "Then just sit down," the woman said, smiling, "for I, not realizing it, put the cucumber into a jar that had honey in it." And he, as though vexed, said, "You have spoiled it — but nonetheless I shall pursue the inquiry no less, and I shall seek the cause, on the assumption that the sweetness belongs to the cucumber by its own nature and kinship." So let us not,

either, in some cases, make an easy excuse for evasion out of Neanthes' claim: for the discussion will provide useful exercise, if nothing else." So everyone flowed together evenly toward praising the tribe, gathering up whatever fine thing contributed to its reputation. For Marathon too was brought into the discussion, being a deme of that tribe; and they pointed out that the men around Harmodius were of the Aiantis tribe, being in fact from the deme of Aphidnae.

And Glaucias the orator maintained that the right wing at the battle of Marathon had been assigned to the men of Aiantis, relying for proof on Aeschylus's elegiac verses at the border-shrine, since Aeschylus had fought conspicuously in that battle; and he further pointed out that Callimachus the polemarch was also from that tribe, a man who both proved himself the best man and, after Miltiades, was most responsible for the victory in that battle, having

cast his vote in agreement with him. I added to what Glaucias had said, that the decree by which the Athenians were led out was written while the tribe of Aiantis held the presidency, and that in the battle of Plataea that tribe distinguished itself above all; for which reason the men of Aiantis conducted the victory sacrifice, prescribed by the oracle at Delphi, to the Sphragitic Nymphs at Cithaeron, the city furnishing them the victim and everything else. "But you see,"

I said, "that many such honors belong to the other tribes as well, and you know that my own tribe, Leontis, yields to none in reputation. Consider, however, whether it is not more plausible that the story is a consolation drawn from the tribe's eponymous hero, and that what actually happens is an excuse: for Telamonian Ajax is not one to bear defeat easily, but one who, in anger and contentiousness, would spare nothing; so, in order that he might not

become harsh and inconsolable, it was thought fit to remove the harshest part of defeat, by never placing his tribe in the very last position." Among the things prepared for dinners and drinking-parties, my dear Sossius Senecio, some have a necessary order — such as the wine, the food, the delicacies, the couches, and of course the tables; but other elements have arisen for the sake of pleasure, without being strictly required,

such as musical performances, spectacles, and a certain jester, Philip, from the household of Callias — things that please those present, but that people do not particularly miss when absent, nor do they complain that the gathering was lacking on their account. In just the same way, among topics of conversation, the moderate sort of people take up some for the sake of usefulness at their drinking-parties, while they receive others as an agreeable form of entertainment, more suited to the occasion than the flute and

the lyre. Of these, our first book already contained mixed examples: of the former kind, the discussion on philosophizing over wine, and on whether the host himself should assign, or leave to the diners, the arrangement of the couches, and similar matters; of the latter kind, the discussion on whether lovers are given to poetry, and the discussion on the tribe of Aiantis. I call the latter kind, then, table-talk proper,

and the others, in a general sense, symposium questions. They have been written down at random and not in any orderly division, but just as each came to memory. Readers should not be surprised if, in addressing you, we have brought together some of the very topics you yourself proposed to us beforehand: for even if learning does not consist in acts of recollection, still, remembering often amounts to the same thing as learning. Each book has been arranged into ten

problems apiece, and in this book the first is one that, in a certain way, Xenophon the Socratic has set before us. For he says that Gobryas, dining together with Cyrus, admired many things about the Persians, and in particular that they asked one another the sort of questions that were more pleasant to be asked than not, and joked about the sort of things it was better to be teased about than not: for if others, by praising us, often distress and vex us,

how could one not admire their wit and good sense, whose very jests brought pleasure and charm to those being teased? So then, when you were entertaining us at Patrae, you said you would gladly learn what kind such questions were, and what their proper form is: "for it is no small part," you said, "of the art of social intercourse, this science and observance of tactful

questioning and playfulness." "A great part indeed," I said, "but consider how Xenophon himself, both in the Socratic banquet and in the Persian ones, displays this type. If it seems good to us also to take up some account of it, I think, first, that people are glad to be asked what they can easily answer; and these are matters in which they have experience. For those who are ignorant, or who,

if they do answer, are troubled, as if asked to give something they cannot give; or if they do answer, they are disturbed and put at risk by speaking from mere opinion and unreliable conjecture. But if the answer is not only easy but also out of the ordinary, it is more pleasant for the one answering; and answers are out of the ordinary when they belong to people who know things that most do not know or have not heard — such as matters of astronomy or logic, provided they

have real command of them. For each person, not only in acting and passing his days, as Euripides says, but also in conversing, is put in the best humor when he happens to be at his own best; and people delight in being asked the very things they know, not wishing to remain unknown or unnoticed for knowing them. That is why those who have wandered and sailed widely are more gladly asked about a colonial land and a foreign sea, and about barbarian customs and laws, and they gladly relate these things.

...and sketch out bays and coastlines, thinking that this too brings them some pleasure and consolation for their toils. In general, whatever we are accustomed to relate and tell of our own accord, though no one asks — is it not sweeter to be asked, since we think we are doing a favor to those who ask? Yet it was really the business of those who grow tired of it to refrain from asking further. This kind of affliction, indeed, grows especially among seafaring men; but more refined people like to be asked about the following things:

things which, though wishing to tell them, they feel shame about and hold back out of consideration for those present — such as whatever they themselves happen to have accomplished and achieved successfully. Nestor, at any rate, rightly understood Odysseus's love of honor when he said: "Come, tell me, Odysseus of many wiles, great glory of the Achaeans, how did you two take these horses?" For people are annoyed at those who praise themselves and recount their own good fortunes, unless someone else

present bids them do it, and they speak as if compelled. They are gladly asked, at any rate, about embassies and public affairs, if they happen to have accomplished something great and splendid. Hence the envious and malicious are least willing to ask about such things, and if someone else does ask about them, they deflect and turn the conversation aside, refusing to give room to the narration and unwilling to offer the speaker occasions for a discourse that would do him credit. These things, then,

by asking about them, do a favor to those who answer — things which they perceive their enemies and ill-wishers are unwilling to hear. Indeed Odysseus says to Alcinous: "Your heart has been moved to ask about my grievous sorrows, so that I may grieve and groan yet more." And Oedipus says to the chorus: "It is a terrible thing, stranger, to stir up an evil that has long lain quiet." But Euripides says the opposite, that

it is sweet to remember hardships — though not for those who are still wandering and suffering evils. One must therefore be cautious about the questions one asks concerning misfortunes: for people are pained when they must relate their own convictions in court, or the burials of their children, or unsuccessful ventures of some kind by land, or unlucky business ventures by sea. But how they fared well on the speaker's platform, or were addressed with honor by the king, or how, when others fell into storms or fell among bandits, they themselves escaped

the danger — of such things they are gladly asked, often, and in a way, enjoying the matter afresh through the telling, they are insatiable in narrating and recalling it. They also enjoy being asked about friends who are prospering, and about children advancing in their studies, or in advocacy, or in friendships with kings. But about the reproaches, injuries, and convictions of enemies and ill-wishers who have been exposed and brought down, they are more pleased to be asked, and report them more eagerly themselves,

while they hesitate to volunteer such things on their own, guarding against a reputation for malicious pleasure. It is also more pleasant to ask a keen huntsman about his dogs, and a sports enthusiast about athletic contests, and a lover about beautiful people. A pious man devoted to sacrifice likes to narrate his dreams, and would gladly be asked as well about whatever he has achieved by making use of oracular sayings, sacred rites, or the favor of the gods. As for old men, even if the

narrative is not exactly relevant, those who ask always do them a favor and set them willingly in motion. "Nestor, son of Neleus, tell me truly, how did the son of Atreus die? Where was Menelaus? Or was he not in Achaean Argos?" — asking many things at once and welcoming occasions for many words, not, as some do, compressing the answer into the bare necessity and, by driving replies into a narrow compass, depriving the old man's pastime of its sweetest part.

In general, those who wish to give pleasure rather than pain put forward such questions as bring, in their answers, not blame but praise, and, from those who hear them, not hatred or resentment but goodwill and gratitude. So much, then, for questions.

"As for jesting — one who cannot handle it with caution and skill, at the right moment, must abstain from it altogether. For just as those who are on slippery ground fall down even if they only brush against it in passing, so in wine-drinking we stand precariously with regard to every occasion for talk that does not proceed in due form. Indeed we are sometimes more provoked by jests than by outright abuse — partly because we often see abuse arising unwillingly, under the sway of anger, whereas a jest we set down as unnecessary, the deliberate work of insolence and malice; and in general we grow more irritated conversing with

composed, self-possessed people than with mere idle chatterers, for it is clear that in the case of a jest, artifice attaches to its very form, and that it is in fact an insult, contrived with premeditation. The man who plainly called someone a pickled-fish seller abused him outright, but the one who said, "We remember you wiping your nose on your arm," made a jest of it. And Cicero, when Octavius, who was reputed to be from Libya, claimed while Cicero was speaking that he could not hear him, retorted, "And yet

your ear is quite pierced." And Melanthius, being mocked by the comic poet, said, "You are paying me back a debt I never owed." Jests, then, bite more sharply, like barbed arrows that stay lodged longer, and the pleasure taken in their wit pains those who are mocked even as it delights the bystanders; for, delighting in what is said, the bystanders seem to believe it and to join in dragging down the person it concerns. For a jest, according to Theophrastus, is really

a reproach for a fault, disguised in form — hence the hearer, out of his own suspicion, supplies what is left unsaid, as though he already knew it and believed it. Anyone who laughs and is delighted when, say, Theocritus said to a man suspected of stealing cloaks, who asked him whether he was going to dinner, that he was indeed going, "but sleeping there, though" — such a listener is no different from one who confirms the slander outright. That is why

a man who jests out of tune infects the bystanders with malice as well, making them appear to share in his pleasure and join in the insult. It was reckoned one of the disciplines in noble Sparta to jest without giving pain and to bear being jested at; and if anyone who was being teased said "enough," the jester stopped at once. How, then, is it not difficult to find a jest that is actually pleasing to the one jested at, when even a harmless jest is a matter requiring

no ordinary experience and skill?" "And yet it seems to me that, in the first place, jests that pain those who are actually guilty produce a certain pleasure and charm for those who are far removed from the slander. Xenophon, for instance, introduces that extremely ugly and extremely hairy fellow being jested at, in play, as the beloved of Sambaulas. And you remember our friend Quietus — when he remarked that during his illness his hands had felt cold,

Aufidius Modestus replied, "Well, but you have brought them home warm from your province." To Quietus himself this gave laughter and delight, but for a thieving proconsul it would have been an insult and a reproach. That is why Socrates, when he challenged Critobulus, who was extremely handsome, to a contest of good looks, was playing, not mocking. And again, Alcibiades used to tease Socrates about his jealousy over Agathon. Kings, too, take pleasure

in being spoken of as though they were poor men and commoners, just as the parasite, when jested at by Philip, said, "Am I not the one who feeds you?" For by attributing to someone faults that do not really belong to him, one throws into relief the good qualities that do belong to him. But there must be some good quality that indisputably and certainly belongs to the person; otherwise the opposite of what is said carries only a questionable insinuation. For the man who says of someone very rich that his creditors will

soon come down on him, or who says that the water-drinking, temperate man is behaving drunkenly and getting intoxicated, or who calls the man who is generous, magnificent, and openhanded a skinflint and a penny-pincher, or who threatens that the man who is powerful in advocacy and public life will be seized and hauled off in the marketplace — such a man produces delight and a smile. So too Cyrus, in the respects where he was outdone by his companions, became gracious and charming when challenged to a contest in those very things. And when Ismenias was piping for a sacrifice

and the omens were not turning out favorable, a hired flute-player took the pipes from him and played ridiculously; and when the bystanders found fault with him for it, and the sacrifice then proved favorable, he said, "This shows that playing the flute pleasingly is a gift from the gods." But Ismenias laughed and said, "No — while I was playing, the gods lingered on, taking pleasure in it; but eager to be rid of your playing, they accepted the sacrifice at once."

"Furthermore, those who name good qualities in things using words that are properly terms of reproach, when they do so playfully

and gracefully, give more pleasure than those who praise straightforwardly. Indeed, those who reproach through complimentary terms bite more sharply — as when people call wicked men "Aristideses" and cowards "Achilleses," or as in Sophocles' Oedipus, where Creon is called "this man's faithful friend from the beginning." This, then, seems to be the converse counterpart of irony, applied to praise; and this device too

Socrates employed, when he named Antisthenes' gift for befriending and bringing men together into goodwill "procuring," "pandering," and "pimping." And they called Crates the philosopher, who went into every house and was received everywhere with honor and kindness, "the opener of every door." "A charming jest is also produced by a reproach that in fact shows affection, as when Diogenes said of Antisthenes: 'He it was who clothed me in rags and forced me to become a beggar and drove me from my house,

a homeless wanderer.' For he would not have been equally persuasive had he said outright, "He made me wise, self-sufficient, and blessed." And the Spartan, pretending to complain to the gymnasiarch who had supplied smokeless firewood, said, "Because of him we have not even been able to shed a tear." And the man who called someone who dined him daily a "kidnapper" and a "tyrant," because for so many years he had not seen his own dinner table. And the man

who says he has been plotted against by the king, robbed of his leisure and his sleep, having become rich from being poor. And so, too, if someone, turning it around, were to accuse Aeschylus's Cabiri of having made their household short of vinegar, just as they themselves had jokingly threatened. Such jests strike home more, having a sharper charm, yet in such a way as not to give offense or pain to those actually being praised." "The man who is to use a jest gracefully must also know the difference

between the fault and the pursuit — I mean between avarice and contentiousness on the one hand, and a love of music or of hunting on the other: for men are annoyed when jested at over the former, but take pleasure when jested at over the latter. Not unpleasantly, at any rate, did Demosthenes of Mytilene act when, having knocked on the door of a man devoted to singing and the lyre, and the man having answered and told him to come in, he said, "Only if you first tie up your lyre." But unpleasantly did the parasite of Lysimachus react when Lysimachus threw a scorpion

made of wood into his cloak; badly startled and jumping up, once he realized it was a joke, he said, "I too, O king, want to frighten you: give me a talent." "There are similar differences among most people concerning bodily features: some laugh when jested at over having a hooked nose or a snub nose, as did Cassander's friend, who was not at all annoyed when Theophrastus said to him, "I marvel at your eyes, because

they do not sing, though your nose provides the pitch." And Cyrus ordered the hook-nosed man to marry a snub-nosed woman, since the two would fit together well. But men are annoyed when jested at over a foul-smelling nose or mouth; and again, they bear jests about baldness calmly, but take unpleasantly to jests about blindness. Indeed Antigonus himself used to jest about his own bad eye: and once, when he had received a petition written in large letters,

he said, "Even a blind man could see this." Yet he put Theocritus of Chios to death, because when someone said to Theocritus, "If you come into the king's presence, you will be safe," Theocritus replied, "But you are telling me that this very thing — safety — is impossible." Leo of Byzantium, when Pasiades said to him that his own eyes had caught an eye-disease from him, replied, "You reproach me with a bodily weakness, without seeing the retribution you carry on your shoulders

— your son." For Pasiades had a hunchbacked son. Archippus, too, the demagogue of the Athenians, was angered when mocked by Melanthius for being hunchbacked; for Melanthius said that he did not stand at the head of the city but stooped over it. But some bear such things calmly and with moderation, as did the friend of Antigonus who, having asked for a talent and not received it, asked instead for an escort and guards, "so that

I might not be waylaid," he said, "since I have ordered him to carry the talent on his own shoulder." So it is with regard to outward circumstances, because of the diversity involved — different people are annoyed at different things. Epaminondas, dining with his fellow magistrates, was drinking vinegar, and when they asked whether it was good for the health, he said, "I don't know, but I do know that it is good for remembering one's fare at home." Therefore one must, with an eye to people's natures

and characters, employ playful jests accordingly, trying to converse with each person pleasantly and without giving pain." "Love, among other things, is highly variable, and where jests are concerned some lovers are annoyed and vexed while others are delighted. One must know the right moment: for just as a breath of wind, at first, extinguishes a fire because of its weakness, but once the fire has grown, supplies it with fuel and

strength — so love, while it is still budding and hidden, chafes and is vexed at those who reveal it, but once it has flared up and become manifest, it is fed and smiles upon the jests, swelling with them. Lovers are most delighted to be teased, in the presence of their beloveds, about the very fact of being in love, and about nothing else. And if it happens that they are in love with their own wives, or with a noble passion for beautiful young men, they take altogether great delight and pride in

being teased about it in front of them. That is why Arcesilaus, when in his school one of the amorous students shared this remark with him — "It seems to me that nothing touches anything" — replied, "Then you don't touch this one either?", pointing to one of the beautiful and youthful students seated nearby." "One must also consider, further, who is present: for the things people laugh at when they hear them among friends and intimates, they take badly if said in front of

others — in front of one's own wedded wife, or one's father, or one's teacher — unless what is said happens to be pleasing to those people too. For example, if someone is teased, in the presence of his philosophy teacher, about going barefoot or writing by night, or, with his father listening, about pettiness, or, with his wife present, about being indifferent to other women and being a devoted slave to her alone — as when Tigranes was asked by Cyrus, "What

would happen if your wife heard that you had been carrying baggage?" "But she will not hear it," he said, "she will see it herself, being present." "Jests are also made less painful when the speakers themselves share, in some way, in the very thing being mocked: as when a poor man jests about poverty, or a man of low birth about low birth, or a lover about love; for coming from one's like, such a thing seems to be, not an insult, but rather a kind of playfulness — if

it is not so, it provokes and pains. Take, for instance, the king's freedman, a man newly rich, who was crudely and arrogantly lording it over the philosophers dining with him, and who finally asked how it is that from both white and black beans alike a porridge equally green is made. Aridices, asking in return how it is that from white and black leather straps welts equally red are made, made him get up thoroughly distressed.

Amphias of Tarsus, who was reputed to have come from a gardener's stock, having jested at the governor's friend about his low birth, then immediately added, "But we too have sprung from the same seed," and so raised a laugh. Wittily, too, the lyre-player checked Philip's combination of late learning and meddlesomeness; for when Philip thought he was correcting him about notes and harmonies, the player said, "May it never befall you

"O king," he said, "so badly indeed that you may know these things better than I do" -- for by seeming to mock himself, he corrected the king without giving pain. This is why some comic poets, too, are thought to take the sting out of their jesting by mocking themselves, as Aristophanes did with his own baldness and with Agathon's desertion, and Cratinus with his "Bottle" concerning his own love of wine.

"One must be especially careful to watch for this: that the jest arise on the spot, out of what is actually present, in response to some question or bit of play, and not be dragged in from far off, as if brought on as a prepared set piece. For just as people bear more mildly the anger and quarrels that arise from within the symposium itself, whereas if someone comes at them from outside and reviles and disturbs them, they regard him as an enemy and hate him -- so too a jest has a share of pardon and of frankness if it takes its origin from what is present, growing up artlessly and without contrivance; but if it does not arise from the matter at hand but is brought in from outside, it resembles a deliberate assault and an outrage. Such was Timagenes's remark to the man who induced vomiting: 'You are the author of this vile art' -- and his remark to Athenodorus the philosopher, 'if affection for one's offspring is natural.' For ill-timing and irrelevance to the matter at hand show insolence and ill will.

These men, then, according to Plato, paid the heaviest penalty for the lightest of things, namely words; but those who know the right moment and observe it bear witness to Plato himself, that it is the work of a well-educated man to play in a tuneful and pleasing way."

At Eleusis, after the Mysteries, while the festival was at its height, we were dining at the house of Glaucias the orator. When the others had finished dining, Xenocles of Delphi, as was his custom, was teasing our brother Lamprias about his Boeotian gluttony. I, defending him and using the arguments of Epicurus against Xenocles, said, "Not everyone, my good man, makes the removal of pain the boundary and limit of pleasure; but for Lamprias it is even a necessity, since he glorifies the Peripatetic walk and the Lyceum ahead of the Garden, to bear witness in deed to Aristotle. For the man says that each of us is most inclined to eat around autumn, and he has given the reason, though I do not remember it." "Better," said Glaucias, "for we shall try to look into it ourselves, once we stop dining." So when the tables were removed, Glaucias and Xenocles blamed the autumn fruit for different reasons: the one because it loosens the belly and, by emptying the body, is always producing fresh appetites; the other, Xenocles, said that most of the seasonal fruits, having something sharp and biting to the taste, summon the stomach to eating more than any relish or seasoning does -- indeed even a little fruit brought to sick people who have lost their appetite restores it.

Lamprias said that our own connatural heat, by which we are naturally nourished, is in summer dispersed and becomes weaker and more diffuse, but in the waning season it gathers together again and grows strong, hidden within because of the chilling and condensation of the body. I, so as not to seem to contribute nothing to the discussion, said that in summer we become thirstier and use more liquid because of the heat; now then, in the change of season, nature, seeking the opposite as is her custom, makes us hungrier, and gives back to the body's temperament its due of dry food in compensation. Yet one could not say that the food itself is altogether without a share of responsibility: coming as it does from young, fresh crops -- not only cakes, pulses, bread, and wheat, but also the meat of animals that have fed richly on that year's produce -- it differs from the old in its juices and draws those who partake and enjoy it on more strongly.

On account of a certain dream I was abstaining from eggs, taking great care over this -- so that, as in the case of Car, the vision had often come to me clearly and repeatedly. This gave rise to a suspicion, while Sossius Senecio was entertaining us, that I was bound by Orphic or Pythagorean doctrines, and that I regarded the egg -- as some regard the heart and the brain -- as sacred to avoid, holding it to be a principle of generation. And Alexander the Epicurean brought this up in jest: 'It is the same thing to eat beans as to eat the heads of one's parents' -- as if men were hinting that eggs were 'beans' because of the generation they involve, thinking there was no difference between eating eggs and making use of the very animals that lay the eggs. The defense against the charge thus became more unreasonable than the charge itself, for an Epicurean to speak of a dream.

Hence I did not decline the reputation, while at the same time teasing Alexander a little in return -- for he was in fact a charming and reasonably fond-of-learning man. Out of this, he drew into the middle the puzzle that is difficult and gives much trouble to inquirers, concerning the egg and the hen -- which of the two came into being first. And Sylla our companion, saying that with a small problem, as with an instrument, we were stirring up a great and heavy one -- the question of the origin of the universe -- declined to take part. But when Alexander laughed at the inquiry as bringing nothing relevant, our son-in-law Firmus said, "Well then, lend me the atoms for the present. For if the small elements must be posited as the origins of the large, it is likely that the egg came into being before the hen; for it is simple and uncompounded, as among sensible things, whereas the hen is more varied and mixed.

And in general, the origin comes first, and the origin is the seed, and the egg is more than seed but less than an animal: for as growth-in-progress seems to be a mean between natural talent and virtue, so the egg is a certain progress of nature toward the ensouled, proceeding from the seed. Further, just as in the animal they say that arteries and veins come into being first, so it stands to reason that the egg, too, came into being before the animal, as the container before the thing contained. For the arts, too, first mold shapeless, unformed things, and only later articulate each into its proper shapes -- as Polyclitus the sculptor said the hardest part of the work is when the clay is under the fingernail.

For this reason it is likely that, since nature moves matter gently at first, the more sluggish matter obeys, producing shapeless and indeterminate impressions, like eggs; and once these are given shape and etched out, the animal is afterward fashioned within. Just as the caterpillar comes into being first, and then, having hardened through dryness and burst its skin, sends forth through itself another winged thing, releasing what is called its soul -- in the same way here the egg pre-exists as, so to speak, the matter of the generation. For in every change it is necessary that what the changing thing changed from should exist earlier. Consider that gnats are engendered in a tree, and wood-worms in timber, through the putrefaction or concoction of moisture; and no one would think it right that the thing generating them should not already be there beforehand, or should not be prior in nature. For matter stands in the relation to the things that come to be, as Plato says, of a mother and a nurse; and matter is everything out of which the thing generated has its composition."

"As for what comes after this," he said, laughing, "'I shall sing to those who understand' the Orphic and sacred account, which declares that the egg is older not only than the hen, but, taking it all together, assigns to it the seniority of all things at once. And let the rest 'lie fair-spoken,' as Herodotus says, for they are more mystical matters. But since the world contains many kinds of living creatures, there is virtually no class that has no share in generation from an egg: it produces winged creatures and countless swimming and land creatures, lizards, and amphibious ones, crocodiles, and two-footed ones, the bird, and footless ones, the serpent, and many-footed ones, the locust. Hence it is not inappropriate that it has been consecrated among the rites of Dionysus, as an image of that which generates and contains all things within itself."

While Firmus was going through these points, Senecio said that the last of his images was the very first to tell against him. "For you have unwittingly," he said, "O Firmus, opened the world against yourself instead of the proverbial door: for the world pre-exists as the most complete of all things; and it stands to reason that the complete is by nature prior to the incomplete, just as the whole body is prior to the maimed, and the whole prior to the part. For it makes no sense for there to be a part of something that has not yet come into being. Hence no one says that man belongs to the seed, nor the hen to the egg, but we say that the egg belongs to the hen and the seed to the man, on the ground that these latter come to be upon those, and take their origin in them, thereafter rendering the generation, as it were, as a debt owed to nature.

For it is in want of what is its own; and therefore it is by nature disposed to want to make another such thing as that from which it was itself separated. And they define the generative principle as offspring in want of generation; but nothing is in want that has not come to be and does not exist. Eggs, on the other hand, are seen altogether to have the nature of something requiring, within some animal, a solidifying and composing, and organs and vessels of just such a kind -- which is why no egg born of the earth has ever been recorded; rather, the poets say that the Tyndarean egg appeared fallen from heaven. But complete and whole living creatures the earth even now brings forth: mice in Egypt, and in many places snakes, frogs, and cicadas, once some other external principle and power has come into them.

And in Sicily, at the time of the Servile War, when much blood and many unburied corpses had rotted away in the earth, a great swarm of locusts sprang up and, scattering everywhere over the island, destroyed the grain. These creatures, then, grow and are nourished from the earth, and produce a fertile residue of their nourishment, by which they turn to one another for pleasure, and, coupling in intercourse, some are naturally disposed to lay eggs, others to bear live young. And this above all makes it clear that, having received their first generation from the earth, they now, in a different way, produce their offspring through one another. And in general it is like saying that the womb came into being before the woman: for as the womb stands in relation to the egg, so again the egg stands in relation to the chick, being conceived and delivered within it -- so that there is no difference between the man who is puzzled how birds came to be if no eggs had come to be, and the one who asks how men and women came to be before there were genitals and wombs.

And yet most parts come into existence together with the wholes; the faculties come to be added to the parts, and the activities to the faculties, and the results to the activities; and the result of the generative faculty of the parts is the seed and the egg -- so that they must come later than the generation of the wholes. Consider, too, that just as it is not possible for there to be concoction of food before an animal has come into being, so too neither can there be an egg nor a seed: for these too appear to come to be as the result of certain concoctions and transformations, and it is not possible, before an animal has come into being, for there to be a residue of an animal's food having the nature it has.

Nevertheless, the seed does in some way lay claim to being a kind of origin, but the egg has neither the character of an origin -- for it does not exist first -- nor the nature of a whole, for it is incomplete. Hence we do not say that an animal has come to be without an origin, but we say that there is an origin of animal generation, by which matter first underwent change, a certain power having wrought a blending and mixture productive of offspring; but the egg is an after-product, like blood and milk, coming from the animal after nourishment and concoction. For an egg has never been observed forming out of mud, but has its composition and generation only within an animal; whereas countless animals form on their own. And why need one mention the rest? For though many eels are caught, no one has ever seen an eel possessing either milt or egg; yet if one draws off the water and scrapes out all the mud, once water flows back into the place, eels are spontaneously generated.

It follows, then, that of necessity the thing that requires the other for its generation must have come into being later; but whatever can even now come into being apart from and without the other, this must be prior with respect to the origin of generation. For the argument concerns that first generation; since even now birds build nests before laying eggs, and women prepare swaddling clothes -- yet you would not say that a nest came into being before an egg, or swaddling clothes before children. 'For it is not the earth,' says Plato, 'that imitates woman, but woman that imitates the earth,' and likewise each of the other females. For this reason it is likely that the first generation, from the earth, by virtue of the completeness and strength of that which generated, came to be complete and self-sufficient in itself, having no need of such organs, coverings, and vessels as nature now contrives and devises among creatures that bear young, on account of their weakness."

We were giving a victory banquet for Sosicles of Coronea, who had won as a poet at the Pythian games. Since the athletic contest was drawing near, most of the conversation concerned the wrestlers, for many notable ones happened to have arrived. Lysimachus, one of the overseers of the Amphictyons, who was present, said that he had recently heard some grammarian declare that wrestling was the most ancient of all contests, and that even its name bore adequate witness to this; for newer things are naturally apt to benefit from names already established among older ones -- just as they say the pipe has been 'tuned' (harmosthai), and call the pipe-music 'strokes' (kroumata), taking these names over from the lyre. So the place in which all the athletes train, they call the palaistra (wrestling-ground), the name having first been won by wrestling (pale), and only afterward extended also to the other exercises later invented.

I said that this piece of evidence was not strong: for the wrestling-ground is named from wrestling not because wrestling is the oldest of the other contests, but because it alone among the forms of athletic contest happens to need mud, dust, and oil -- for men do not practice either running or boxing in wrestling-grounds, but only the rolling that belongs to wrestling and to the pankration; for it is clear that the pankration is a mixture of boxing and wrestling. "But otherwise," I said, "how does it make sense that wrestling, being the most technical and most cunning of the contests, should also be the most ancient? For it is the simple and unskilled activities, accomplished by force rather than by method, that necessity brings forth first."

When I had said this, Sosicles said, "You are right, and I will contribute a proof to support you, taken from the name itself: for 'wrestling' (pale) seems to me to be named from 'paleuein,' which is to deceive and throw down by trickery." And Philinus said, "But to my mind, it is named from 'the wrestler's dust' (palaiste): for it is especially with this part, the palms, that wrestlers exert themselves,"

just as boxers again in turn use their fists — hence the one is called "pygmē" (fist-fight) and the other "palē" (wrestling) from the deed itself. Moreover, since the poets, when they speak of sprinkling and dusting over, use the word "palunai," and since we see that wrestlers make especial use of this, it is possible to bring the etymology of the name round to this point as well. "Consider further," he said, "whether it is not the case that for runners the task is to leave as much distance as possible behind them and to stand as far apart as they can, while the umpires do not allow boxers, even when they are quite willing, to come to close grips; whereas wrestlers alone we see embracing and grasping one another, and most of the moves of the contest — thrusts, counter-thrusts, holds, and pressings — bring them together and intermingle them with one another. It is therefore not unclear that wrestling (palē) got its name from their coming especially near to and close (pelas) to one another."

When this had been said, and we had praised Philinus for it, Lysimachus spoke up again: "Which, then, would one say was the first of the contests — the footrace, as at Olympia? Here among us, however, in each event they bring in the competitors by age class — after the boy wrestlers, the men wrestlers, and likewise after the boy boxers, the men boxers, and the pancratiasts in the same way; but there, when the boys have finished competing, only then do they call in the men. Consider, though," he said, "whether Homer does not rather demonstrate the order according to time: for in him boxing always comes first, wrestling second, and the footrace is always placed last among the athletic events." At this Menecrates the Thessalian, in admiration, exclaimed, "By Heracles, how much escapes our notice! But if any of the verses are ready at hand for you, do not begrudge us a reminder." And Timon said, "Well, that the funeral games for Patroclus keep this order of events is, one might almost say, familiar to everyone.

Maintaining the order consistently, the poet has made Achilles say to Nestor, 'I give you this prize outright' — for you will no longer contend in boxing, nor wrestle, nor enter the javelin match, nor run on your feet — while he has made the old man, in replying, ramble on in the manner of the elderly, saying that he once beat Clytomedes son of Oenops in boxing, and Ancaeus of Pleuron in wrestling, and outran Iphiclus on foot. Again, Odysseus challenges the Phaeacians either in boxing or in wrestling or even in running, while Alcinous, deprecating the contest, says, 'for we are not faultless boxers nor wrestlers, but we run swiftly on our feet' — showing that it was not by chance, using whatever order happened to present itself differently at different times, but that he was following the customs then established and practiced according to convention; and it was carried out in this way because they still preserved the ancient order of these events."

When my brother had finished, I said that the rest was truly stated, but that I could not think of the reason for the order. It seemed also to some of the others that it was not plausible that boxing and wrestling should have arisen earlier, in contest and rivalry, than running, and they urged me to bring the discussion to a higher level. I said, offhand, that all these seemed to me to be imitations and exercises of the arts of war; for the hoplite race is brought in after all the others, bearing witness that this is the goal of bodily training and of the contest — namely, that those who win, when they charge in against the walls,

should be able to break through a section and cast it down — this is the meaning it carries, that there is no great benefit to a city in its walls if it has men capable of fighting and winning. In Sparta, moreover, for those who had won crowned contests there was a special place in the ranks of battle, stationed around the king himself to fight; and among animals only the horse has a share in a crown and in a contest, because it alone is by nature suited

and trained to be present with fighting men and to campaign alongside them. "But if this much has not been badly said," I went on, "let us now consider that the first task of those fighting is to strike and to guard oneself; the second, once they have closed and come to grips, is to use pushing and to try to overturn one another — a maneuver by which, they say, the Spartans were especially overpowered by our men at Leuctra, since our men were skilled wrestlers. That is why in Aeschylus one of the warriors is called 'heavy, a wrestler-in-arms,' and Sophocles somewhere says of the Trojans that they are 'horse-loving and horn-drawing, and with their bell-clanging shields, wrestlers.' And indeed, in addition to all this, the third task is, for the losers, to flee, and for the winners, to pursue. It was fitting, then, that boxing should come first, that wrestling should hold the second place, and the footrace the last:

because boxing is an imitation of striking and guarding, wrestling of grappling and pushing, while by running they practice fleeing and pursuing." Soclarus, entertaining us in gardens encircled by the river Cephisus, showed us trees variously decorated with what are called graftings; for we saw olives sprouting up out of mastic trees, and pomegranates out of myrtle; there were also oaks bearing fine pears,

and plane trees that had received apple grafts, and fig trees with mulberry insertions, and other minglings of plants mastered so far as to bear fruit. Now the rest of us were joking with Soclarus, saying that he was feeding stranger breeds and creatures than the sphinxes and chimeras of the poets; but Crato put before us for discussion the reason why only the oily plants are by nature unable to accept such graftings,

for one does not see a pine cone, or a cypress, or a fir, or a pine nourishing anything of another kind. Philo took up the question and said, "There is a saying, Crato, current among the learned, confirmed by farmers as well. For they say that oil is hostile to plants, and that any plant you like would perish most quickly if drenched with oil, just as bees do. But the trees just mentioned have a rich

and mature nature, so that they weep pitch and resin; and whenever they are struck, at the cuts, as though from a wound, they gather a kind of discharge; their pine-torch wood, too, gives off an oily moisture and gleams all over with its unctuousness; and this is why they are hard to mix with the other kinds, just as oil itself is." When Philo had finished, Crato thought that the nature of the bark also contributed to this,

for being thin and dry it provides no seat or means of survival for the things inserted into it — unlike bark that is fleshy, moist, and soft, which clings by enfolding itself around the parts beneath the bark that receive the graft." Soclarus himself said that the man who made this point was not wrong to add that the receiving substance must be readily changeable in its own nature, so that, once overpowered, it may be assimilated and

transform the nourishment within itself toward what is being implanted. "For indeed we first loosen and soften the earth, so that once broken up it may change readily and take hold of what is planted in it; for earth that is tight and hard is difficult to change. These trees, however, being light in their wood, produce no blending, because they are not overpowered and do not change. Further," he said, "it is not unclear that in regard to

what is being grafted, the receiving stock must bear the right proportion to it — the receiving part must always be, so to speak, female and fertile; hence people choose the most fruitful of plants and graft onto them, just as they bring other infants to women who have abundant milk. But pine, cypress, and all such trees we see to be meager and poor in their fruit; for just as men given to excessive flesh and bulk are for the most part childless,

because they spend the nourishment on the body and produce no seminal residue from it, so too such trees, enjoying their nourishment, all of it being spent upon themselves, thrive well in bodily size and grow, but bear no fruit, or if they do, it is small and slow to ripen; so that one should not be surprised if what is foreign does not grow in them, since even their own produce is poorly nourished in them."

Chaeremonianus of Tralles, when all sorts of little fish had once been served, pointed one out to us, sharp-headed and elongated, and said that the remora resembled it; for he had seen one while sailing in the Sicilian sea, and had marveled at its power, since it produced no small delay and holding-back in the course of the voyage — the remora clinging on until it was caught by the ship's lookout, sticking to the outside of the ship's hull. Now there were some

who laughed at Chaeremonianus for accepting a mythical and incredible fabrication, and there were others who kept talking of antipathies, and there was much else one could hear from those present — that a ram's appearance stops a raging elephant; that if you bring a sprig of oak near a viper and touch it with it, the viper freezes still; that a wild bull grows calm and gentle when tied to a fig tree; and that amber moves and attracts all light things,

except basil and things soaked in oil; and that the lodestone does not draw iron if it has been smeared with garlic. Since the evidence for these things is plain, they said it was difficult, if not altogether impossible, to grasp the cause. I said that this was more an evasion of the question than an assignment of the cause. "Let us consider," I said, "that many incidental features attaching to conditions

get credited, wrongly, with being causes — just as if someone thought that the grape of the vine ripens because of the flowering of the chaste-tree, on the ground that, as the saying goes, 'the chaste-tree blooms and the cluster ripens'; or confused the mold that appears on lamps with the clouding-over of the surrounding air; or supposed that the curving of the nails was the cause, rather than a mere accompaniment, of

an ulcer around the internal organs. Just as, then, in these cases each such occurrence is a byproduct of the condition, arising from the same causes, so too, I said, there is one cause why the ship both sails slowly and draws the remora to itself: for when the ship's hull is dry and not very heavy with moisture, it is likely that the keel, slipping along by reason of its lightness, cuts the

wave with clean wood and parts from it easily; but whenever the hull, being very wet and soaked through, draws to itself much seaweed and mossy encrustations, the cutting edge of the wood becomes blunter, and the wave, striking against its stickiness, is not easily thrown off. That is why they scrape the sides, cleaning off the moss and seaweed from the wood — the very things to which it is likely that the remora,

clinging by reason of the stickiness, is mistaken for the cause of the slowness, rather than being a mere accompaniment of the cause that produces the slowness." As for wolf-torn horses, some said they were named from the wolves' bits ("lykospadai"), because their high spirit and unruliness were curbed in this way; but our father, who was in no way given to offhand claims in such matters of common report, and who always kept the finest horses, said that colts attacked by wolves,

if they escaped, turned out good and swift-footed, and were called "lykospadai" (wolf-snatched). Since a good many people bore witness to this for him, it presented a difficulty as to the cause why this incident makes the horses more spirited and fierce. Most of those present held the view that the experience produces in the horses not spirit but fear, and that, becoming easily startled and quick to panic at everything, they acquire

impulses that are sharp and swift, like animals struck by a snare. I said we ought to consider whether the truth is not the opposite of what seems the case: that the colts do not become swifter runners because they escaped the harm of the wild beasts after being attacked, but rather that they would not have escaped at all unless they had by nature already been spirited and fast — just as Odysseus did not become clever by escaping from the Cyclops, but escaped

because he was already such a man. After this, the question was raised about wolf-bitten sheep, which are said to yield the sweetest meat but wool that breeds lice. Patrocleas my son-in-law seemed to make no poor attempt at explaining the sweetness, on the ground that the beast's bite renders the flesh tender, since the wolf's breath is so overheated and fiery that it melts and softens

even the hardest of bones within its belly; hence, too, wolf-bitten flesh putrefies faster than other meat. As for the wool, we were puzzled whether it does not actually breed the lice but rather attracts them, distinguishing the flesh by some roughness that irritates or by a peculiar heat; and that this power is engendered in the wool in relation to the wolf's bite and breath, as it spreads even to the

hairs of the animal being slaughtered. And the historical record lent credence to the argument: for we know that of hunters and butchers, some fell an animal with a single blow, so that what has been struck lies without another breath, while others kill only with difficulty and after many blows; and what is more remarkable still is that some inject, along with the iron blade, such a force into the wounded creature that it putrefies quickly and does not last even for

a single day, while others, killing no more slowly than those, produce no such effect on the flesh of the slaughtered animals, which instead lasts for a long time. That the changes attending the slaughter and death of animals extend as far as the hides, hairs, and nails, Homer too is accustomed to make clear when he speaks, concerning hides and thongs, of

a thong 'from an ox slain by force': for in animals not undone by disease or old age but by slaughter, the hide becomes taut and firm, whereas creatures bitten by wild beasts have their nails turn black and their hair fall out and their hides grow flaccid and ragged. When I held the eponymous office at home, most of our dinners were feasts, with a portion allotted to each person by lot at the sacrifices — a practice which some found altogether admirable, while others,

finding fault with it as unsociable and illiberal, thought that as soon as the garland was set aside one ought to go back again to the customary manner of dining, rearranging the tables. "For it is not for the sake of eating," said Agias, "nor of drinking, but of drinking together and eating together, as I think, that we invite one another; but this division into portions, doing away with the sharing, makes many dinners and many diners, but

no one a fellow-diner with anyone else, whenever each person, as if from a butcher's table, takes his portion by weight and sets it before himself. And yet what difference is there between setting down a cup and a jug of wine, filled, before each of the guests, and a separate table, as the Demophontidae are said to have done for Orestes, bidding him drink without paying attention to the others, and

what actually happens now — setting out meat and bread so that each feasts as though from his own manger — except that we are not, as it happens, bound to silence, as those who entertained Orestes were? But perhaps this very thing, too, invites those present toward a common sharing with one another, in that we make use of common conversation with one another, and of song, and share alike in the delight of a girl playing the harp and a girl playing the flute."

"And this mixing-bowl here, set in the midst with no fixed limit, is an unstinting spring of good fellowship, and it has a measure of enjoyment fitted to each man's desire—unlike the portion of meat and bread, which, most unjustly of all, prides itself on an equal measure applied to unequal people: for the same amount is more to the man who needs little and less to the one who needs more. So, my friend, just as a physician who doles out equal doses of medicine to many patients, measured out precisely by weight, is utterly ridiculous, so too is a host of the sort who gathers people together who are neither equally thirsty nor equally hungry, and then attends to them all from an equal supply, defining what is fair and fitting arithmetically rather than geometrically. Now when we go to a shopkeeper, we all make use of one and the same public measure; but when we come to dinner, each of us brings his own private belly, which is filled not by an equal amount but by a sufficient one.

We ought not to transplant those Homeric feasts here, out of the military messes and camp dinners, but rather to emulate the humanity of the ancients, who honored fellowship not merely as sharers of hearth and roof, but as sharers of the same measure and the same food, holding every form of community in esteem. As for Homer's dinners, let us bid them farewell, for they are half-starved and thirsty affairs, with kings as their stewards more exacting than Italian innkeepers, so that even in the thick of battle, with the enemy at hand, they keep precise account of how much each of their diners has drunk. Pindar's feasts, I suppose, are better, in which heroes "mingled reverently around the table again and again" through sharing everything with one another; for that was a true blending and commingling, whereas this present practice is a separation and estrangement of men who are supposed to be the closest of friends, as if they could not even share a common dish."

When Hagias had won applause for these remarks, they urged me on to attack him. So I said that Hagias was suffering nothing out of the ordinary, if he grew vexed at receiving an equal share while carrying so great a belly—for he himself was one of those who delighted in gluttony—"since in a common fish there are no bones," as Democritus says. "But that," I said, "is precisely the point, and it is what has brought upon us a portion beyond our fair share. For nothing has as great a need of equality—which, as the old woman in Euripides says, binds city to allied city and ally to ally—as does fellowship around a table, which has this need by nature and not by convention, and it is a necessary need, not a novel or imported one due to opinion. To the man who eats more than his share of the common food, whatever falls behind and is left out "becomes an enemy," just as in the surge of a fast-sailing trireme. For I do not think that suspicion, snatching, a contest of hands, and elbowing are a friendly or convivial prelude to a feast, but rather uncouth and doglike, and they often end in abuse and anger, not only against one another but even against the table-servants and the hosts. As long as Fate and Lachesis presided with equality over fellowship at dinners and drinking parties, nothing unseemly or ungenerous was to be seen; indeed they called the dinners themselves "daítas" (feasts) and those who were entertained "daitymónes" (feasters), and the table-servants "daitroí," from the verb "to divide" and "to distribute." The Lacedaemonians had as their meat-carvers not just anyone, but their foremost men, so that even Lysander was appointed meat-carver by King Agesilaus in Asia. It was then, I think, that fair distribution fell out of use, when extravagance crept into dinners: for there was, I suppose, no need to divide up pastries and honeyed cheesecakes and other spiced sauces and all sorts of relishes and side dishes; but men, overcome by their fondness for delicacies and soft living, abandoned the principle of equal shares. A proof of this account is that even now sacrifices and public dinners are still conducted by portion, on account of the simplicity and cleanliness of that way of life; so that the one who takes charge of the distribution at the same time helps preserve its frugality. But where private property exists, is common fellowship thereby destroyed? Only where there is no equality: for it is not the possession of what is one's own, but the seizing of what belongs to another, and the greed that arises over the common good, that has given rise to injustice—and it has given rise to strife as well, which the laws, by stopping it with a boundary and measure on private possession, have become known by name as the source of authority and power that distributes fairly to the common good. Why, the host does not think it right to distribute even a garland to each of us individually, nor couches and places at table; but if someone comes bringing a mistress or a harp-girl, "the goods of friends are common," so that, in Anaxagoras's words, "all things may become one, together."

But if the separateness of these things in no way disturbs our fellowship, seeing that the greatest things and those most worthy of our concern—conversation, toasts, tokens of friendship—are held in common, let us stop dishonoring the Fates. And let us stop dishonoring, too, "the lot which is fortune's child," as Euripides says—fortune, which assigns the first place neither to wealth nor to reputation, but, carried along now this way, now that, as chance will have it, both puffs up and exalts the poor and humble man, letting him taste a measure of independence, and, by accustoming the rich and great man to equality, tempers him without pain, so that he does not grow peevish."

Simonides the poet, my dear Sossius Senecio, once at a certain drinking party saw a stranger reclining in silence and conversing with no one, and said, "Sir, if you are a fool, you are doing a wise thing; but if you are wise, a foolish one." "For it is better to hide ignorance," as Heraclitus says, "though that is hard work when one is at ease and over wine"—wine which "lets loose even a very thoughtful man to sing, and unleashes him to laugh gently and to dance, and it sends forth a word that were better left unspoken"—Heraclitus here, it seems to me, is pointing out the difference between mere wine-drinking and drunkenness. For song and laughter and dancing come upon men who are moderately in their cups; but talking and saying things that would be better left unsaid is already the work of intoxication and drunkenness. That is why Plato thinks that the characters of most men are best seen in wine, and Homer too, in saying that they had "not yet come to know one another even at table," clearly understands the talkativeness that wine induces and its power to generate much conversation. For there is no getting to know one another among people who eat and drink in silence; but because drinking leads on to talking, and in talking, along with the stripping bare of much that would otherwise lie hidden, drinking together affords a certain understanding of one another—so that one might not unfairly rebuke Aesop: "Why, my good sir, do you go looking for those windows through which one man might see into another's mind? It is wine that opens us up and shows us, not letting us keep still, but stripping away our pretense and our studied posture, since these are as far removed from wine's law as a child is far from its tutor."

For Aesop, then, and for Plato, and for anyone else who needs a method of testing character, unmixed wine is useful for this purpose; but those who have no need to put one another to the test or to catch each other out, but only to enjoy each other's company kindly, bring together such problems and topics of conversation when they meet, by which the base parts of the soul are concealed, while the best and most cultured part takes fresh heart, advancing, as it were, toward pastures and meadows that are its own, led on by the love of learning. That is why we too have composed for you this third set of ten Table Talk questions, beginning with the one about garlands. For a discussion about garlands once arose, and the drinking party was in Athens, when Erato the musician had made sacrifice to the Muses and was entertaining a good many guests; for after dinner, garlands of every kind were being passed around, and Ammonius made some jest at our expense because, instead of the laurel, we had bound ourselves with garlands of roses—saying that flowery garlands in general were girlish and more fitting for young girls at play than for gatherings of philosophers and musical men.

"I am amazed, too," he said, "at this Erato here, who abhors chromatic shifts in melodies and accuses the good Agathon of them—Agathon, who is said to have been the first to introduce the chromatic scale into tragedy, when he was training the chorus for his Mysians—yet he himself, as you see, has filled our drinking party with a variegated wealth of colors and blossoms, shutting out luxury and soft indulgence that comes in through the ears with his pipe music, while ushering into the soul, as though through other doors, the luxury that comes through the eyes and the nose, and making the garland an instrument of pleasure rather than of piety. And yet this very perfume, from this flowery and already withering garland in the hands of the garland-weavers, gives off a more serious fragrance than one might expect. But pleasure that is bound up with no useful purpose and does not follow upon the origin of a natural desire has no place at a drinking party of philosophic men. For just as those who are led to dinner by friends who have invited them enjoy, by a humane custom, the same hospitality—as Aristodemus was led by Socrates to the house of Agathon, who was giving a feast—whereas if a man comes of his own accord, the door ought to be shut against him; so too the pleasures connected with eating and drinking, invited by nature and following upon our appetites, have their proper place, while it is fitting that all other pleasures, uninvited and indulged for no reasonable purpose, be dismissed."

At this, the young men who were unaccustomed to Ammonius's manner grew troubled and quietly began loosening their garlands; but I, knowing that Ammonius had thrown out the argument into our midst for the sake of exercise and inquiry, addressed Tryphon the physician: "My good sir," I said, "you are bound either to lay aside with us this fine garland blazing with roses, or else to tell us, as you are accustomed to do on each occasion, what benefits flowery garlands bring toward drinking." Erato took up the reply and said, "Yes, for it has been decided that we should accept no pleasure without some contribution in return, but should grow peevish in our enjoyments unless we suffer this along with some compensating benefit—as though we rightly view perfume and purple dye with suspicion, on account of their added extravagance, calling them, in the words of the barbarian, 'deceitful garments and ointments,' while natural colors and scents have a simplicity and purity about them and differ in no way from fruit.

For surely it would be foolish to gather and enjoy fruits, which nature gives us, and yet to dishonor the scents and colors that the seasons bring, on account of the pleasure that blossoms upon them and their charm, unless some other useful purpose is brought in from outside as well. Indeed, quite the opposite seems to be the case: if nature has made nothing in vain, as you philosophers say, then these very things seem to have been made for the sake of pleasure, since they have no other useful purpose but are by nature suited only to give delight. Consider that, in plants that grow and put forth shoots, the leaves come into being for the preservation of the fruit, so that the trees, warmed and cooled by them, may bear the changes of season in moderation; but the flower, once it has served its brief time, is of no further use—except that, when we make use of it, it provides us something delightful to smell and to see, giving off wondrous scents and unfolding into a variety of colors and hues beyond imitation.

That is why, when the leaves are torn away, the plants seem, as it were, to feel pain and to be wounded, and a kind of festering injury and unseemly baldness comes upon them; and it is not, it seems, only of the laurel that Empedocles says one must "altogether keep the hands from its leaves," but we ought to spare the leaves of all other trees as well, and not adorn ourselves through the disfigurement of those trees, plundering their leaves by force and against nature. But the taking away of flowers is more like a harvesting, and does no harm at all; rather, even if one does not gather them in season, they wither and fall away on their own. Just as barbarians clothe themselves in the hides of their flocks instead of their wool, so it seems to me that those who weave their garlands more from leaves than from flowers make improper use of plants.

For my part, then, I contribute these arguments to the garland-sellers—for I am no scholar, so as to be able to quote poems in which we read of the ancient victors at the sacred games being crowned with garlands of flowers; only I do recall that the rose garland has been especially proclaimed sacred to the Muses, remembering Sappho's words to some unmusical and ignorant woman: "you will lie dead, and no memory of you will remain, for you have no share in the roses that come from Pieria." But if Tryphon too can offer some testimony from the art of medicine, let us hear it."

At this, Tryphon took up the argument and said that the ancients had been careless about none of these matters, inasmuch as they made the greatest use of medicine derived from plants: "and there are proofs of this still evident even now. The Tyrians bring first-offerings to Agenor's son, and the Magnesians to Chiron, who are said to have been the first to practice medicine; for there are roots and herbs by which they used to heal the sick. And Dionysus was reckoned a moderate physician, not only because he discovered wine, the most powerful and most pleasant of remedies, but also because he brought ivy into honor, as a plant whose power is most opposed to that of wine, and taught his revelers to wear it as a garland, so that they might suffer less from the wine, since the ivy's coldness quenches the drunkenness. Some of the very names of plants reveal the ancients' careful attention to these matters: they named the walnut tree "karya" because it gives off a heavy and stupefying vapor that causes pain to those who recline beneath it; and the narcissus, because it dulls the sinews and brings on a numb heaviness, from which it takes its name—that is why Sophocles called it "the ancient garland of the great gods," meaning the gods of the underworld.

They say too that rue (péganon) was named from its power: for it "fixes" (pēgnysi) the seed through dryness by means of its heat, and is altogether hostile to pregnant women. And those who suppose that amethyst was so named for its power to help against drunkenness—both the plant itself and the stone named after it—are mistaken; for each of the two is named from its color, since its leaf is not the color of unmixed wine, but resembles wine that is wineless and watered down in its blend. But there are countless other examples one could cite, in which their properties gave rise to their names; and those already mentioned are enough to show the diligence and wide experience of the ancients, from which they made use of garlands worn at drinking parties. For above all, unmixed wine, when it takes hold of the head and strains the body's organs of sense, throws a man into confusion; and the vapors given off by flowers wonderfully help against this, walling off the head from drunkenness as though it were a citadel, since the warm ones gently relax the pores and give the wine's fumes room to breathe, while those that are mildly cool, by their moderate contact, drive back the vapors rising upward,

as does the garland of violets and roses: for both are astringent and, by their scent, contract the heaviness in the head. And the flower of henna, and crocus, and baccharis, bring those who have been drinking into an untroubled sleep; for they give off a smooth and gentle emanation that gradually dissolves the bodily irregularities and roughness that come with drunkenness, so that, as a calm sets in, the ...

and the after-effects of drunkenness are digested away along with it. When the scents of certain flowers spread upward around the brain, the passages of the sense-organs are cleansed, and the fluids are gently thinned, without shock or agitation, being separated out by the warmth, and the brain, which is cold by nature, is warmed.

This is why, above all, people called the flower-garlands hung about the neck "hypothymides," and anointed their breasts with the perfumes made from them. Alcaeus bears witness to this, urging that myrrh be poured "down over the head that has suffered much and over the gray-haired breast." So from here too the scents shoot upward, drawn by their heat into the brain through the sense of smell.

It was not because they thought that spiritedness (thymos) was encamped in the heart that they called the neck-garlands "hypothymides" — for on that reasoning it would have been more fitting to call them "epithymides" — but rather, as I say, because of their exhalation and fumigation.

Let us not be surprised that the exhalations of garlands have such power: it is reported that even the shade of the yew kills people who fall asleep beneath it, when it is at the height of its flowering; and that the vapor given off by the poppy has caused those who gather its sap without taking precautions to collapse. As for the herb called "alyssum," some are freed of hiccups simply by taking it in hand, others merely by looking at it; it is also said to be good for flocks of sheep and goats when planted around their folds. The rose, presumably, gets its name from the great stream of fragrance it gives off; that is also why it withers so quickly. In its power it is cooling, though in appearance it is fiery-red — not unreasonably, for a thin layer of heat blooms on its surface, pushed outward by its coldness.

When we had praised this, Ammonius, smiling at Trypho, said it was not right to kick apart, by way of rebuttal, a discourse so varied and flowery, like a garland — "except that ivy, I don't know how, has been woven in among the cold things, said to help quench undiluted wine; for it is actually fiery and rather hot, and its berry, when mixed into wine, makes it more intoxicating and disturbing precisely because it heats it up, and they say that its tendril, when pulled, twists just as wood does in fire. Snow, which often lingers for many days on other plants, melts away from ivy fastest of all; or rather it is destroyed and melts around it altogether at once, because of its heat.

But the greatest proof of this is reported by Theophrastus: when Alexander ordered Harpalus to plant Greek trees in the parks of Babylon, and above all — since the region was fiery and scorched — to introduce grove-loving, leafy, shady plants among the vegetation, the land refused to receive ivy alone, though Harpalus went to great lengths and struggled hard to make it take. But it died and dried up, because, being fiery itself, when mixed with a fiery soil it found no proper blending but was thrown out of its natural state; for excesses destroy their own powers, which is why things instead reach out for their opposites, and the cold loves the warm, and the warm loves the cold. That is why mountainous, windy, snow-covered regions produce the resinous, pitch-bearing plants — above all pines and firs.

But apart from these, my dear Trypho, plants that are chilly and cold shed their leaves, because their small and feeble store of heat withdraws and abandons the plant, whereas oil and heat keep the olive, the laurel, and the cypress evergreen, just as they keep the ivy. Hence our beloved Dionysus did not bring in ivy as an aid to drunkenness, nor as an enemy of wine — he who plainly named himself, in the case of unmixed wine, 'Methy' and 'Methymnaios.'

Rather, it seems to me that, just as wine-lovers, when no wine from the vine is at hand, resort to a drink made from barley, and some make apple-wines, others date-wines, so too he, longing in wintertime for a garland from the vine, since he saw it bare and leafless, came to love the resemblance offered by ivy. For indeed the twining, wandering habit of its tendril, and the moist, loosely-spreading growth of its leaf, and especially its cluster of berries, which resembles a thick bunch of unripe, ripening grapes, closely imitate the character of the vine.

Nonetheless, even if ivy does contribute something toward relieving drunkenness, we shall say that it does so by its heat, opening the pores, or rather by helping to concoct the unmixed wine — so that, for your sake, Trypho, Dionysus may still remain a physician."

To this Trypho fell silent, considering how he might reply; but Erato, calling on each of us younger men in turn, urged us either to come to Trypho's aid on behalf of the garlands or else to take our garlands off. Ammonius said he granted us free rein, since he would not argue against whatever we might say.

So then, with Trypho too urging me to speak, I said that proving ivy to be cold was not my task but Trypho's, since he makes much use of it as a cooling and astringent agent. "Of what has been said," I went on, "it is not true that ivy, mixed with wine, causes drunkenness; for the condition it produces in those who drink it one would not call drunkenness, but rather derangement and disturbance of mind — the sort of thing henbane produces, and many other such things that madden the mind.

As for the convulsive twisting of the tendril, that argument is unsound: effects contrary to nature are not the work of powers that act according to nature. Wood, too, warps, when fire forcibly draws the moisture out of it, taking on curvatures and distortions; but heat that is akin to a thing is, by nature, disposed to increase and nourish it. Consider rather whether it is not, instead, some weakness and coldness of body that naturally produces its many bends and its tendency to trail along the ground, since it meets frequent obstacles and checks, like a traveler who through weakness often sits down and then goes on again. That is why it needs something to twine around and lean on, being unable to hold itself up and guide its own way, for lack of heat, whose special power is to move upward.

Snow melts and runs off ivy because of the moistness of its leaf; for water quenches the snow's structure and breaks down its porous looseness, since snow is a mass of small, closely packed bubbles — which is why snow melts away no less in places that are extremely cold and damp than in places exposed to the sun. And this being evergreen — or, as Empedocles calls it, 'steadfast-leaved' — is not a matter of heat; for shedding one's leaves is likewise not a matter of cold. The myrtle, at any rate, and the maidenhair fern, though not among the hot but among the cold plants, are always in leaf.

Some, then, think that the leaf persists because of an evenness of blending; Empedocles, in addition to this, attributes it also to a certain proportion of the pores, which let nourishment pass through in an ordered, even way, so that it flows in sufficiently. But in leaf-shedding plants this does not happen, because of the looseness of the upper pores and the narrowness of the lower ones, since the lower ones fail to send nourishment up and the upper ones fail to retain it, but instead, having received only a little, pour it all out at once — as happens in certain uneven irrigation channels — whereas plants that are continually watered hold out with a sufficient and well-proportioned supply of nourishment, and remain ageless and green.

But when it was planted in Babylon it withered and gave out — and this noble plant did well to do so, since, as a client and dependent of a Boeotian god, it had no wish to emigrate among barbarians, nor did it envy Alexander for making himself at home among those foreign peoples, but instead fled and fought hard against being exiled from its own land. The cause was not heat, but rather cold, unable to bear the opposite temperament: for what is akin does not destroy, but is welcomed and sustained, as thyme, though it is hot, is sustained by dry soil — whereas the air surrounding Babylonia is said to be so stifling and heavy that many of the wealthy, once they have filled skins with water, sleep upon them to cool themselves."

Florus wondered how it was that Aristotle, having written in his treatise On Drunkenness that old men are most easily overcome by drunkenness and women least of all, had not worked out the cause — a man not in the habit of leaving such things unexplained. He then put the question before the company to consider together. It was a dinner among familiar friends.

Sulla then said that one case reveals the other, and that if we could correctly grasp the cause in the case of women, we would no longer need much argument concerning old men; for their natures are most opposite in moistness and dryness, smoothness and roughness, softness and hardness. And he said one should take this first with regard to women: that they have a moist constitution, which, being blended into their flesh, gives them its softness and its smooth sheen, as well as their monthly purgations. So whenever wine falls into so much moisture, it is overpowered, loses its own strength, and becomes altogether diluted and watery.

One can also find some support in Aristotle himself: for he says that those who drink all at once, without pausing for breath — what the ancients called "gulping down" — are the least likely to fall into drunkenness, since in their case the unmixed wine does not linger, but is driven through the body by its own rush. And we generally see women drinking in just this way. It is likely, too, that their bodies, because of the continual drawing-down of fluids toward their purgations, have come to be full of passages and cut through, as it were, with channels and conduits, so that the unmixed wine, falling into these, quickly drains away and does not settle upon the principal parts, whose disturbance is what causes drunkenness.

As for old men, that they lack moisture of their own, their very name seems to me to declare first of all: they are called by this term not because they are "flowing into the earth," but because they are already becoming, in their bodily state, something earthy and earth-like. Their stiffness and hardness of joint, and further their roughness of skin, likewise reveal the dryness of their nature. So when they drink, the wine is naturally absorbed, since their body, because of its dryness, is spongy; and then, remaining within them, it produces shocks and heaviness.

For just as floodwaters wash off dense ground without making mud, but mix in more thoroughly with loose, porous ground, so too wine, drawn in by their dryness, lingers within the bodies of old men. And, quite apart from all this, one can see that old men's nature by itself already displays the very symptoms of drunkenness: for the most conspicuous symptoms of drunkenness are trembling of the limbs, stammering of the tongue, excessive talkativeness, quickness to anger, and lapses and wanderings of the mind — most of which are already present even in healthy old men, needing only a slight tip of the scale, any chance disturbance. So that for the old man, drunkenness is not the production of symptoms peculiar to itself, but simply an intensification of symptoms he already shares with it. A proof of this is that nothing more closely resembles an old man than a young man who is drunk. This, then, is what Sulla said.

Apollonides the tactician said that he accepted the account concerning old men, but that, in the case of women, he thought the point about their coldness had been left out — the coldness by which very hot unmixed wine is quenched and made to lose its striking, fiery force.

Since this too seemed plausible, Athryilatus the Thasian physician, injecting a further difficulty into the inquiry, said that there were some who supposed women to be, not cold, but hotter than men, and others, even more, who held that wine is not hot but actually cold. When Florus expressed surprise, he said, "The argument about wine I leave to this man" — pointing to me; for we had, in fact, happened to discuss this very point a few days before —

"but as for women," he went on, "they think they can demonstrate their heat, first, from their hairlessness: the residual matter that would otherwise form hair is consumed by their heat, whereas, when it is in excess, it turns into hair; and second, from the abundance of their blood, which is the source of the body's heat, and which is present in women in such quantity that it would set them ablaze and consume them with fire, if frequent and rapid purgations did not occur.

"Third, this fact about funeral pyres proves that females are hotter than males: for it is said, by those who arrange such things, that they place one female corpse among ten male ones and burn them together, since a woman's flesh contains something resinous and oily, so that it becomes kindling for the rest. Further, if the more fertile is the hotter, and girls come into readiness earlier than boys and are stirred toward procreation sooner, this too would be no weak proof of their heat. Still greater and more persuasive is the fact that they bear cold and winter weather easily; for most women feel the cold less than men do, and generally need fewer clothes."

"But I think," said Florus, "that the doctrine is refuted by these very arguments. For, in the first place, they resist cold better because like is often less affected by like; and further, their generative seed does not come about through a process of cooling, but they merely supply matter and nourishment to that which comes from the male. And again, women cease bearing children much earlier than men cease begetting them.

"Moreover, bodies burn better because of fat, which is thought to be colder than the rest of the body: at any rate, young men and athletes, who are least fatty, burn worst. The menstrual purgation is a matter not of abundance but of corruption and poor quality of blood: for the unconcocted, residual portion of it, having no fixed seat or stability in the body, is expelled through weakness, becoming altogether dull and turbid through the feebleness of its heat. Indeed, the fact that women undergoing this purgation generally feel chills and shivering shows that what is stirred up and departing from the body is cold and unconcocted.

"And as for their hairlessness, who would say this condition belongs more to heat than to cold, when he sees that the hottest parts of the body are the hairiest? For it is heat that pushes all such growth outward, scoring and opening up passages in the skin's surface. Smoothness, on the other hand, comes about through density produced by cold; and that women are denser-textured than men, my dear Athryilatus, you may learn by asking those who still sleep beside women anointed with perfume or oil: for they become saturated with that very unguent while sleeping beside them, even if they do not touch or come into contact with the women at all, because their own body, through its heat and looseness of texture, draws it in."

"Still," he said, "the case about women has, on the other side too, been argued in manly fashion. But as for wine, I am eager to learn from where it has furnished us any suspicion of being cold." "Do you suppose," I said, "that this argument is mine to make?" "Then whose is it?" he said. "Well, I recall," I said, "having come across a discussion of this very problem by Aristotle himself, not long ago—"

—but that was sufficiently long ago. Epicurus too, in his ‘Symposium,’ discusses this at length, and the sum of it, as I take it, is this: he says that wine is not hot in and of itself, but contains within it certain atoms productive of heat and others of cold; and that when it enters the body, it sheds some of these and takes on others from the body, according to whatever temperament or nature it happens to meet there, so that some people are warmed by it while others, when they get drunk, experience the opposite effect.”

“This,” said Florus, “carries us straight off to Pyrrho by way of Protagoras: for it is plain that if we go through olive oil, milk, honey, and the rest in the same way, we shall end up shirking any statement of what each thing is in its own nature, and simply claiming that each becomes what it is through its mixtures and combinations with other things. But how do you yourself go about arguing that wine is cold?” “In this way,” I said: “I was forced at the time to improvise under pressure from two considerations. The first that occurred to me was the practice of physicians: to patients who are enfeebled and in need of some bracing tonic on account of stomach ailments, they administer nothing hot, but give wine and so bring relief; and likewise they check fluxes and sweats with wine, which arrests and strengthens the failing condition of the body no less — indeed even more — than snow does, by cooling and constricting it.

If wine possessed a heating nature and power, it would be much the same, I think, as applying fire to snow, or undiluted wine to the heart. Again, most people say that sleep comes about through a chilling, and that most soporific drugs are cooling — mandrake and poppy-juice, for instance; but these act with great force and violence, compressing and congealing, whereas wine gently cools, brings things to rest with pleasure, and calms motion, the difference between the two being one of degree rather than kind. Further, what is hot is generative: moisture makes for a good flow, and heat rouses the breath into vigor and strength. But those who drink much undiluted wine are duller in sexual intercourse and sow nothing strong or well-formed toward generation; rather, their intercourse with women is feeble and incomplete, owing to the poor and chilled condition of their seed.

And indeed, all the effects that people suffer from cold happen also to the drunk: trembling, heaviness, pallor, tremors in the limbs’ vital spirit, slurred speech, stiffness and numbness in the sinews of the extremities; and for most people drunkenness ends in paralysis, whenever the undiluted wine altogether stuns and quenches the natural heat. Indeed, physicians treat the bodily harms of the drunk and hungover, at first, as it seems, by wrapping them up warmly and putting them to bed, and the next day by bathing, anointing, and feeding them— with foods that, without disturbing the body’s bulk, gently call back the heat that has been scattered and driven out of the body by the wine.

In general, in observable phenomena we track down hidden resemblances and powers. There is, however, no need to be puzzled over what drunkenness itself actually is; for, as we have said, the drunk closely resemble the old — which is why heavy drinkers grow old earliest of all, and most of them go prematurely bald and gray before their time; and all of these conditions are thought to overtake a person through a deficiency of heat.

Further still, vinegar is a certain nature and power belonging to wine, and nothing among things that extinguish fire is more combative toward it than vinegar, but overpowers and stifles the flame more than anything else, owing to its extreme coldness. And we see physicians using the wine-like fruits in preference to others, as cooling agents, in the case of pomegranates and apples too. And do they not make honey-wine by mixing the very nature of honey with rain-water and snow, since the cold destroys the sweetness through its affinity with the astringent, once it prevails? Did not the ancients, for this very reason, dedicate and consecrate to the god the serpent among creeping things and the ivy among plants, as having some cold and frost-like power?

And if, because a great deal of undiluted wine, when drunk on top of hemlock, seems to cure its effects, some take this as evidence of wine’s heat, we for our part will say, turning the argument around, that when mixed with wine this poison becomes incurable and kills outright those who drink it — so that it is no more plausible to suppose that wine counteracts hemlock by being hot than that it cooperates with it by being cold, if indeed it is by coldness, rather than by some other nature and power, that hemlock is more likely to destroy those who drink it.”

Certain young men, who not long before had been frequenting the old philosophic discourses, were tearing Epicurus to pieces, on the ground that it was neither decent nor necessary for him to have inserted, in his ‘Symposium,’ a discussion of the proper season for intercourse: for an older man, they said, to bring up sexual matters at a dinner attended by young lads, and to raise the question whether one should make use of it after dinner or before dinner, was the height of licentiousness. Against this some of the company invoked Xenophon, as leading his fellow-drinkers away after dinner not on foot but on horseback, to have intercourse with their wives. But Zopyrus the physician, who was thoroughly versed in the arguments of Epicurus, said that they could not have read Epicurus’ ‘Symposium’ attentively;

for Epicurus did not make this a set topic from the very beginning and structure of the work and then carry through arguments on it, but rather, after rousing the young men from dinner for a walk, discussed it for the sake of moral discipline, and turned them back from their desires — on the grounds that the act is always precarious and liable to be harmful, but worst of all for those who indulge in it right after drinking and eating. ‘But if,’ he said, ‘this had actually been the express subject of inquiry — whether the philosopher had done well not to have considered at all the proper time and season for intercourse, or whether it is better to do such things at the right time and with due calculation, and whether it is not out of place to consider the right time in general, though shameful to do so at a symposium and at table — it seems to me',

'that one might rather bring the opposite charge against a philosopher: that he should discuss this subject in the daytime, in his lecture-hall, with many people of every sort present, rather than over a cup, among intimates and friends, where it is also fitting to slip in a myth, however dull and flat, along with the wine — how then is it shameful to say or hear something useful, said for the benefit of the practice of intercourse? Indeed, for my part, by the Dog, I would rather have had Zeno’s ideas about intercourse arranged in some symposium, as a matter of play, than lodged in so weighty a treatise as the ‘Republic.’’ At this the young men, struck dumb, lay silent; and when the rest asked Zopyrus to go through Epicurus’ arguments on the subject in detail, he said that he did not remember the particulars precisely, but that he believed the man feared the shocks arising from intercourse,

on account of the throbbing of the body, which throws it into disturbance and agitation when people walk about in such a state right after. For in general, he said, undiluted wine, being apt to strike and to set disturbance in motion, displaces the body from its settled position; and if, when our frame is in this condition, calm and sleep do not take hold of it, but instead other movements come through sexual acts, while the parts most naturally suited to binding and holding the body together are squeezed and wrenched, there is a danger that the mass of the body becomes unsettled, as though shaken from its foundations. For at such a time, he said, the seed does not flow well, there being an obstruction on account of the body’s fullness, but is torn away forcibly and mixed with other matter.

For this reason the man says one ought to engage in such acts once the body has come to rest and the distributions of nourishment and the fluxes have subsided as they pass off and depart, but before the body again becomes in need of further nourishment. One might also adduce, in support of Epicurus, the medical account as well: for the time of day, once digestion has already reached its resolution, is safer, whereas the impulse toward intercourse right after dinner is not without danger — for it is unclear whether, since the food has not yet been mastered, indigestion

would receive the shock and throbbing arising from intercourse, so that the harm would become twofold.” Olympichus then took up the discussion and said, “For my part, I am altogether pleased with the saying of Clinias the Pythagorean. He is reported to have been asked when a man ought especially to approach a woman, and to have replied, ‘Whenever you most wish to be harmed.’ And indeed what Zopyrus has just said makes some sense; but I also see the other occasion as having its own difficulties and drawbacks with regard to the matter.

Just as Thales the wise man, when troubled by his mother urging him to marry, somehow slipped away and put her off by saying to her, at first, ‘It is not yet the time, mother,’ and later, ‘It is no longer the time, mother’ — so too, I think, it will be best for each man, with regard to sexual matters, to be in such a condition that on lying down he says, ‘Not yet the time,’ and on rising, ‘No longer the time.’”

“That is athletic talk, Olympichus,” said Soclarus, “still quite reeking of the cottabus-game and of that meat-eating crowd, and not to the point here. For there are young married men present, by whom ‘works of affection’ must be performed; and Aphrodite has not altogether fled from the rest of us either, but we even pray to her, no doubt, saying in the hymns to the gods, ‘Turn back old age above, O fair Aphrodite.’

Let us consider, then, if you please, whether Epicurus rightly and fittingly, or against all justice, deprives Aphrodite of the night: and yet Menander, a man well versed in love, says that of all the gods it is most fitting that she share in it. For, I think, darkness was well devised as a veil for pleasure by those who set about doing these things, so as not to drive out, by encountering them in the light, the sense of shame from the eyes, and thereby implant boldness in licentiousness, along with vivid memories, by dwelling on which desire is fanned into flame again.

For ‘sight comes to us as the sharpest’ of the body’s ‘experiences,’ as Plato says, and by rousing the soul intensely with images close at hand toward the phantoms of pleasure, it always creates a new and fresh desire. Night, on the other hand, by removing most and the most frenzied of such acts, leads on and lulls our nature to rest, not letting it be driven by sight into excess.

Apart from all this, what sense does it make for a man who has come home from dinner in high spirits, crowned with a garland, if it so happens, and anointed with myrrh, to turn away and cover himself up to sleep — and yet in the daytime, in the midst of his business, to summon his wife from the women’s quarters for some such purpose, or in the early morning to be coupling like a rooster? For evening, my friend, is a rest from labors, and dawn their beginning;

and the evening is watched over by Dionysus Lysios together with Terpsichore and Thalia, while the dawn rouses us up toward Athena the Worker and Hermes of the marketplace. That is why songs, dances, wedding-hymns, revels, feasts, and the resounding din of flutes possess the evening, while the dawn is possessed by the clatter of hammers, the grating of saws, the early-morning outcries of tax-collectors, and proclamations summoning people to court or to attend on kings or magistrates — a time at which the things of pleasure are far away, and Aphrodite’s reign ends, along with the revelries of the young, and no thyrsus-leaf of Bacchus stirs, for cares press in tight.

Moreover, the poet never puts any of the heroes to bed with a wedded wife or a concubine in the daytime, except when he makes Paris, having fled the battle, sink into the bosom of his woman — as though this daytime incontinence belonged not to a man but to a raging adulterer. And indeed, the body would not be harmed by intercourse after dinner any more than at another time, as Epicurus supposes, provided one does not engage in it while drunk or bursting with fullness and weighed down;

for in that case, to be sure, the act is precarious and harmful. But if a man, being reasonably composed and moderately relaxed, his body having grown soft and his mind settled, brings himself to it after some interval, it produces no great disturbance on account of the body’s bulk, nor any of the other effects — whether cooling or a shifting of atoms from their place, as Epicurus says — that it causes;

rather, by rendering to nature what is proper to it, and by calming himself in a way, he will fill up again the void, as a fresh influx comes to the empty spaces. But this is rather more to be guarded against: engaging in sexual acts while still in the midst of one’s business, lest the body, being unsettled and agitated, together with the anxieties of the mind and the exertions and fatigues connected with one’s daily needs, at once seizing hold of it, roughen it further, there having been no adequate interval in between

for nature to take its rest. For not everyone, my friend, possesses Epicurus’ leisure and ease, furnished abundantly and for all time by discourse and philosophy; many face contests each day awaiting them, and gymnastic exercises, one might almost say, await everyone — for whom it is neither honorable nor advantageous to offer the body, disposed in such a state, relaxed, to frenzied intercourse. As for that blessed and imperishable being —

let it be, as it is in itself, unconcerned with our affairs; but we, who follow the law of the city, must take care not to enter upon summer and begin sacrifices having just before accomplished some such act. Hence it is well, having placed night and sleep in between, and having made a sufficient interval and interruption, to rise again clean, as it were from the beginning, and, in Democritus’ words, ‘thinking new thoughts on the new day.’”

At Athens they begin the new wine on the eleventh of the month, calling the day the ‘Jar-Opening’; and long ago, it seems, before drinking they would pray, pouring a libation of the wine, that its use might prove harmless and health-giving to them, as a kind of medicine. Among us, the month is called Prostaterios, and on the sixth day of the month it is customary, after sacrificing to the Good Spirit, to taste the wine — after the west wind has blown; for that wind, more than any other, unsettles and stirs up wine, and once it has escaped this it is thought thereafter to remain steady and reliable.

My father, then, offered the sacrifice as was his custom, and after dinner, when the wine was being praised, he set before the young men studying philosophy along with us the problem of inquiring into an argument for why new wine intoxicates least.

To most of the company this seemed paradoxical and hard to believe; but Hagias said that sweetness everywhere is cloying and produces satiety, and that for this reason no one could easily drink of new wine as much as would suffice to make him drunk, since the appetite, put off by the unpleasant sensation, gives out before it advances as far as quenching thirst. But that sweetness differs from pleasantness, and that the poet, understanding this, says—

with cheese and sweet honey and pleasant wine": for wine, he said, is sweet at the start, but becomes pleasant only when, through the process of digestion, it changes over into austerity as it ages. Aristaenetus of Nicaea said that he recalled having read in certain writings that must mixed with wine stops drunkenness, and that he reports some physicians, when men have drunk too much, bid them vomit and then, when they are about to go to sleep, dip bread in honey and eat it. If, then, sweetness in some way dulls unmixed wine, it is reasonable that new wine does not intoxicate until its sweetness changes. We were very pleased indeed with the young men's resourcefulness in argument, in that, instead of falling upon the arguments that lay ready to hand, they found a supply of their own. For the obvious and easy points to seize upon are, first, the heaviness of must, as Aristotle says, which cuts through the stomach, and the fact that a great deal of windy and watery matter remains mixed in with it: of these the windy part is at once forced out and expelled, while the watery part naturally makes the wine duller; but aging intensifies the wine as the watery element is separated out, so that the wine becomes smaller in measure but stronger in potency.

"Well then," said the father, "since we have already stirred up Aristotle, let us also attempt to say something of our own about the men called 'half-drunk' (akrothorakes); for it does not seem to me — sharp as he is in such inquiries — that he has worked out the cause with sufficient precision. He says, I believe, that in the sober man the reasoning faculty judges well and in accordance with reality, while in the man who is thoroughly drunk perception itself is held in a state of dissolution, but in the man who is only half-drunk the imaginative faculty still retains its strength while the reasoning faculty is already thrown into confusion; and this is why such a man both judges and judges badly, following along after his impressions. But how," he said, "does this seem to you?"

"For my part," I said, "considering the matter by myself, this account seemed to me sufficient as far as the cause is concerned; but if you bid me put forward something of my own, see first whether the distinction just stated ought to be transferred to the body as well. For in the half-drunk, only the mind has been thrown into confusion, while the body is still able to serve the impulses, not yet having been submerged; but when it is shaken down and pressed hard, it betrays the impulses and gives way, since it does not go forward as far as actions — whereas those other men, though they share in the fault, are exposed not by reasoning any the worse but by having strength any the more.

"Looking at it, however, from another starting point," I said, "as regards the power of wine, nothing prevents it from being varied and changing along with the quantity — just as fire, if moderate, hardens and sets the clay, but if it strikes it with excess, melts it down and makes it flow instead; and conversely, the season of a fever, when it begins, stirs up and inflames, but as it advances, fevers rather settle down and abate. What, then, prevents the mind too, when naturally set in motion by wine, once it has been disturbed and provoked, from being relaxed again and settling down as the wine increases? At any rate hellebore has as the beginning of its purgative action the disturbing of the mass within; but if it is given in a smaller quantity than the proper measure, it disturbs but purges nothing. And some, too, who take sleeping-drugs in a quantity less than the proper measure are thrown into a more troubled state, while others, taking more, fall asleep. It is likely, then, that this disturbance in the half-drunk man, once it reaches its peak, likewise dies away, and that the wine, in large amount, contributes to this; for entering the body in quantity it burns out along with it, and consumes, the maniacal element of the soul.

"For just as the dirge and the funeral flute at the beginning stir feeling and draw out tears, but as they lead the soul on into lamentation, they thus little by little remove and use up the painful element in the same way, so too you might observe wine, when it has violently disturbed and provoked the vigorous and spirited element, in turn submerging it and settling the mind down, so that, as it advances further toward drunkenness, it grows quiet."

When I had said this, Ariston cried out, as was his habit, "There has appeared," he said, "a way back into our symposia for the justest and most democratic of measures, which has for some time been exiled by a certain sober authority as if by a tyrant. For just as the theorists of the canon in matters of the lyre say that the ratio of three to two furnishes the concord of the fifth, and the ratio of two to one the concord of the octave, while the fourth, being the faintest, is constituted in the ratio of four to three, so too the harmonists of Dionysus have observed three concords of wine with water — the fifth, the third, and the fourth — thus speaking and singing, either drink five, or three, or not four. For five parts arise in the ratio of three to two, when three parts of water are mixed with two of wine; three parts arise in the double ratio, when two parts are mixed with one; and four parts arise when three parts of water are poured upon one part of wine — this is the ratio of four to three, a sober and feeble mixture, fit for certain officials with sense enough in the town hall, or for dialecticians with their eyebrows raised, when they are examining the shiftings of their arguments.

"Of the other mixtures, the one of two to one brings on that disturbing and half-drunk pitch of intoxication, stirring the chords of the mind that are otherwise unmoved — for it allows a man neither to remain sober nor to sink his folly wholly down into the unmixed wine; while the mixture of two to three is the most musical of all, altogether a bringer of sleep and a banisher of care, and, in the words of Hesiod, that 'averter of harm, soother of children,' which brings deep calm and quiet to the unruly and disorderly passions within us."

To this no one answered Ariston in opposition, for it was plain he was jesting; but I bade the boy take up a cup, as though it were a lyre, and tune the celebrated mixture and harmony, and the slave came forward and poured out the unmixed wine for him; but Ariston drew back, saying with a laugh that he belonged to the theorists of music, not to the practitioners on instruments.

The father, however, added only this much to what had been said: that the ancients, it seemed to him, made two nurses for Zeus — Ite and Adrasteia — but only one for Hera, namely Euboea; and likewise two for Apollo, Aletheia and Corythalia, but more for Dionysus, because this god must be tamed and trained in a greater number of measures by nymphs, so as to become gentler and more sensible.

Euthydemus of Sounion, entertaining us at dinner, set before us a wild boar of great size; and when those present expressed their admiration, he said that another, much larger, being carried by the light of the moon, had spoiled, and that he was greatly at a loss over the cause; for it was not likely that the sun, being hotter than the moon, should not rather putrefy meat.

Satyrus said, "That is not, above all, what one would wonder at, but rather what is done by hunters: for whenever they knock down a boar or a stag and send it off to the city from a distance, they drive in a bronze nail, on the ground that it helps against putrefaction." When we had finished dining, and Euthydemus again recalled the puzzle, he said, "Moschion the physician says

that putrefaction is a melting and flowing of flesh as it changes by corruption into moisture, and that, generally speaking, whatever putrefies becomes moist; and that all warmth, if it is soft and mild, stirs up and confines moisture, but if it is fiery, on the contrary, dries out the flesh. From this it is clear what is being sought: for the moon, gently warming things, moistens bodies, while the sun

rather snatches the moisture out of bodies because of its burning heat — a point on which I believe Archilochus too spoke with natural insight, when he said that the fierce, blazing Dog-star withers many of them; and Homer speaks still more clearly of Hector, over whom, as he lay, Apollo drew a shady cloud, lest the might of the sun should wither the flesh about his sinews and limbs; while the moon sends forth rays that are weaker —

'for by them no grape-cluster ripens,' as Ion says. When this had been said, I remarked, "Everything else has been well said; but one ought not to judge the whole matter by the quantity, the more-or-less, of the heat. For we observe that the sun warms less in winter and yet putrefies bodies more in summer; the opposite ought to happen, if putrefaction were caused by softness of heat. As it is, when the burning heat is more intense, it destroys flesh the faster.

So the moon does not bring dead bodies to putrefaction through a lack and weakness of warmth, but rather one must hold responsible a peculiar quality of the stream that flows from it. That not all heat has a single quality, differing only by degree of more or less, but that there are very many powers of fire, unlike one another, is clear from the most ready examples. Goldsmiths work gold by means of chaff-flame, while physicians warm gently, above all, the medicines they are compounding by means of vine-twig flame; and for softening and shaping glass, tamarisk-wood is thought to be well suited;

while the wood of the olive, though it treats bodies well in vapor-baths, is an enemy to bathhouses and damages their brick lining and foundations by scorching them from beneath. Hence the more fastidious market-inspectors do not allow contractors to use olive-wood, any more than to throw darnel into the furnace; for the fumes from these produce headaches and dizziness in bathers. It is, then, nothing to wonder at that the moon too should differ from the sun, the one sending forth streams that dry, the other streams that relax and set in motion the fluids within bodies. This is why nurses are altogether careful not to show infants to the moon; for being full of moisture, like green wood, they are wrenched and distorted. And we observe that those who have slept in the light of the moon rise up with difficulty, as it were struck senseless in their perceptions and numbed; for the moisture, being diffused by the moon, weighs down their bodies.

It is said, too, that the moon assists toward an easy childbirth, when it is at the full, by the relaxation of fluids providing softer labor-pains; whence, I think, Artemis too has been named Locheia and Eileithyia, being none other than the moon — as Timotheus says outright, 'through the dark vault of the stars, and through the swift-bringing moon.'

The power of the moon also becomes plain in the case of lifeless bodies as well: for carpenters reject timber cut at the full moon, as being soft and quickly rotting because of its moisture; and farmers hasten to gather their wheat from the threshing floor while the month is waning, so that, hardened by the dryness, it may better withstand time; while those who transport grain at the height of the moon find it most beaten down, becoming softer through the moisture. They say too that flour ferments better at the full moon; for fermentation falls little short of being a kind of putrefaction, and, once it has lost its due measure, by loosening and thinning the dough it carries it on to the same kind of corruption. Rotting flesh, too, suffers nothing else

than this: the cohesive breath within it changing over into moisture, it is loosened and flows apart. We observe the air undergoing this too, for it discharges dew most of all at the full moon, as it melts away — as Alcman the lyric poet, I believe, hints when he calls the dew the daughter of air and of the moon, saying somewhere that 'Herse, daughter of Zeus and of the divine moon, nourishes.' Thus from every side it is attested that the light of the moon possesses an exceedingly moistening

and softening power. As for the bronze nail — if indeed, when driven through, it keeps the flesh, as they say, less liable to decay — it appears to have some astringent quality in itself; for physicians use verdigris as a medicine for such purposes, and they report that those who spend their time in copper mines find benefit for their eyes, and that those who have lost their eyelashes grow them again; for the fine dust that rises from the copper ore, falling imperceptibly upon the eyelids, checks the discharges and constricts the tear-duct. This is why, they say, the poet calls bronze 'man-strengthening' and 'gleaming.' Aristotle says, moreover, that wounds from bronze spearheads and knives are less painful and easier to heal than those from iron, because bronze has in itself something medicinal, which it leaves behind at once in the wounds.

That the astringent quality, moreover, has a power opposite to that of the corrupting agent that causes putrefaction, and the healing quality opposite to that of the destructive one, is not unclear — unless indeed one should say instead that by being driven through, the nail draws the fluids to itself, a constant flow being directed toward the affected point. This is why, they say, around that very spot something like a bruise or a stain is seen to appear; and it stands to reason that the rest of the flesh remains unaffected, since the corruption runs together into that one place there."

Sossius Senecio, when Polybius was advising Scipio Africanus not to leave the marketplace before making some one of the citizens his friend — one ought not to take "friend" in a harsh or sophistical sense, meaning that fixed and steadfast kind, but in the common sense, meaning simply the well-disposed man — just as Dicaearchus thought one ought to make everyone well-disposed toward oneself, but to make friends only of the good. For friendship is won only over a long time and through virtue, whereas goodwill is brought on even by need, and social intercourse, and playful company among men of public life, once it has taken the occasion offered by kindly persuasion and the accompaniment of favor.

But observe the point of this piece of advice, whether it holds good not only with respect to the marketplace but also with respect to the symposium — so that one ought not to break up the gathering before acquiring, from among those who have reclined and been present together, someone well-disposed and friendly to oneself. For men go into the marketplace for the sake of business and other needs, but into a symposium those who have any sense at all come in order to acquire friends, gladdening those who are already friends no less than making new ones. For this reason it would be illiberal and vulgar to seek some other kind of profit from such company, but to come away having gained more in friends is both a pleasant thing and a dignified one. And conversely, the man who neglects this makes the gathering graceless and incomplete for himself, and departs from it having become a fellow-diner to the belly, not to the soul; for a true dinner-companion comes to share not only in meat and wine and dessert, but also in conversation, and in playfulness, and in the kind of friendliness that ends in goodwill.

For the graspings and pullings of wrestlers require a coating of dust, but for the grip of friendship wine, mingling with conversation, supplies the touch; for it is conversation that channels wine's kindly and character-forming quality from the body into the soul and helps it along — otherwise, wandering about within the body, wine provides nothing more serious than mere repletion. Hence, just as marble, by cooling

the added strength shrinks it and drives out its excessive moisture and fluidity, it makes the metal that is being hammered and shaped firm; so too the talk of the dinner table does not allow the drinkers to be utterly dissolved by wine, but checks them, and blends into their relaxation a cheerfulness and kindliness that is well-tempered and pleasing, if a man handles it skillfully—as if the softness and pliancy that wine produces were being stamped, like wax, with the seal of friendship.

The first question, then, of our fourth set of ten table questions concerns varied food. It was the month of Elaphebolion, and as we were arriving at Hyampolis for the festival, Philo the physician entertained us, having prepared, it seemed, on a rather lavish scale. Seeing that among the boys who were with Philinus, his son was content with plain bread and needed nothing else, he said, "By Heracles, this is what the saying means: 'they fought amid stones, and there was not a stone to pick up.'" And he jumped up to fetch something useful for them, and after a good while came back bringing them some dried figs and cheese. When I remarked that this is what happens to people who busy themselves preparing extravagant and costly things—they neglect and run short of the necessities—Philo said, "Yes, for I had forgotten that Philinus here is raising a little Sosastros for us, who they say lived his whole life on nothing but milk, tasting no other drink or food. But whereas in his case that regimen probably began as a matter of chance, our boy here, being raised by this Chiron in a manner just the opposite of Achilles—fed from birth on bloodless and lifeless food—will before long, I suppose, be shown living on air and dew, like the cicadas, as they say."

"We, for our part," said Philinus, "had no idea we were coming to dine at a Feast of the Hundred Victims, as in the days of Aristomenes; otherwise we would have come armed, like antidotes, with simple and wholesome dishes against tables so extravagant and inflamed—and this after having so often heard you say that of varied foods the simple ones are more digestible and easier to obtain." And Marcion said to Philo, "Philinus is ruining your preparations, turning the guests away and frightening them off; but if you ask me, I will guarantee to them on your behalf that varied food is more digestible than simple food, so that they may enjoy what is set before them with confidence." So Philo asked Marcion to do just that. And when we had finished dining and called on Philinus to take up his charge against varied food, he said, "The tale is not mine, but this Philo here is always telling us that, in the first place, wild animals that use a single, simple kind of food are healthier than men; whereas those that are fattened up in captivity are prone to disease and easily fall prey to distempers, because they are given food that is mixed and seasoned in various ways.

"Secondly, no physician has ever been so rash an innovator, or so bold, as to give varied food to a man in fever; instead they give the simple, unseasoned kind, as being most obedient to digestion. For food must be acted upon and transformed after being mastered by the powers within us. And a dye, too, masters simple colors more readily, and the least fragrant oil is turned most quickly by perfumers' compounds, and it is the plain and uniform kind of food that is most easily transformed by digestion. But many and varied qualities, being mutually opposed and hard to reconcile, spoil more readily when they clash—just as in a city a mixed and motley crowd of people does not easily attain a single, harmonious condition, but each element resists what is foreign to it and is ill-disposed toward what is alien to it.

"A clear proof of this concerns wine: wines called 'mixed-vintage' intoxicate fastest, and drunkenness resembles nothing so much as the indigestion of wine. That is why drinkers avoid blended wine, while those who do the blending try to conceal it, as though plotting mischief; for change and unevenness throw one off balance. This, I suppose, is also why musicians handle instruments of many strings with great caution, since their only fault is that they are mixed and varied." "For my part," I said, "I can add this: that conviction and assent are more likely to arise out of conflicting arguments than digestion is out of differing qualities. But if I seem to be joking, let me leave that aside and return to Philo's arguments. For we often hear him say that, since indigestion arises from varied qualities of food,

and since multiplicity of mixture is harmful, being productive of alien qualities, one ought to learn by experience what agrees with oneself and stick to that; and if nothing is naturally hard to digest, but it is quantity that causes the disturbance and corruption, then all the more, I think, must one avoid these varied and manifold dishes with which Philo's cook has just now been drugging us, like a rival craftsman, exciting our appetite by novelty and change so that it does not simply stop, but is led on to other things and oversteps, in the midst of variety, the moderate and sufficient measure—like the foster-child of Hypsipyle, who, reaching from one flower to another, delighting his infant soul, insatiable, strips the meadow bare over the widest possible space. Here too one must recall Socrates, who urged us to be on guard against those foods that persuade people to eat when they are not hungry,

meaning that one should be wary and fearful of nothing so much as varied and manifold foods. For this is what draws enjoyment further than need requires—in spectacles, in music, in sexual pleasures, in every kind of game and pastime—being taken up by excess, which has many starting points; whereas in simple, single-natured pleasures the enticement does not lead nature beyond its bounds. In general it seems to me that one would more readily tolerate a musician praising a many-stringed instrument, or a trainer praising an abundance of perfumed oils, than a physician praising a multitude of dishes; for deviations and changes lead one off the straight road to health." When Philinus had said this, Marcion said that it seemed to him that not only those who separate the profitable from the noble, but also those who set pleasure apart from health, as though it opposed and warred against it rather than cooperating with it, fell under Socrates' curse. "For it is only rarely, and unwillingly, as with the most violent of instruments," he said, "that we resort to pain;

whereas no one, even if he wished, could ever thrust pleasure away from any of the rest: rather, in foods and sleep, in baths and anointings and reclining, it is always present, welcoming and nursing the sick person along, with much that is proper and in accord with nature, outshining what is foreign to it. For what pain, what deprivation, what poison ever so easily and simply resolved a disease as a bath taken at the right time, or wine given to those who need it? And food taken with pleasure at once resolves all discomforts and restores nature to its proper state, as if fair weather and calm had come. Whereas remedies achieved through painful means accomplish their work slowly and bit by bit, forcing and prying nature loose only with difficulty. Philinus, then, should not slander us if we do not, hoisting both sails, as it were, flee pleasure altogether, but rather try to combine the pleasant and the healthful more skillfully than some philosophers combine the pleasant and the noble.

Now right from the start, Philinus, in your first argument, you seem to me to have gone astray in supposing that wild animals use simpler food than men do, and are healthier for it. Neither claim is true. As to the first, Eupolis's goats testify against you, singing of their diet as thoroughly mixed and varied, in words something like these: 'We graze on wood of every kind, cropping the tender shoots of fir, of holm-oak, of arbutus, and besides these still others—cytisus and fragrant sage, and

smilax with its ivy-like leaves, wild olive, mastic, ash, poplar, oak of the aria kind, common oak, ivy, heath, buckthorn, mullein, asphodel, rockrose, valonia oak, thyme, and savory.' For the plants listed have, of course, countless differences of flavor, smell, and property—and more still have been left unmentioned. As to the second claim, Homer more knowledgeably refutes it, declaring that plague first attacks the irrational animals. The brevity of their lives, too, and their liability to disease, testify against them; for practically nothing among them lives long, unless one should say the raven and the crow, which we observe to eat anything and everything indiscriminately. And moreover, in the diet you prescribe for the sick you were not doing well when you judged foods easy or hard to digest by that standard; for exercise, training, and dividing up one's food are things that aid digestion, yet do not suit those who are feverish.

And your fear of the conflict and difference among varied foods was unreasonable. For either nature draws what is proper to itself from like things directly into the body's mass—in which case varied food, releasing many qualities from itself, supplies each part with what suits it, so that Empedocles' words come true: 'sweet seized on sweet, and bitter rushed upon bitter, sharp upon sharp, and the fiery took hold of the fiery'—and other matter besides remains suited to the warmth, once the mixture has been dispersed in the breath, so that what is proper follows what is akin to it; for a body so thoroughly mixed and composite as ours has more reason to be replenished and to fill out its constitution from varied matter

than from simple. Or else, if this is not the case, but what we call digestion is naturally able to alter and transform food, then this will happen faster and better with varied food; for like is unaffected by like, while opposition and difference cause the qualities to be more thoroughly transformed and worn away through their mixture with their opposite. And if you reject mixture and variety altogether, Philinus, do not scold Philo here only when he is giving a dinner or having food prepared, but far more when he blends together those royal and remedial compounds—which Erasistratus called 'the hands of the gods'—denounce the strangeness and elaborateness of mixing together, all at once, minerals, herbs, animal substances, and things from land and sea alike; for it would be far better to leave all that aside and confine medicine to barley gruel, cupping, and water-and-oil.

'But, by Zeus,' you will say, 'variety draws out and bewitches an appetite that cannot master itself.' Yes, but so, my good sir, does cleanliness, and a good digestion, and a pleasant smell, and in general whatever is more agreeable: these too attract us and make us more inclined to eat and drink. Why then do we not knead coarse meal instead of fine, prepare wild onions and thistles instead of asparagus, and, rejecting this fragrant wine, drink instead the harsher stuff straight from the vat, serenaded by a chorus of gnats? Because you would say that a healthy regimen is not a flight from pleasure or an avoidance of it, but rather moderation and order among pleasures, keeping the appetite obedient to what is beneficial. Just as helmsmen, when the wind is fierce, use many devices to escape it, but once it has died down and faded, no one

is able to fan it back up and stir it into life again—so too, to restrain and check an appetite when it is excessive is no great task, but once it has already grown weak before its time, and has become soft and is abandoning what is proper to it, to stretch it taut again and rekindle it is very difficult indeed, my friend, and hard work. That is why varied food is better than simple food, which brings on satiety through its uniformity, inasmuch as it is easier to check a nature that is still in motion than to rouse one that has given up. And indeed, what some people say—that satiety is more to be avoided than deficiency—is not true; rather the opposite is the case: satiety, when it ends in some kind of corruption or disease, does harm; but deficiency, even if it produces no other evil, is in itself, of itself, contrary to nature. Let this stand, then, as a counterpoint to your philosophizing.

But there is something else that seems to have escaped the notice of you 'salt-and-bean' philosophers: that varied food is more pleasant, and what is more pleasant makes for a better appetite—provided you remove the excess and overindulgence; for it attaches itself readily to a body that is eager and receptive, sight having prepared the way beforehand, whereas food that has no appeal, wandering about and roaming, is either altogether rejected by nature or accepted only reluctantly, under pressure of need. Only remember and hold on to this one point: that variety does not consist in spicy relishes, and honeyed dishes, and rich sauces—these are elaborate and trifling things—but Plato too provides variety for those fine, noble citizens of his, setting before them bulbs, olives, vegetables, cheese, and boiled dishes of every kind; and besides these he does not begrudge them a share of dessert either, while they dine."

Agemachus once set before us at dinner in Elis some enormous truffles. As those present marveled, someone said with a smile, "Worthy indeed of the thunderclaps that occurred recently"—mocking, as it were, those who say that truffles come into being from thunder. For there were those who claimed that the earth is split open by thunder, as though struck by a nail through the air, and that afterward those who go hunting for truffles use the cracks as a sign; and from this the common belief arose that thunder actually generates the truffle, though they cannot show it doing so—just as if someone supposed that rain makes snails, rather than merely bringing them forth and revealing them. But Agemachus stood firm on the report and insisted that what is marvelous should not be considered incredible. And indeed, he said, there are many other marvelous effects of thunder and lightning and the celestial signs connected with them, whose causes are hard to grasp or altogether beyond our power.

"For indeed this truffle, laughed at and made proverbial," he said, "escapes the thunderbolt not by its smallness, but because it possesses an antipathetic power, just as the fig tree does, and the skin of the seal, as they say, and that of the hyena, with which ship captains cover the tips of their sails. And farmers call the rains that come with lightning fertilizing, and believe them to be so. And in general it is foolish to marvel at these things while overlooking the most incredible of all the phenomena we observe in them—flames arising out of moisture, and harsh sounds being given off by soft clouds. But I am rambling on about this," he said, "only to spur you on to inquire into the cause, so that I may not seem harsh in exacting payment for the truffles." I then said that in a sense I was

extending a hand in agreement to Agemachus's argument; for nothing seemed more plausible, at least for the present, than that water charged with generative power often bursts out together with thunder. The cause is the mingling of heat: the sharp and pure part of the fire departs as lightning, while the heavy and vaporous part, wrapped up within the cloud and changing along with it, draws off the cold and works together to produce the

"and so the moist element, being intimately combined with them, is preserved: the result being that the gentle warmth most readily penetrates growing things and quickly makes them swell. Since such influences also produce a particular quality of mixture and a difference of flavor in the things they water—just as dews make the grass sweeter for the flocks, and the clouds that bloom into the rainbow, wherever they rest upon timber, fill it with fragrance (and it is by this token that the people among us call certain kinds of wood 'rainbow-struck,' supposing that the rainbow settles upon them)—it is far more likely that waters and winds and heat driven down into the depths by lightning and thunderbolt turn the earth and produce such convolutions and cavities as these, just as in bodies certain heats and blood-laden humors produce scrofulous and glandular swellings. For the truffle does not resemble a plant, nor does it come into being without water, but is rootless and without sprout and self-contained, its substance being formed out of earth that has undergone some affection and change."

"But if this account seems to you far-fetched," I said, "such, after all, are most of the phenomena that accompany thunder and lightning; and it is for this very reason that these occurrences carry with them a reputation for divinity." And Dorotheus the rhetorician, who was present, said, "You are right; for not only ordinary people and laymen have experienced this, but some philosophers as well. I myself know of a case: a thunderbolt fell upon a house among us and did many astonishing things. It scattered the wine out of the jars without the earthenware itself being damaged at all, and flying past a man who was asleep it did him no harm and did not even touch his clothing, yet it melted the bronze coins in a purse he had girt about him, fusing all the money together. A Pythagorean philosopher who happened to be staying in the town came up and made inquiries about it, but the man declined to discuss it and told him to attend to his own affairs and pray to the gods.

I also hear that a soldier guarding a temple in Rome had a thunderbolt fall near him that burned through the straps of his sandals but did him no other harm; and that of some silver cups set in wooden cases, the silver melted and sank together while the wood was found untouched and unaffected. These things one may believe or not; but the most astonishing thing of all, which practically everyone knows, is that the bodies of those killed by a thunderbolt remain free from decay. Many people, in fact, neither burn nor bury such bodies, but leave them fenced about, so that the corpses are always seen to be undecayed—contrary to the words of Euripides' Clymene concerning Phaethon, that 'my dear one, unwashed, rots in the ravines as a corpse.' From this, I think, sulfur (theion) also got its name, from its likeness to the smell that things struck by lightning give off when scorched—a fiery, pungent smell, on account of which, it seems to me, both dogs and birds keep away from bodies struck by Zeus's bolt. As for me, let my account of the cause go this far, as if I had merely grazed at the laurel; as for the rest,"

he said, "let us call upon this man here, since he has had good luck with the truffles too, so that we do not suffer the fate of Androcydes. For that painter, though of all his works the most vivid and beautiful were the fish he painted around Scylla, was thought to have been guided by his own passion rather than by his art—for he was by nature a lover of fish. So someone will say of us too, that out of sheer pleasure we have philosophized about truffles, whose origin is disputable, as you see, while in this present case the plausibility of the theory is assumed, and the fact that the cause is self-evident lends it persuasiveness." When I urged him on, saying that it was a fitting occasion—just as in comedy, when the stage machinery is raised and thunder is thrown in—to converse over wine about thunderbolts, the others let the rest pass, agreeing with what had been said, but they were eager to hear something about why people who are asleep are not struck by lightning.

For my part I gained nothing further by taking hold of the cause, since it was of common application; nevertheless I said that the fire of the thunderbolt is remarkable for its fineness and subtlety, having in its very origin a pure and unmixed substance, and that it shakes off and purges away anything moist or earthy that gets mingled with it, on account of the sharpness of its motion. "'Nothing,' as Democritus says, 'struck by lightning from a clear sky can hold back its gleam.' Now the dense bodies—iron, bronze, silver, gold—resist it, and are damaged and melted, being affected by their very resistance and opposition to it; whereas it runs through porous, loose-textured, and yielding bodies without touching them, as it does through garments and dry wood; but green wood it burns, because the moisture in it catches and takes hold of the fire and is kindled along with it. If, then, it is true that people who are asleep do not die from thunderbolts, it is here, and nowhere else, that we must look for the cause. For the bodies of those who are awake are more firmly braced, compacted, and resistant, being filled in all their parts with pneuma (vital breath); and it is this pneuma, by turning the senses toward itself as though tuning an instrument and drawing them taut, that makes the living creature well-strung, continuous with itself, and dense.

But in sleep the body is relaxed, and becomes loose, uneven, slack, and diffused, and acquires many passages, since the pneuma yields and withdraws, through which sounds and smells pass freely without producing any perception of themselves. For that which resists, and which is affected precisely by resisting, does not meet what is brought against it—least of all things moving with such fineness and speed as the thunderbolt as it flies through. For nature wards off the weaker blows by means of hardness and density set up as a defense; but where the force is irresistible, the things that yield are less harmed by it than the things that stand against it." "Add to this," I said, "no small element of shock and fear and terror in the face of such events, from which many, though suffering nothing else, have died from the very fright of dying. Indeed shepherds teach their flocks, when thunder occurs, to run together and huddle close, since those left scattered by fear miscarry. And one may see countless people already dead from thunder who bear no trace either of a blow or of burning, but whose souls, it seems, have flown out of their bodies like birds through sheer fear. For as Euripides says, 'the bloodless blast of thunder has destroyed many.' And indeed, quite apart from this, hearing is the most affect-prone of the senses, and the greatest disturbances are produced by frights and shocks caused through sound—against which the sleeper's insensibility is a defense. Those who are awake, on the other hand, are worn down also by the prior distress, and since fear truly binds, contracts, and condenses the body, they make the blow, by their very resistance to it, a powerful one."

At the wedding of my son Autobulus, Sossius Senecion, who had come from Chaeronea, was present and shared the celebration with us; and among the many other topics that suited the occasion, he raised for discussion the reason why most people invite so many guests to wedding banquets besides the rest—for the lawgivers who fought most vigorously against extravagance were especially careful to set limits on the number of those invited to weddings. "For the man who," he said, "among the ancient philosophers, said something about this very cause that seemed to me, at least as judge, more plausible than anything else—Hecataeus of Abdera—says that those taking wives invite many guests to the feast so that many people will know and can testify that both parties are free-born and marrying free-born partners. For, on the contrary, the comic poets mock those who marry with lavish and ostentatious splendor of dinners and preparation, as not entering the union securely or confidently—as Menander says to the man who urged him to fence in a face with stew-pots: 'terribly, that is no matter befitting a bride.' "But so that we may not seem, taking the easiest course, to be finding fault with others while saying nothing ourselves, I declare first," he said, "that no occasion for a feast is so conspicuous and widely known as that of

a wedding: for people can conceal from many of their friends the fact that they are sacrificing to the gods, or seeing off a friend, or entertaining a guest; but the wedding table has as its accuser the wedding-hymn shouting loudly, and the torch, and the flute—things Homer mentions—and the women standing at the doors to marvel and look on. Since, therefore, no one is unaware of the reception and the invitation, people are ashamed to leave out any of their close friends and relations and those connected to them in any way, and so they invite them all." When we had accepted this, Theon took it up and said, "Let this too stand, for it is not implausible; and add this as well, if you like—that such feasts are occasions not only for friends but for kinsfolk, since another kind of intimacy becomes mingled into the family. And what is more important than this: when the households of two families come together into one, the party receiving takes on the relations and friends of the party giving, and the party giving takes on those of the party receiving, and each, thinking it their duty to show goodwill, doubles the scope of the reception. Moreover, many, or most, of the wedding rites are carried out through the agency of women; and where women are present, it is necessary that the men be brought along as well."

At Aedepsus in Euboea, where the Hot Springs form a naturally beautiful place well furnished for liberal pleasures with lodgings and living quarters, a common resort of Greece has been established: and though many creatures both winged and land-dwelling are caught there, the sea provides no less a well-stocked market, nourishing noble and abundant fish in its clear and steeply shelving waters. The place flourishes most when spring is at its height; for many people arrive there at that season and spend time together in every abundance, and pass most of their leisure in conversation. When Callistratus the sophist was present, it was hard work to dine anywhere else; for his good fellowship was irresistible, and the pleasure of gathering all the agreeable people together in one place was one he provided very often. For he often imitated Cimon of old, entertaining many guests of every sort gladly; but he most often, one might say, imitated Celeus, who is said to have been the first to establish a daily gathering of men of good repute and virtue, and to have called it a prytaneum.

Conversations fitting for such company naturally arose on each occasion; and once the tables, having become extremely varied, gave rise to an inquiry about relishes—whether the produce of the land or that of the sea is more suitable—and while almost all the others were praising the produce of the land, numerous and varied and hard to enumerate by kind and by difference, Polycrates, addressing Symmachus, said, "But you, being a creature of both shores and reared amid so many seas as surround your sacred Nicopolis, do you not take Poseidon's side?" "I certainly wish to, by Zeus," said Symmachus, "and I enlist you too, and call upon you, since you enjoy the sweetest things of the Achaean sea." "Well then," said Polycrates, "let us first go over to our usual practice. For just as, though there are many poets, we call one alone, preeminently, 'the poet'—the best of them—so too, though there are many relishes, fish alone, or most of all, has come to be called 'opson' (the relish), because it surpasses all others by far in excellence.

For indeed we call people 'fish-eaters' and 'fish-lovers,' not those who delight in beef, as Heracles did, who 'ate green figs along with his meat,' nor the fig-lover such as Plato was, nor the grape-lover such as Arcesilaus was, but those who show up regularly at the fish market and are quick to hear the bell. And Demosthenes says of Philocrates that with his traitor's gold he 'bought harlots and fish,' reproaching the man for gluttony and self-indulgence. And Ctesiphon, not badly, when some glutton in the council chamber was shouting that he would burst, said, 'By no means, fellow, make us fish-eaters.' And the man who wrote the little verse, 'Living on capers when you could live on sea-bass'—what does he mean by it? And what do most people mean, in heaven's name, when, urging one another to have a pleasant time, they say, 'Let us dine on the shore today'—do they not thereby declare that a dinner on the shore is the most delightful thing, as indeed it is? Is it on account of the waves and the pebbles that anyone, dining on the shore, seasons his meal

with a flask of oil and capers? Rather it is because the table by the sea is well supplied with abundant, fresh fish. And indeed the produce of the sea is sold, contrary to all reason, at the highest price of all: at any rate Cato, not exaggerating but speaking the plain truth in a public speech against the luxury and extravagance of the city, said that fish sold for more in Rome than cattle did. For they sell a small jar of it for a price for which not even a prow-horned hecatomb of oxen, once slaughtered, could be bought. And yet the best judge of the power of drugs is the most medically skilled person, and of the excellence of songs the greatest music-lover—and so too of the excellence of relishes, the greatest fish-lover. For it is not Pythagoras, surely, nor Xenocrates, that one should consult as arbiter in these matters, but Antagoras the poet, and Philoxenus the son of Eryxis, and the painter Androcydes, who they say, in painting Scylla, rendered the fish around her with the greatest passion and vividness because of his own love of eating fish.

As for Antagoras, King Antigonus, standing beside him in the camp as he was boiling a pot of conger-eels with his cloak girt up, said, "Do you really suppose that Homer, when he was writing down the deeds of Agamemnon, was boiling conger-eels?" And Antagoras answered him not badly, "And do you suppose that Agamemnon performed those deeds of his by prying into who in the camp was boiling a conger-eel?" "These things," said Polycrates, "I offer as my contribution, both to you and, by Zeus, to the fishmongers as well, drawn from witnesses and from common usage." "But I," said Symmachus, "will approach the matter seriously and in a more dialectical fashion. For if a relish is that which sweetens one's food, then the best relish would be that which is most able to sustain one's appetite for bread. Just as the philosophers called the Hopeful School declare that hoping is the most sustaining thing in life, since, hope being absent, life is not endurable even when nothing else is lacking to sweeten it—so too we must reckon as sustaining that appetite for food without which all nourishment becomes graceless and hard to take.

Now among the products of the land you will find nothing of this sort, but among those of the sea, salt comes first, without which practically nothing is edible; indeed even bread itself is made sweeter by having salt mixed into it—which is why Poseidon shares a temple with Demeter, and why, among other relishes, salt is the sweetest relish of all. The heroes, at any rate, being accustomed to a plain and simple diet, like ascetics in their way of life, and having stripped away from their food every added and superfluous pleasure—so much so that they made no use even of fish while encamped by the Hellespont—still could not bear to eat their meat without salt, testifying that this alone among relishes is indispensable. For just as colors need light, so flavors need the savor of salt in order to stir the sense of taste; otherwise they strike the palate as heavy and nauseating. 'For corpses,' as Heraclitus says, 'are more fit to be thrown out than dung'; and all flesh is a kind of corpse, and of a corpse's

...part. The power of salt, coming upon it like a soul entering in, adds to it both charm and pleasure. That is why people take first, before the rest of their food, the pungent and salty items — in general, whatever has partaken most of salt — for these become love-charms to whet the appetite for the other dishes, and the appetite, once lured on by them, approaches the rest fresh and eager; but if it begins from those other dishes instead, it quickly gives out.

So salt is a relish not only for food but also for drink. That Homeric line, “on onion, a relish for one's drink,” suited sailors and oarsmen better than kings; but foods lightly salted, for the sake of good flavor, make every kind of wine sweet and smooth to the taste, and every draught of water agreeable and invigorating; whereas the unpleasantness and harshness the onion produces has no share in this at all — rather it disperses the rest of one's food and hands it over compliant and softer for digestion, adding the graciousness of a relish together with the potency of a medicine, once salt has been applied to the body. Moreover, the other delicacies of the sea, besides being most pleasant, are also the least harmful: for

though they are meat, they do not weigh one down in the same way, but are digested and dispersed easily. Our friend Zeno here will bear witness to this, and Craton too, by Zeus, who bring the sick, before all other foods, to fish, as the lightest of relishes. And it stands to reason that the sea should rear bodies healthy and well-conditioned, if indeed it also gives off to us an air that is fine and pure in its lightness and clarity.” “Well said,” replied Lamprias, “but let us philosophize on the subject a little further. My grandfather used to say, mocking the Jews each time, that the most righteous meat is the one they do not eat; but we shall say that the most righteous relish is the one that comes from the sea. As for these land creatures, even if nothing else were just about them, still they are nourished on the same food as we are and take the same air,

and have baths and drink such as we have; and when we slaughter them we feel a certain shame, since they let out a plaintive cry, and most of them have been made familiar to us and reared alongside us in our way of life. But the race of sea creatures is entirely alien and foreign to us, as though born and living in some other world; neither their look nor their voice nor any service they might render pleads against our eating them, for

there is nothing one could make use of in them while they are alive, since in our world they do not live in any sense we recognize at all; nor is any affection for them called for, but this place we inhabit is a kind of Hades to them — for the moment they come into it, they are dead at once.” When this had been said, and some wished to argue the opposite case, Callistratus, heading off that other argument, said, “What do you all think of what was said about the Jews, that they do not eat the most righteous meat?” “Amazing,” said Polycrates, “and I am further puzzled whether the men abstain from eating the pig out of some honor for the animal, or out of loathing for it. For what is said among them resembles myths, unless perhaps they have some serious reasons that they simply do not divulge.” “Well then,” said Callistratus, “I think the animal is held in some honor among the men:

even if the pig is misshapen and coarse, it is no stranger in appearance, nor more graceless in nature, than the dung-beetle, the vulture, the crocodile, and the cat, which the priests of the Egyptians, some one animal and some another, treat as most sacred. They say the pig is honored for a worthy reason: it was the first, they claim, to break open the earth with the projecting part of its snout and so give an impression of plowing, suggesting the work the plowshare would later do; whence, they say, the tool itself got its name from the pig.

The Egyptians who farm the soft, low-lying parts of the country have no need of a plow at all: rather, when the Nile recedes after soaking the fields, they follow behind and drive the pigs onto them, and these, by trampling and rooting about, quickly

turn the earth over from below and bury the seed. One should not be surprised, then, if for this reason some people do not eat pigs, when other animals receive still greater honors among the barbarians for even flimsier reasons — some indeed quite ridiculous. For instance, they say the shrew-mouse was deified by the Egyptians because it is blind, on the theory that darkness is older than light; and it is said to be born

from mice in the fifth generation, at the new moon; and further, that its liver shrinks during the moon's disappearances. They associate the lion with the sun, because alone among clawed quadrupeds it is born with its eyes open, and it sleeps only the briefest span of time, its eyes gleaming even as it sleeps; and fountains shaped like gaping lions' mouths send forth their jets, because the Nile brings fresh water to the fields of Egypt

when the sun is passing through Leo. They say the ibis, as soon as it is hatched, weighs two drachmas, the very weight of a newborn child's heart; and by the spread of its feet in relation to each other and to its beak it forms an equilateral triangle. And why should one blame the Egyptians for such excess of unreason, when it is recorded that even the Pythagoreans revere the white cock, and among sea creatures abstain especially from the red mullet

and the sea anemone, while the Magi, followers of Zoroaster, honor above all others the land hedgehog, but hate water-rats, and consider whoever kills the most of them beloved of god and blessed? I think the Jews too, if they truly abhorred the pig, would kill it, just as the Magi kill the rats: but as things stand, killing it is forbidden to them just as much as eating it.

And perhaps there is some reason in it: just as they honor the donkey because it revealed a spring of water to them, so too perhaps they revere the pig because it became their teacher in sowing and plowing — unless, by Zeus, one will also say that the men abstain from the hare because they loathe the animal as foul and unclean.” “Not so,” said Lamprias, taking up the point, “rather, they spare the hare out of

their fondness for the creature it most closely resembles [the text here is uncertain]. For the hare, in size and bulk, seems to be a somewhat diminished donkey: its color, its ears, the sleekness of its eyes, and its skittishness are wonderfully alike, so that nothing so small has ever resembled something so large. Unless, by Zeus, in keeping with

these resemblances, those who Egyptianize also hold the swiftness of the creature to be something divine, along with the precision of its senses: for its eye never tires, so that it even sleeps with its eyes open; and it seems to excel in keenness of hearing, which the Egyptians so admired that in their sacred writing they represent 'hearing' by drawing a hare's ear. The men seem to treat pork as taboo because barbarians especially

loathe scaly skin conditions and leprosy, and believe that such afflictions creep over people through contact with things of this kind. And indeed we observe that every pig, under the belly, is covered with scaly eruptions and scabby outbreaks, which do seem to spread over their bodies once some corruption and decay has taken hold in the flesh. Moreover, the very murkiness of the creature's way of life carries a certain baseness in it:

for we see nothing else so fond of mud and of filthy, unclean places — setting aside those creatures whose very birth and nature are rooted in such things. They also say the eyes of pigs are so bent and drawn down within their sockets that they never lay hold of anything above them, nor ever look up at the sky, unless, while being carried on their backs, their pupils undergo some unnatural

reversal. That is why the animal, though otherwise most given to squealing, falls silent whenever it is carried in this way, and is struck dumb, awestruck by the unfamiliar and overpowering sight of the heavens, held back from crying out by fear. And if we are to bring in the mythical material as well, it is said that Adonis was killed by a boar; and they hold that Adonis is none other than Dionysus, and much of what is performed

at the festivals of each confirms this account. Some say he was Dionysus's beloved boy; and Phanocles, a poet of love, writes something to this effect, aware of his divinity: ‘Adonis, roaming the mountains, Dionysus seized, and carried off, journeying to holy Cyprus.’” Symmachus, taken aback at what had been added, said, “Do you, then, Lamprias, enroll your ancestral god — ‘the reveler, rouser of women, blooming amid the frenzied honors’ of Dionysus — and smuggle him in among

the secret rites of the Hebrews? Or is there really some account that shows this god to be the very same as that one?” Moiragenes broke in and said, “Leave him be — for I, being an Athenian, will answer you myself and say that he is none other. Most of the evidence for this can only be spoken and taught to those among us who have been initiated into the full triennial rite; but what

can be recounted in ordinary speech is not forbidden among friends, especially over wine, when the subject is the gifts of the god — and if these gentlemen ask it of me, I am ready to tell it.” When all urged and pressed him, he said, “First, the timing and manner of their greatest and most complete festival befits Dionysus. For, keeping what is called the Fast, at the height of the vintage, they set out tables

heaped with every kind of fruit, under tents and huts woven mostly from vine-branches and ivy; and they call the earlier part of the festival 'Tabernacles.' A few days later they celebrate another festival, called not through riddles but outright the festival 'of Bacchus.' There is also among them a kind of festival of Branch-carrying and Thyrsus-carrying, in which they enter the temple bearing thyrsi. What they do once they have entered,

we do not know; but it is likely that what takes place is a Bacchic revel: for indeed they use small trumpets to call upon the god, just as the Argives do at their festival of Dionysus; and others go before them playing the lyre, whom they themselves call Levites — whether the title comes from Lysius or, more likely, from Euius, one of the god's names. I think, too, that the festival of the Sabbath is not entirely unconnected with Dionysus.

For even now many call the Bacchants 'Sabi,' and utter this very cry when they hold their revels for the god; and confirmation of this one can get, I suppose, both from Demosthenes and from Menander. And it would not be unreasonable for someone to say the name was formed from a certain frenzied agitation that possesses those caught up in Bacchic ecstasy. They themselves bear witness to this account by their own practice, when they honor the Sabbath,

inviting one another above all to drink and take wine; and when something more pressing prevents it, they consider it proper at least to taste unmixed wine. These things one might say are plausible enough; but the strongest evidence against those who oppose this view comes, first of all, from the high priest, who leads the way at their festivals wearing a miter and clad in a fawnskin sewn with gold, wearing besides a robe reaching to his feet and buskins; and many small bells hang down

from his garment, jingling as he walks, just as they do among us; and they use such sounds at their nighttime rites, and call the nurses of the god 'bronze-clashers.' And the thyrsus carved into the pediment opposite the temple bears this out, along with the drums — for these belong to no other god than Dionysus. Furthermore, they do not offer honey in their sacred rites, because they believe it spoils the wine when mixed with it, and honey itself was once, before the vine appeared, both the libation-offering and the intoxicant.

And even now, those barbarians who do not make wine drink a honey-wine instead, tempering its sweetness with wine-like, astringent roots; and the Greeks likewise pour these same sober, honey-mixed libations, on the ground that honey's nature stands most opposed to that of wine. And that they hold this same belief is confirmed by no small sign: that among the many punishments in use among them, one in particular is held in special disgrace —

namely, the one that bars those being punished from wine, for as long a time as the one in charge of the punishment prescribes; and those thus punished…” Here the rest of the fourth book is lost. Concerning the pleasures of the soul and of the body, Sossius Senecio, I for my part cannot tell what opinion you now hold,

since “many shadowy mountains and the sounding sea” lie between us; yet long ago you seemed not entirely to agree with, nor to approve of, those who hold that the soul has nothing of its own that is pleasant or delightful or in any way desirable, but simply lives alongside the body, sharing in its smiles and again its frowns at whatever the body experiences — as though it were a mold or a mirror, receiving the images and reflections

of the sensations that arise in the flesh. For this unlovely doctrine is caught out as false on many grounds, and not least by the fact that at drinking parties the witty and cultivated men, as soon as dinner is over, turn at once to conversation, as though to a second table, and delight one another through discourse — pleasures in which the body shares nothing, or scarcely anything at all — thereby bearing witness that the soul has some private storehouse of enjoyments laid up for itself,

and that these alone are pleasures belonging to the soul, while those others are foreign to it, merely tinging it through its contact with the body. Just as nurses who spoon-feed infants share only a little in the pleasure of it, but once they have satisfied the children and lulled them to sleep, freed at last from their crying, then, on their own, they take suitable food and drink for themselves and enjoy it — so too the soul shares in the pleasures of drinking and eating,

serving the body's appetites the way a nurse does, indulging its needs and soothing its desires; but whenever the body is content and at rest, freed from its business and its servitude, the soul thereafter turns to pleasures of its own, feasting on discourse and learning and stories, and on the search to hear something out of the ordinary. And what need is there to say more on this, seeing that

even coarse men with no love of letters, after dinner, turn their thoughts to pleasures quite removed from those of the body, proposing riddles and puzzles and word-games hidden in numbers? For this same reason mimes and character-actors and Menander and his imitators have found a place at symposia, since these remove no pain from the body, nor produce any smooth and pleasant sensation in the flesh, but rather because

the love of spectacle and of ideas that is natural to each person's soul seeks out its own particular delight and enjoyment, once we are freed from attending to and caring for the body. On these very matters conversation once took place, with you present, in Athens, at the time when Straton the comic actor had his great success — for there was much talk of him then — when we were dining as guests of Boethus the Epicurean, and dining together with us was…

...not a few of that school. Then the mention of comedy turned the discussion, as though among lovers of learning, to an inquiry into the cause: why is it that when we hear people's voices as they rage, or grieve, or fear, we are distressed and made uneasy, while those who act out these same passions and imitate their voices and dispositions give us delight? Now of all those present there was almost one opinion: they said that since the one who imitates is superior to the one who genuinely suffers, and differs from him precisely in not having suffered, we take pleasure and rejoice in perceiving this. But I, though setting foot, so to speak, in another man's chorus, said that since we are by nature rational and lovers of art, we are favorably disposed toward whatever is done rationally and skillfully, and we admire it whenever it succeeds. For just as the bee, being a lover of sweetness, attends to and pursues every substance in which anything honey-like is mixed, so man, being by nature a lover of art and of beauty, is disposed to welcome and embrace every product and object that partakes of mind and reason.

If, at any rate, one were to set before a small child, side by side, a small loaf of bread and, alongside it, a little dog or ox molded from the same flour, you would see him drawn toward the latter. Likewise, if one man were to offer plain silver coin, and another were to hold out and give a little silver figurine or a cup, the child would rather take the object in which he perceives craft and reason mingled in. This is why children of that age take more delight in riddling speech and in games that involve some intricacy and difficulty, for by nature, untaught, the mind is drawn toward what is subtle and cunning as toward its own kin. Since, then, the person truly angry or truly grieving is seen amid certain common passions and movements shared by all, whereas in mimicry a certain cleverness and persuasiveness is displayed, provided the imitation succeeds, we are by nature disposed to delight in the latter and to be pained by the former.

And indeed we experience the same thing in the case of spectacles: we look with distress upon people actually dying or painfully ill, but we gaze with pleasure upon the painted Philoctetes and the sculpted Jocasta — into whose face, they say, the craftsman mixed some silver, so that as the figure of the human being failed and wasted away, the bronze might take on a pallor — we take delight and admire it. "This too," I said, "gentlemen Epicureans, is strong evidence for the Cyrenaics against you, that the pleasure we take in things heard and seen resides not in the sight or in the hearing but in the mind. For a hen crowing continuously, or a crow, is a distressing and unpleasant sound to hear, yet one who imitates a crowing hen or a crow delights us. And we are displeased to look upon consumptive men, yet we gladly gaze upon statues and paintings of the consumptive, because the mind is led by the imitations according to what is proper to itself.

For what did people undergo, or what external experience befell them, that made them so admire Parmenon's sow as to become proverbial? And yet they say that when Parmenon had won renown for his mimicry, others, in emulation, tried to compete against him in display; and since people, already prejudiced and set in their opinion, kept saying, "Good, but nothing compared to Parmenon's sow," one man, taking a little pig under his arm, came forward; and when they, hearing the true sound itself, still murmured, "Well, what is this compared to Parmenon's sow?" — he let the piglet loose into their midst, thereby exposing that their judgment was directed at reputation, not at truth. By this above all it is clear that the same affection of the senses does not dispose the soul in the same way, when there is not attached to it the opinion that the thing is being accomplished rationally or ambitiously."

At the Pythian games there arose discussion about the additional contests, to the effect that they ought to be abolished. For having admitted the tragic actor alongside the three established from the beginning — the Pythian flute-player, the lyre-player, and the singer to the lyre — as though a gate had been thrown open, they could not hold back the crowd of all sorts of performances that pressed and forced their way in together; through these the contest gained a variety not unpleasing, and a festive character, but it did not preserve its austerity and its musical purity, and it caused trouble for the judges and, as was likely, much ill-will from the many who were defeated. Not least did people think it necessary to remove the tribe of prose-writers and poets from the contest — not out of hatred of learning, but because, being by far the most well-known of all the competitors, people felt embarrassed before them and were troubled, considering them all men of talent, though not all could win.

We, then, in the assembly tried to soothe those who wished to alter the established order and who charged the contest, as though it were an instrument, with having too many strings and too many voices. And at dinner, while Petraeus the games-director was entertaining us, when similar talk arose again, we came to the defense of music: we declared that poetry was not a late or recent arrival at the sacred games, but had long since won crowns of victory there. To some I seemed likely to serve up stale fare by bringing up the burial rites of Oeolycus the Thessalian and of Amphidamas the Chalcidian, at which they say Homer and Hesiod contended in verse.

But I set that aside, since it has been thoroughly worn out by the grammarians, along with the readings recited at the funeral games of Patroclus by some as not "hemonas" but "rhemonas," as though Achilles had proposed prizes for speeches as well; letting that go, I said instead that when Acastus his son buried Pelias, he too provided a contest in poetry, and that the Sibyl won it. When many pressed me and demanded the authority for so incredible and improbable an account, I happily recalled and pointed out that Acesander records this in his work on Libya. "And this reading," I said, "is not one that is generally accessible; but as for the work of Polemon the Athenian on the treasuries at Delphi, I think many of you make a point of reading it, and rightly so, for he is a man of wide learning and never nodding off in matters of Greek history.

There, at any rate, you will find it written that in the treasury of Sicyon there was dedicated a golden book, an offering of Aristomache of Erythrae, who had twice won the Isthmian games with an epic poem. Nor, indeed," I said, "is it right to be so awestruck before the Olympic games, as though they were an unalterable and immovable fate among athletic contests. For the Pythian games have included three or four additional musical contests, whereas the athletic contest has for the most part remained fixed from the beginning as it was established; at the Olympic games everything is an addition except the footrace. Many events, too, having been introduced, were later abolished, such as the race of the mule-cart and of the wagon; the crown for boys in the pentathlon was likewise done away with; and in general many innovations have been made regarding the festival.

I am afraid to say that in ancient times a contest of single combat used to be held near Pisa, carried through to the death and slaughter of the defeated and those who fell — lest you demand of me again the authority for this account, and, should the name escape my memory over wine, I become a laughingstock." The question was raised about the pine, on what account it became the wreath at the Isthmian games; for the dinner was in Corinth, the Isthmian games being held, and Lucanius the high priest was entertaining us. Praxiteles the guide, then, brought up the mythical version, that the body of Melicertes was said to have been found washed ashore by the sea against a pine tree; for indeed, not far from Megara, there is a place called "the Fair Course," through which, the Megarians say, Ino ran to the sea carrying the child. It is commonly said by many that the pine is Poseidon's own crown; but Lucanius added

that since the plant is also consecrated to Dionysus, it is not without reason associated with the honors paid to Melicertes — and this very point raised the question by what reasoning the ancients consecrated the pine to both Poseidon and Dionysus. It seemed to us that there was nothing strange in this: both gods are held to be lords of the moist and generative principle; and nearly all the Greeks, one might say, sacrifice to Poseidon as "Nourisher of Plants" and to Dionysus as "Of the Trees."

Not but that one might say the pine belongs particularly to Poseidon — not, as Apollodorus thinks, because it is a coastal plant, nor because, like the sea, it loves the wind (for some say this too), but chiefly because of shipbuilding: for it, and its kindred trees, the fir and the stone-pine, supply the most seaworthy timber, along with pitch and resin for caulking, without which the fastened planks are of no use at sea. To Dionysus the pine was consecrated because it sweetens the wine: they say that pine-covered regions produce vines that bear sweet-wine grapes. Theophrastus attributes this to the heat of the soil: for the pine grows generally in clayey ground, and clay is warm, and so it helps to ripen the wine, just as clay also yields the lightest and most pleasant water. Furthermore, when mixed with grain it also increases the yield abundantly, ripening and swelling the wheat by its heat.

But it is also likely that the vine itself benefits from the pine, which has great suitability for the preservation and durability of wine: for with pitch everyone coats their vessels, and many mix in resin with their wine, as do the Euboeans among the Greeks and, among the Italians, those who dwell around the Po; and from the region of Vienna in Gaul the resinated wine is brought down, held in especially high esteem by the Romans, for such additions not only impart a certain fragrance but also make the wine drink easily, quickly removing by their heat the rawness and wateriness of the young wine.

When this had been said, the one among the orators who seemed most given to reading works of a liberal education said, "By the gods, was it not only yesterday, so to speak, that the pine here became the crown of the Isthmian games, when formerly they were crowned with wild celery? This one may even hear from the mouth of some miser in comedy, saying, 'I would gladly sell the Isthmian prize for whatever the celery crown fetches.' And Timaeus the historian records that when the Corinthians were marching to fight the Carthaginians on behalf of Sicily, some men happened to bring in, not celery, but — and when the majority took this as an omen and not a good one, since celery is thought to be associated with funerals, and those dangerously ill are said to need celery —

Timoleon encouraged them and reminded them of the celery at the Isthmus, with which the Corinthians crown their victors. Further, the flagship of Antigonus, which sprouted celery of its own accord around its stern, was named 'Isthmia.' And this riddling inscription clearly attests a jar stuffed with celery: it is composed thus — 'The dark earth, black earth burnt by fire, conceals the dark blood of the god Dionysus, bearing Isthmian sprigs about its mouth.' Have you not read this," he said, "you who honor the pine as though it were not an import, not something new, but the ancestral and time-honored crown of the Isthmian games?" He thus stirred up the young men, as a man of wide reading and much learning would. Lucanius, however, looking at me and smiling at the same time, said, 'By Poseidon, what a wealth of learned quotation! But others among us, it seems, benefited from their ignorance and lack of erudition, persuading the opposite —

that the pine was the ancestral crown of the games, and that from Nemea, in rivalry, the celery crown intruded as a foreign newcomer, on account of Heracles, and having prevailed, eclipsed the pine as being a fitter sacred emblem; but then in time the pine recovered its ancestral honor and now flourishes again in esteem.' I, for my part, was persuaded and gave my attention, so that I learned by heart and remember many of the testimonies — Euphorion, for instance, speaking somewhat as follows about Melicertes: 'Weeping, they laid the boy down among the pines of the shore, at the time when they are borne along in contests for crowns; for not yet had the rough grip of hands mown down the child of the moon, the grim one, beside the mother of Asopus, from the time when they cast thick celery about their temples.' And Callimachus makes it still clearer:

for Heracles says to him concerning the celery, and to him the sons of Aletes, holding a contest much older than this one beside the god Aegaeon, will establish as the token of Isthmian victory, in rivalry with those from Nemea; and they will dishonor the pine, which formerly crowned the contestants at Ephyra. Further, I believe I have come across the writing of Procles, who records concerning the Isthmian games that they set the first contest for a crown of pine; but later, when the contest became sacred, they transferred to it the celery crown from the Nemean festival. This Procles was one of those who studied together with Xenocrates in the Academy." To some of the fellow-diners Achilles seemed ridiculous, for bidding Patroclus pour the wine more unmixed, and then adding such a reason as, 'for the men dearest to me are beneath my roof.' Niceratus, then, our companion

the Macedonian, flatly maintained that it was not "unmixed" but "warm" that was meant by "zoron," deriving it from "life-giving" (zōtikon) and from boiling (zesis) — a view which, he claimed, made good sense, given that with the men's companions present, a fresh bowl was being mixed from the start; for we too, whenever we are about to pour a libation to the gods, make a freshly mixed bowl. Sosicles the poet, however, recalling Empedocles' statement that in the universal transformation

'things once unmixed become zōra,' said that the word 'zōron' was used by the man to mean the well-tempered rather than the unmixed, and that there was nothing to prevent Achilles from urging Patroclus to prepare the wine tempered for drinking; and if, instead of 'zōron,' he said 'zōroteron,' this was no more strange than 'dexiteron' for 'dexion' (right-hand) or 'thēlyteron' for 'thēleos' (female), since it is common usage to employ the comparative in place of the simple form. Antipater our companion, however, said that in the archaic manner years were called 'hōroi,' and that the prefix 'za-' commonly signifies magnitude; hence wine of many years was called 'zōron' by Achilles. I, for my part, reminded them that by 'zōroteron' some understand 'hotter' to be signified, and by 'hotter,' 'quicker,' just as we ourselves often urge

our attendants to set about their service more briskly ("hotter"). But I declared their zeal to be somewhat boyish, since they were afraid to admit that "zōroteron" meant "more unmixed," as though Achilles would thereby find himself in some awkward position — as Zoilus of Amphipolis supposed, not realizing, first, that Achilles, knowing that Phoenix and Odysseus, being older men, delighted not in watered wine but in the stronger mixture, as do other old men, bids the mixture be made stronger.

Then again, being a pupil of Chiron and not inexperienced in matters of bodily regimen, he no doubt reasoned that for bodies unaccustomed to idleness and leisure, a looser and softer mixture is fitting. And indeed it is not without reason that celery is thrown in among the other fodder for horses, but because horses that are kept idle, contrary to their custom, suffer harm in their feet; and of this...

celery is the best remedy for this. Indeed you would not find any other fodder compared with the horses in the Iliad besides celery, or anything of that sort. But Achilles, being a physician for the horses as well, took care of them appropriately for the occasion, just as he prepared the lightest diet for the body, as being the healthiest one while at leisure; but he did not think it right to prescribe the same regimen for men who had spent the day in battle and contest as for men at leisure — he ordered the mixture of their wine to be made stronger.

Moreover Achilles does not appear to be naturally fond of wine, but rather harsh in temper — he was not, after all, a sweet-tempered or gentle man, but very impetuous; and speaking frankly of himself somewhere he says, "I have lain awake through many sleepless nights"; and a short sleep does not suffice for those who drink their wine unmixed. When reviling Agamemnon, the first thing he calls him is "heavy with wine," as though putting forward drunkenness as the chief of diseases. For all these reasons, then, there was good ground for him to reflect, once those men had appeared, whether the mixture of wine customary for him might be too weak and ill-suited for them.

The oddity apparent in the matter of seating arrangements gave rise to further discussion at the receptions which each of our friends held in entertaining us on our arrival from Alexandria. For many people were always invited, those who were thought in any way to have some claim to be included, and the parties had a turbulent character both in their general conduct and in their hasty breaking-up. But when Onesicrates the physician invited to dinner not many guests but only his closest and most intimate friends, it seemed to me that what Plato said — "a city that grows too large is no longer a city" — held true of a dinner party as well. For a symposium's size is sufficient

only up to the point where it is still willing to remain a symposium; but if it exceeds that through sheer numbers, so that it is no longer sociable with itself, nor sympathetic in its friendly exchanges, nor familiar, then it is no longer a symposium at all. For one ought not to make use of messengers, as in an army camp, nor of boatswains calling out orders, as on a trireme, but the guests should converse with one another directly, just as in a chorus the man at the edge keeps in tune with the leader when the whole symposium forms a single chorus. When I had said this,

our grandfather Lamprias spoke up in the midst of the company and said, "Do we then need self-restraint not only with regard to the dinners themselves, but also with regard to the invitations? For there is, I think, a kind of intemperance even in hospitality, when it passes over none of one's acquaintances but drags all of them along as though to a spectacle or a recitation. As for myself, it is not the running short of bread or wine for the guests that makes the host look ridiculous so much as the running short of room and space; for it is with regard to these things

that an abundance ought always to be kept ready even for uninvited guests and strangers who happen to arrive unexpectedly. Moreover, when bread and wine run short, it is possible to blame the servants for having pilfered them, but a scarcity of room, and a using-up of it through overcrowding, is a kind of contempt on the part of the host himself. And Hesiod is admired with good reason for saying, 'First of all things Chaos came to be' — for space and room needed to exist beforehand for the things that were to come into being — not as though the party were made up, as my son said yesterday,

of the Anaxagorean phrase 'all things were together.' Even so, when there is room enough and preparation enough, the crowding together itself must still be guarded against, as making the company unsociable and unapproachable to one another; for to take away the sharing of wine is a lesser evil than to take away the sharing of conversation from a dinner. That is why Theophrastus, joking, used to call the barbershops 'wineless symposia,' because of the chatter of those who sit there. Those who cram many people together into the same place do away with the sharing of conversation, or rather they make it possible for only a few to converse with one another; for people pair off in twos or threes and talk and converse with each other, while those reclining farther off they neither know nor even look at, being separated by 'a horse's course,'

'both to the tents of Ajax son of Telamon and to those of Achilles.' Hence the rich do not act rightly when they show off youthful bravado in building dining halls fit for thirty couches or more; for such preparation belongs to unsociable and unfriendly dinners, requiring a director of a public festival rather than a symposiarch. Yet that behavior may be excused in them, since they consider wealth to be no wealth at all, indeed truly blind and unproductive, unless it has witnesses, just as

tragedy needs spectators. But for us the remedy for bringing many people together at once would be to invite them frequently in small groups instead. For those who entertain rarely and, as the saying goes, 'once in a blue moon,' are forced to write down every acquaintance or connection whatsoever, however remote; whereas those who invite people more often, taking up three or four at a time, make their dinner parties light, like ferry-boats. And a further means of separating out the great crowd of one's friends

is a continuous reckoning of the occasion's purpose. For just as, for our various needs, we do not summon everyone but only those suited to each particular need — calling on the prudent when we take counsel, on eloquent speakers when we go to court, and, when traveling, on those who are lightest to bear the practical burdens and have the most leisure — so too in receptions one must on each occasion select those who are suitable. Suitable companions for a governor giving a dinner are the magistrates, if they are friends, and the leading men of the city; but at weddings, or at birthday celebrations, those related by family and sharing in the household Zeus; and at such receptions, or at send-offs, one must gather together above all those most cherished by the persons being honored. For when we sacrifice to a god we do not invoke all the other gods together in our prayers, even those who share his temple and his altar, but rather, when three mixing-bowls are being mixed,

we pour a libation to some from the first, to others from the second, and to others from the last; "for envy stands outside the divine chorus." And the company of friends is likewise, in a sense, divine, when it is distributed with good judgment in social gatherings." When this had been said, the discussion at once turned to the question of the cramped seating at the beginning of a dinner and its subsequent loosening — the opposite of what one would expect to happen

as a result of the fullness produced by the meal. Some of us then blamed the posture of reclining, arguing that people, for the most part, recline broadly while dining, since they stretch out their right hand toward the tables; but after dining they turn over more onto their side, making the shape of the body a narrower one, and no longer, so to speak, lying flat, but occupying, along a line, only the edge of their space; just

as knucklebones take up less room when they fall standing upright than when they fall flat, so each of us at first leans forward onto our stomach, looking toward the table, but later shifts our reclining posture from breadth into depth. But most of the company put forward instead the yielding of the couch's bedding, arguing that, being pressed down during the reclining, it spreads out and gives way, just like well-worn shoes, which, gradually

giving and loosening at the seams, provide roominess and freedom of movement for the foot. And the old man, joking at the same time, said that one and the same symposium has two dissimilar overseers and leaders: at the start, Hunger, who has no share in any tactical skill, and later Dionysus, whom everyone agrees to have been the best general there ever was — just as Epaminondas,

when certain generals, through inexperience, led the phalanx into some difficult terrain where it fell into confusion and became entangled in itself, took it in hand and disentangled it and set it back in order — so too Dionysus the Looser and Leader of the Dance, taking us up at the start all huddled together by hunger like a pack of dogs, arranges us into a cheerful and sociable order. When talk arose at dinner concerning the practice of casting the evil eye, and of certain people having a 'bewitching' eye, the rest of the company entirely made light of the matter

and laughed it down; but Mestrius Florus, who was entertaining us, said that the actual occurrences remarkably support the common report, but that the lack of an explanation makes people unjustly disbelieve the account, given that, though countless things plainly exist, the explanation for them still eludes us. "And in general," he said, "the person who seeks a rational explanation for everything strips away all sense of wonder from every case. For where

the explanation for a cause fails, that is precisely where inquiry begins — that is to say, philosophy; so that, in a sense, those who disbelieve wondrous things do away with philosophy altogether. One must," he said, "pursue the question of why something happens by reasoning, but accept that it does happen on the evidence of report. And many such things are indeed reported: we know, for instance, of people who harm infants most of all by staring down at them, because the infant's constitution, being moist and weak, is turned and driven for the worse by them, while

solid and already-set constitutions suffer this less. And yet Phylarchus reports that the people who live around the Black Sea, formerly called the Thibians, are deadly not only to infants but even to grown adults; for those who come into contact with their glance, their breath, and their speech waste away and fall ill;

and it seems that the mixed-blood peoples who came to buy slaves from that region noticed this effect. But of these phenomena, one is perhaps less astonishing, since touch and direct contact upon the skin has some evident beginning of an effect; and just as the feathers of other birds, when set alongside those of the eagle, are destroyed, wearing away and shedding as their plumage rots, so it is not at all out of keeping that a human touch too can be

in one case beneficial and in another harsh and harmful; but that people should be harmed by merely being looked at happens, indeed, just as I have said, yet it is disbelieved because the cause is hard to track down." "And yet," I said, "you yourself have in a way found some trace and pathway of the cause, by arriving at the effluences given off by bodies; for smell, and voice, and the current of

the breath are certain emanations of living creatures, and parts of them that set the senses in motion, whenever people are affected by their falling upon them. And it is far more likely that such things are given off by living creatures because of heat and motion, since the breath possesses a kind of pulsation and agitation, by which the body, being continually struck, sends forth certain effluences; and this is most likely to happen

especially through the eyes; for sight, being highly mobile and accompanied by breath that sends out a wondrous fiery radiance, disperses a remarkable power, so that a person both suffers much and does much through it. For a person is affected by moderate pleasures and displeasures arising from things seen; and of the passions of love, which are indeed the greatest and most violent affections of the soul, sight

supplies the beginning, so that the lover flows and melts, as it were, when he gazes upon beautiful people, drawn toward them as though pulled. For this reason one might especially wonder at those who suppose that a person is affected and harmed through sight, yet no longer believe that a person can act and cause harm through it. For the mutual glances of those in their prime, and whatever issues forth through the eyes — whether it be light or a current —

wastes away and destroys lovers, along with a pleasure mixed with pain, which they themselves call bittersweet; for neither by touch nor by hearing do people suffer wounding and affliction in the way that they do by looking and being looked at. For such a transmission and kindling occurs from the sight that those who marvel at Median naphtha catching fire from a distance because of flame should be regarded as entirely inexperienced in love; for the glances

of the beautiful, even when exchanged from quite far off, kindle a fire in the souls of lovers. And indeed we often hear reported the remedy for those suffering from jaundice: by gazing upon the charadrius bird they are cured; for this creature seems to have such a nature and constitution that it draws in and receives the affliction as it issues forth, like a current, through sight; and this is why the charadrius birds do not look at those

who have jaundice, nor can they endure it, but turn away and keep their eyes shut — not out of envy, as some suppose, of the cure that would come from them, but as though wounded by a blow. And of other diseases, those who spend time with sufferers most readily and quickly catch ophthalmia in particular; so keen a power does sight possess to communicate and to implant in another the beginning of an affliction." "And indeed," said

Patrocleas, "you speak rightly, at least as regards bodily matters; but as for the affections of the soul, among which is the casting of the evil eye, in what manner and how does it transmit harm through sight to those who are looked upon?" "Do you not know," I said, "that the soul, when it suffers, brings the body into a corresponding state? For thoughts of sexual desire arouse the genitals, and the fury of dogs in their contests against wild beasts often

extinguishes their sight and blinds them; while griefs, and avarice, and jealousies change the complexion and waste away one's physical condition; and of none of these is envy less apt, by its very nature, to lodge in the soul and to fill the body too with its wickedness, which painters do well to attempt to capture when they sketch the face of Envy. So then, whenever people so disposed by envy fix their gaze upon others, and their eyes, being

positioned nearest to the soul, draw up the evil from it and, like arrows dipped in poison, fall upon their victims — I think nothing strange or incredible occurs if they affect those they gaze upon; for even the bites of dogs become more severe when they bite in anger; and they say that the seed of men takes hold more readily when men approach in the act of love; and in general the passions of the soul strengthen and render more vehement

the powers of the body. This is also why they believe that the class of so-called amulets against fascination is of help against envy, since the strangeness of their appearance draws off the gaze, so that it presses less heavily upon those affected. Let these," I said, "Florus, be reckoned as the contributions to the feast." And Soclarus said, "Only if we first put them to the test ourselves; for there is something in the argument that appears spurious. For if

we take as true what many people say about those who are bewitched, you surely are not unaware that some suppose even friends and relatives, and some even fathers, to possess a bewitching eye, so that women do not show their children to them, nor allow them to be gazed upon for long by such people; how then will this affliction still seem to be a matter of envy? And what, by Zeus, will you say

about those who are said to bewitch themselves? For you have heard of this too; and if not, you have certainly read the lines: 'Fair once were they, fair, the locks of Eutelidas'; but a baleful man, seeing himself in the whirl of a river, bewitched himself, and at once an unseemly sickness seized him — for Eutelidas, they say, appearing handsome to himself, and suffering something because of the sight, from that moment fell ill and

lost both his good condition and his beauty. But consider how you can find arguments to explain such oddities." "Otherwise," I said, "not very adequately; but drinking, as you see, from so large a cup, not without boldness: I say that all the passions, once they have remained in souls for a long time, produce evil dispositions; and these, once they have acquired

...set in motion by whatever occasion presents itself, often carry people down, even against their will, into their own habitual passions. Consider how cowards fear even the things that would save them, how the irritable grow harsh even toward those dearest to them, and how the lustful and licentious end by being unable to keep away even from the most sacred of bodies. For habit is powerful in drawing one's disposition toward what is familiar to it, and a person who is precariously balanced is bound to stumble against everything he meets. So it is no wonder that those who have formed within themselves an envious and bewitching disposition are moved, in keeping with the particular nature of that passion, even against their own kin: moved in this way, they do what their nature compels, not what they wish. For just as a sphere is bound to move spherically and a cylinder cylindrically, owing to the difference in their shape, so a person's envious disposition moves him enviously toward everything. Yet it is also likely that such people look more intently at what is their own and what they love; and that is why they do it more harm.

As for the excellent Eutelidas, and all those said to bewitch themselves, I think it is not unreasonable that this happens to them. For according to Hippocrates, being at the very peak of good condition is precarious, and bodies that have advanced to the height of their prime do not stay there, but incline and sway toward the opposite. So whenever people make a sudden gain in condition and see themselves looking better than they expected, so that they marvel at and closely study the change in their body, they come close to being carried by their own condition toward the worse — that is, to bewitching themselves. This happens more from the currents that arise when people stand before water or other reflecting surfaces; for the current breathes back upon the very ones looking, so that they are harmed by the same means with which they used to harm others. Perhaps the same thing, happening also with children, often falsely lays the blame on those who merely look at them.

When I had finished, Gaius, the son-in-law of Florus, said: "But Democritus's images — like the men of Aegium or Megara — get no reckoning or regard at all. He says these images, which issue from envious people, are not wholly without sensation or impulse, and are filled with the malice and bewitching power that comes from those who send them out; and that, becoming implanted with this malice, remaining, and taking up residence with the people who are bewitched, they throw them into confusion and harm both their body and their mind. That, I think, is more or less the man's meaning, though he expresses it in marvelously grand and elevated language." "Quite so," I said, "but I am surprised you failed to notice that I said nothing else about these currents except to strip them of anything animate or purposive — precisely so that you would not think I was conjuring up phantoms for you late into the night, sentient, thinking images meant to frighten and unsettle you. Let us, then, if you agree, examine this further in the morning."

Once, when we were dining in Chaeronea and every kind of fruit had been set before us, one of the guests reclining at table happened to recite the line, "sweet fig trees and apple trees of splendid fruit," and "luxuriant olive trees." The question then arose why the poet applied the epithet "of splendid fruit" specifically to apple trees. Tryphon the physician said it was said by comparison with the tree itself: though the tree is quite small and unimpressive to look at, it produces fruit that is beautiful and large. Someone else said that the apple alone among tree-fruits displays beauty composed of every element together: it is clean to the touch, so that it does not soil the hand but fills whoever touches it with fragrance instead; its taste is pleasant; and it is most delightful to smell and to see. That is why, engaging nearly all the senses at once, it is reasonably praised. We agreed that these explanations were reasonable enough.

But since Empedocles had written, "wherefore pomegranates are late-born, and apples overflow their rind," we understood the epithet applied to pomegranates to mean that, since autumn is already ending and the summer heat dying away, they ripen their fruit late; for their moisture, being weak and viscous, cannot be brought to solidify by the sun unless the air begins to turn colder — which is why Theophrastus says this is the only tree that ripens its fruit better, and faster, in the shade. But as to what Empedocles the sage meant by calling apples "hyperphloia," we were at a loss — especially since the man was not in the habit, for the sake of fine writing, of decorating things with the most attractive-sounding epithets, as if with bright colors, but of making each epithet reveal some underlying substance or property: as when he calls the body that surrounds the soul "the earth enveloping mortal man," calls the air "cloud-gathering," and calls the liver "full of blood."

When I had said this, some of the grammarians present said that apples were called "hyperphloia" because of their peak ripeness, since the poets use the word "phloiein" for being exceedingly in bloom and flourishing; and that Antimachus, in much the same way, spoke of the city of the Cadmeans as "blooming with fruit"; and likewise that Aratus, speaking of the Dog Star, says, "some things it strengthened, but of others it destroyed all the bloom," using "phloos" for the greenness and blossom of fruits; and that there are even some Greeks who sacrifice to Dionysus under the title "Phloios," the Budding One. Since, then, of all fruits the apple most retains its greenness and bloom, the philosopher called it "hyperphloion."

But our grandfather Lamprias said that the prefix "hyper" signifies not only excess and intensity but also "on the outside" and "above": in this sense we call a lintel "hyperthyron" and an upper room "hyperoon," and the poet calls the outer flesh of a sacrificial victim "huperterа," just as he calls the inner parts "enkata." "Consider, then," he said, "whether Empedocles rather coined the epithet with this in mind: that whereas other fruits have their outsides enclosed by a rind, and bear on their surface what are called husks, shells, membranes, and pods, the apple's rind lies on the inside — a sticky, oily membrane to which the seed clings — while the edible part surrounds it on the outside. It was therefore reasonably named 'hyperphloion,' having its rind turned outward."

After this a question was raised about figs: why such a rich, sweet fruit should grow from so bitter a tree. For even the fig tree's leaf, on account of its roughness, is called "thrion," and its wood is full of sap, so that when burned it gives off very pungent smoke, and once reduced to ash, its lye is the most effective of all for cleansing, owing to its sharpness. And most remarkable of all: while every other plant that sprouts and bears fruit also blossoms, the fig tree alone bears no blossom. And if, as they say, it is never struck by lightning, one might attribute that too to the bitterness and poor condition of its trunk; for lightning bolts seem not to touch such things, just as they do not touch the hide of the seal or of the hyena.

Taking up the discussion, the elder among us said that whatever sweetness is present in the plant is all squeezed together into the fruit, so that it is only reasonable that what is left behind becomes sharp and unmixed with sweetness; for just as the liver, once its bilious element has been separated off into one place, itself becomes very sweet, so the fig tree, releasing all its rich and savory quality into the fig, is itself left with no share of sweetness. "And that the wood does share in some good quality after all," he said, "I take as evidence what the gardeners report: they say that rue growing beneath a fig tree, planted alongside it, is more pleasant and milder in flavor, as though benefiting from some of its sweetness, so that its usually heavy, overpowering pungency is tempered — unless, by Zeus, the opposite is true, and the fig tree, drawing off the rue's nourishment for itself, is what removes its sharpness."

Florus, when we were dining at his house, raised the question of who might be meant by "those of the salt and the bean" in the proverb. Apollophanes the grammarian resolved this readily on the spot: "Friends close enough," he said, "to dine together on nothing more than salt and bean are what the proverb refers to." We then puzzled over how salt came to be held in such honor, since Homer plainly says, "he sprinkled it with divine salt," while Plato says that salt, by human custom, is the substance most beloved of the gods. The puzzle was sharpened further by the fact that the Egyptian priests, when observing ritual purity, abstain from salt altogether, so that they even eat their bread unsalted. For how could they treat as forbidden something beloved of the gods and divine? Florus told us to set the Egyptians aside and address the question in Greek terms.

I replied that even the Egyptians are not really at odds with the Greeks here: their purifications also exclude procreation, laughter, wine, and many other things otherwise worth pursuing. Salt, perhaps, they avoid while keeping themselves pure because, as some say, its heat stimulates one toward intercourse; and it is also likely that they avoid it simply as the most pleasant of relishes. For salt is very probably the relish and seasoning of all other relishes — which is why some call it "the Graces," since it makes what is necessary in our food pleasant. "Is that, then," Florus asked, "why salt is called divine?" "That," I said, "is indeed no small part of it. People tend, for the most part, to deify what is common and pervades their needs, as with water, light, and the seasons; and the earth they take to be not merely divine but a god outright. Salt yields to none of these in usefulness, since it serves as the finishing touch that food receives on its way into the body, giving it a fitness suited to our appetite.

"But consider also whether this further divine quality belongs to it: that by keeping dead bodies free of decay and preserving them for a long time, it resists death itself and does not allow what is mortal to perish and vanish entirely. Just as the soul, the most divine part of us, holds living creatures together and does not let their substance dissolve, so the nature of salt, taking hold of dead bodies and imitating the work of the soul, checks them as they are being carried toward corruption, restrains and steadies them, and provides harmony and mutual affinity among their parts. That is also why some of the Stoics say that the flesh of a living pig is essentially dead meat, with the soul scattered through it, like salt, merely to keep it from spoiling. You see, too, that we consider the fire of a thunderbolt sacred and divine, because we observe that the bodies of those struck by it remain undecayed and endure for a long time. What wonder is it, then, if the ancients supposed salt divine as well, since it possesses the very same power as that divine fire?"

When I fell silent, Philinus took up the discussion: "Does the power of generation not seem divine to you," he said, "given that god rules over all things?" When I agreed, he said, "Well then, people believe that salt contributes not a little to generation, just as you yourself mentioned regarding the Egyptians. Those who breed dogs, at any rate, when the females prove too sluggish toward mating, arouse and stir their dormant sexual instinct with, among other things, salty food and salted meat. Ships that carry salt breed an enormous multitude of mice — since, as some say, the females become pregnant even without mating, simply by licking the salt; though it is more likely that the saltiness produces an itching in their organs and so spurs the creatures on toward coupling. Perhaps that is also why people call a woman's beauty, when it is neither inert nor unpersuasive but mixed with charm and allure, 'salty' and 'piquant.' I think, too, that the poets call Aphrodite 'sea-born,' and put forward the myth invented about her origin from the sea, as a veiled reference to the generative power of salt. Indeed they represent Poseidon himself, and the sea gods generally, as prolific and the fathers of many children. And among the animals themselves, you could not name any creature of land or air as prolific as the creatures of the sea are all together — which is what Empedocles had in mind when he wrote of the sea 'bearing the unmusical tribe of the widely-scattered, swarming fish.'"

Sossius Senecio, they say that when Plato took Timotheus, the son of Conon, away from lavish, general's-style banquets and entertained him at the Academy simply and tastefully — with, as Ion puts it, "tables that cause no inflammation" — tables after which follow pure sleep and dreams of brief, untroubled visions, since the body enjoys fair weather and calm, Timotheus, noticing the difference the next day, remarked that those who had dined with Plato also felt well the day after. And indeed a well-tempered body, unburdened and light, standing ready without misgiving for every activity, is truly a great asset for having a good day. But those who dined with Plato gained something else no less valuable: the chance to go back over what had been said at the table. For the pleasures of what was drunk or eaten leave behind a memory that is ignoble and, besides, quick to fade, like a stale, greasy smell that lingers on; but the subject matter of philosophical problems and discussions delights those who remember it, ever present as though freshly given, and offers no less of a feast to those who were absent, once they hear of it and share in it from others — so much so that even now lovers of learning share in and enjoy the Socratic symposia, just as those who actually dined there did at the time.

And yet, if it were bodily pleasures that mattered, Xenophon and Plato ought to have left behind, not a record of what was said, but an inventory of the dishes, cakes, and desserts served at the houses of Callias and Agathon. As it is, however, those things — though no doubt prepared at great trouble and expense — were never thought worthy of a single mention; whereas the philosophical discussions carried on in a spirit of playful seriousness they took care to set down in writing, leaving behind examples that show men ought not only to converse with one another over wine but also to remember what was said. So I am sending you this sixth book of the Table Talk, in which the first question concerns why those who fast feel thirst more than hunger.

It seemed unreasonable that those completing a fast should be thirstier than hungry, since the lack of solid food would seem naturally to call for its own proper replenishment. I said to those present that, of the things within us, it is heat that either alone, or more than anything else, requires nourishment — just as, indeed, we observe that outside us neither air, water, nor earth desires to be fed or consumes what comes near it, but fire alone does. That is also why the young are more inclined to eat than the old, on account of their heat, while conversely the old bear fasting most easily, since in them the heat is already dulled and diminished, as in bloodless creatures, which likewise need food least of all because of their lack of heat; and each person individually finds that exercise, shouting, and whatever else increases heat through movement...

...increases the heat, makes one eat more pleasantly and more eagerly. And food for the heat — as I think — that which is primary by nature, is above all the moist, as both the flames that grow when fed with oil show, and the fact that ash is the driest of all things: for the moisture has been burned out of it, and the earthy part is left bereft of moisture. And likewise fire separates and divides bodies by removing the moisture that binds and holds them together.

So whenever we fast, the moisture is at first forcibly drawn off by the heat from the remnants of food in the body; then the burning heat proceeds to the innate moisture of the flesh itself, pursuing the wet element. So, when a dryness comes about as in clay, the body naturally needs drink more, until, once we have drunk, the heat, restored and strengthened, produces an appetite for solid food.

When this had been said, the physicians around Philo challenged the first thesis: they said that thirst does not arise from deficiency, but from a certain reshaping of the pores. For example, those who are thirsty at night, if they fall asleep, stop being thirsty without drinking; and those who have fevers, when there is a remission or the fever has altogether ceased, are at the same time freed from thirst; and for many people who have bathed, and, by Zeus, for others who have vomited, thirst comes to an end. In none of these cases is the moisture increased; rather, the pores alone are affected, undergoing some reshaping, a different arrangement and disposition.

This becomes even clearer in the case of hunger: for many sick people are at once deficient and yet have no appetite, while for some others, even when they eat their fill, their appetites do not slacken at all, but instead intensify and persist. Indeed, many who had lost their appetite for food, on taking a salted olive or tasting a caper, quickly recovered and restored their appetite. From this it is especially clear that hunger arises in us from some affection of the pores, not from deficiency: for such foods, though they add nourishment and so reduce the deficiency, nevertheless produce hunger. In this way the pleasant tastes and pungencies of relish foods, by contracting and tightening the stomach, or conversely by opening and relaxing it, work up around it a certain receptive fitness for food, which we call appetite.

Now it seemed to me that these arguments had been made plausibly, but that they were opposed to the greatest end of nature, toward which appetite leads every living creature — namely desiring the replenishment of what is deficient and ever pursuing what is lacking of its own proper substance. “For to deny that the very feature by which a living creature differs most from a lifeless thing exists in us for the sake of self-preservation and continuance — as an eye implanted for the things proper and necessary to the body — and instead to suppose that it is merely an affection and a kind of turning of the pores occurring through largeness and smallness, was, to my mind, an account that made no sense at all for those who posit nature so simply.

Moreover, it is unreasonable that the body should shiver from a deficiency of its own proper heat, and yet no longer be thirsty or hungry from a deficiency of the natural moisture and nourishment; and it is even more unreasonable still, if nature desires emptying for the sake of filling, but does not desire filling for the sake of emptying, but rather because some other affection has arisen. And indeed such needs and replenishments in the case of living creatures differ in no way from what happens in agriculture: for plants suffer many similar things and are helped in similar ways — against dryness they are watered by irrigation, and cooled moderately when they are scorched; when they are chilled we try to warm them and cover them, wrapping them in many coverings; and for whatever is not in our own power we pray the god to grant it — soft dews and warm airs amid moderate breezes — so that nature may always have a replenishment for what is lacking, preserving its proper balance.

For this is, I think, why nourishment (trophē) was so named — that which preserves (tērei) nature. For plants, this preservation happens without sensation, drawn from their surrounding environment, as Empedocles says, as they are watered with what suits them; but in our case appetite teaches us to seek and pursue what is lacking to our proper balance. Nevertheless, let us also examine each of the things said and show that it is not true.

For foods with a pleasant taste and pungency perhaps produce, not appetite, but a kind of biting sensation in the parts that receive nourishment, like an itch from the touch of things that scratch; and even if this affection too is a form of appetite, it is likely that what is already present is broken down and separated by such foods as they become finer, and that they produce a deficiency — not because the pores are reshaped, but because they are emptied and cleared out. For sharp, pungent, and salty things break up the material and disperse and scatter it, so that they renew the appetite by squeezing out what is stale and left over from the day before. And in the case of those who bathe, it is not by being reshaped that the pores put an end to thirst, but by taking up moisture through the flesh and being filled with a moist vapor.

As for vomiting, by expelling what is foreign, it affords nature the enjoyment of what is proper to it. For thirst is not simply for moisture, but for the moisture that is natural and proper to us; hence, even if a great deal of foreign matter is present, a person remains in deficiency: for it stands in the way of the natural moisture, which is what appetite is for, and does not allow mixing or blending with it, until it withdraws and departs; and only then do the pores take up what is akin to them.

Fevers, on the other hand, push the moisture into the depths; and when the middle parts of the body are inflamed, all the moisture has withdrawn there and is held compressed — which is why it happens that many people vomit at the same time, the density of the internal parts forcing the moisture upward, and are thirsty on account of the deficiency and dryness of the rest of the body. So whenever there is a remission, and the heat departs from the middle parts, the moisture, dispersing again, recedes and, passing through, as is its nature, everywhere, both gives relief to the middle parts and softens the flesh, making it smooth and tender instead of rough and parched, and often also brings on sweats; hence the deficiency that causes thirst ceases and comes to an end, as the moisture shifts away from the part that was overburdened and struggling to well up, toward the part that needs and desires it.

For just as in a garden, when the well has an abundant supply of water, if no one draws it up and irrigates the plants, they must inevitably go thirsty and untended; so too in the body, when the moisture is dragged down into a single place, it is no wonder that there is deficiency and dryness in the rest, until there is once again an inflow and a diffusion — just as also happens with feverish patients, when their fever relaxes, and also happens to those who fall asleep while thirsty: for in their case too, sleep brings the moisture back from the middle parts and, distributing it everywhere among the parts, produces an equalizing and a replenishment.

As for this so-called reshaping of the pores, by which hunger or thirst is said to arise — what sort of thing is it, really? For my part, I see no other differences that could occur in the pores, by way of affection, other than contracting and dilating: when they contract, they can receive neither drink nor food; and when they dilate, they create an emptiness and space, which is nothing but a deficiency of what is natural and proper. Indeed, my excellent friend,” I said, “the astringencies of the parts that are being dyed have a sharp, cleansing quality, by which, as the superfluous matter is excreted and dissolved away, the pores receive and retain more of the dye, taking it in because of their deficiency and emptiness.”

When this had been said, our host said that this too was reasonably argued, and turned to the further difficulty: the emptyings and refillings of the pores explain the immediate case well enough, but for those who are thirsty the opposite happens — if they eat, it turns out that their thirst is intensified. This affection, he said, those who posit differing kinds of pores seem to him to explain most easily and most persuasively — even if their other points were argued only plausibly. For since there are pores in everyone, one pore has one set of proportions and another has another: of these, the wider ones take up both dry and moist food together, while the narrower ones admit only drink; and the emptying of the narrower ones produces thirst, while that of the wider ones produces hunger.

Hence, if those who are thirsty eat, they are not helped, since the pores, because of their narrowness, do not receive the dry food, but remain deficient in what is proper to them; while if those who are hungry drink, the liquids enter into the wider pores and, filling their emptiness, relax the excessive intensity of their hunger. To me, what actually happens seemed true, but I did not accept the hypothesis about its cause.

“For indeed,” I said, “if one were to riddle the flesh with these pores that some people are so attached to and fond of, one would make it flabby, tremulous, and unsound. And the notion that the same parts of the body do not receive drink and solid food alike, but that they trickle down and are sorted out as though through sieves, is altogether fanciful and bizarre. For this mixing with moisture, breaking down the food and taking the internal heat and the breath as its helpers, refines the nourishment more precisely than any instrument, with every kind of cutting and division, so that every particle of it becomes friendly and akin to every other particle — not fitted together as into vessels and holes, but unified and grown into one.

And apart from these considerations, the greatest part of the difficulty has not even been resolved: for those who eat, if they do not also drink, not only fail to relieve their thirst but actually intensify it further, and to this point nothing has been said in reply. Consider, then, also our own account,” I said, “whether we are taking plausible hypotheses — first, taking it that the moist is destroyed and used up by the dry, while the dry, moistened and softened by the moist, undergoes diffusions and exhalations; and second, not supposing that hunger is simply a squeezing-out of dry food, nor thirst of moist food, but rather a deficiency of the moderate and sufficient amount; for those in whom either is entirely lacking altogether neither hunger nor thirst, but die at once.

Once these premises are laid down, it is no longer difficult to grasp the cause. For thirst is intensified in those who have eaten, since the food, by its dryness, gathers up and draws out further whatever scattered moisture is left, weak and scanty, in the body — just as, outside, we see earth, dust, and sand take into themselves and make disappear whatever moisture is mixed with them. And drink, in turn, of necessity relieves hunger: for the moisture, wetting and dissolving the hard and gluey food already present, so that juices and vapors arise, carries these up into the body and adds them to the parts that need them.

Hence Erasistratus was not wrong to call the moist ‘the vehicle of nourishment’: for by mixing with what has become sluggish and heavy through dryness or some affection, it carries it up and lifts it along with itself. Many people, too, without drinking but only by bathing, have stopped being intensely and severely hungry: for the moisture entering from outside makes the food already present richer in juice and more nourishing, by loosening the internal parts, so that the intense bitterness and savagery of hunger relents and is soothed. This is also why some who are starving themselves deliberately live for a long time, provided they take only water, until every bit of what is capable of nourishing and being added to the body has been drawn out.”

For a luxury-loving foreign guest who liked his drinks cold, the servants prepared well water made colder still: for having drawn it up in a vessel and hung the vessel in the well, without letting it touch the spring, they let it spend the night there, and it was brought to dinner colder than freshly-drawn water. The guest happened to be reasonably fond of learning, and said he had gotten this practice from Aristotle, set down along with an explanation; and the explanation was this: all water, once it has first been heated, cools all the more afterward — just like the water prepared for kings, for when it is boiled to the point of seething, they heap a great deal of snow around the vessel, and it becomes colder.

Just as, of course, our own bodies too are cooled all the more after bathing: for the relaxation produced by the heat, having made the body full of open pores and porous, admits a great deal of the outside air and makes the change more violent. So, when the water is first given a preliminary chill by the spring and then, in the air, warmed beforehand, it is cooled quickly afterward.

Now we praised the guest for having remembered this so manfully; but about the explanation itself we were at a loss. For the air in which the vessel hangs — if it is cold, how does it warm the water? And if it is warm, how does it in turn cool it? For it is unreasonable for the same thing to suffer opposite effects from the same agent, with no difference having arisen. When he fell silent and was at a loss, I said there was no need to be puzzled about the air, for our senses tell us that it is cold, especially the air of deep wells — so that it is impossible for the water to be warmed by cold air.

“Rather, this cold air is unable to change the spring water because of its great quantity; but if one draws it off little by little, the air, gaining the upper hand, will cool it further.” “But surely,” I said, “as for the pebbles or the anvils, which people throw into water because they think this cools and tempers it, you recall that this too is stated by Aristotle.”

“That,” he said, “is exactly the point: he has stated only the fact itself in his Problems, that this is what happens; but as for the cause, we shall attempt it ourselves, for it is especially hard to discern.” “Quite so,” I said, “and indeed I would be surprised if the explanation did not escape us; but look at it all the same. First, does it not seem to you that the water is cooled by the air falling upon it from outside, and that the air acts more forcefully when it presses back against the stones and anvils?

For these do not let it pass through, as bronze and earthenware vessels do, but by their density they hold it in and reflect it back from themselves into the water, so that the cooling becomes strong and thorough throughout. That is also why, in winter, rivers become colder than the sea: for in rivers the cold air, being reflected back, has force, whereas in the sea, because of its depth, it dissipates, having nothing to press back against. And in another way, too, it is likely that the thinner kinds of water are cooled all the more by the cold, since, being weaker, they are more easily overpowered by it.

Now whetstones and pebbles make the water finer, by gathering together whatever muddy and earthy matter is mixed into it and drawing it down out of it, so that the water, becoming thinner and weaker, is more easily overpowered by the cooling. And indeed lead too is among the things that are naturally cold, since, when rubbed with vinegar, it releases white lead, the coldest of deadly poisons; and pebbles, by their density, carry the cold through to the depths. Every...

"...for every stone is a mass of earth that has been chilled and compacted by frost — the more compressed, the more so. So it is not absurd that both the stone and the lead, by resisting, intensify the coldness of the water." After a brief pause the stranger said, "Lovers desire most of all to be with their darlings themselves, but failing that, they desire to talk about them; and this is what I feel about snow. Since it is not here with us and we do not have any, I should like to learn the reason why it is preserved by the very hottest things. For by wrapping it in chaff and swaddling it in unfulled cloaks, people keep it undamaged for a long time. It is a marvel, then, if the hottest things are what preserve the coldest." "Quite so," I said, "if indeed it is true. But it is not so — rather we are deceiving ourselves, supposing that whatever warms is itself hot.

We see that the very same cloak warms in winter and cools in summer — just as that tragic nurse tends the children of Niobe, warming and cooling them with the tatters of finely-woven mantles. The Germans, at any rate, use clothing as a defense against cold alone, the Ethiopians against heat alone, but we use it against both. So why, if it warms, should we call it hot rather than cold on the ground that it cools? If we must judge by sensation, it would rather be called cold: for the tunic strikes us as cold when we first put it on, and so do the bedclothes when we lie down; but then it grows warm as it is filled with the heat coming from us, at once enclosing and holding in the heat and at the same time keeping out the cold and outside air away from the body.

Thus people who are feverish and burning up constantly change their clothes because whatever is put on them feels cold; yet once it has been put on, it at once becomes hot from the body's heat. So then, just as the cloak, once warmed, warms us, so, once chilled, it in turn chills the snow; and it is chilled by the fine vapor the snow gives off, for it is this, shut up within, that holds together the snow's congealed state, and when the vapor departs, the snow, being water, flows and melts away, and the whiteness — which the mixture of vapor with moisture, becoming frothy, had produced — fades. At the same time, then, the cold is held in, roofed over by the cloak, and the outside air, being shut out, neither cuts into the mass of ice nor lets it dissipate.

Unfulled cloaks serve this purpose especially well because of their roughness and dryness — the nap of their wool does not let the heavy cloak press down and crush the looseness of the snow; just as chaff too, because of its lightness, falls upon it softly and does not break up the mass of ice, while otherwise being dense and close-packed enough to keep out the heat of the air and to prevent the cold from leaving the snow. That the escape of the vapor is what causes the melting is evident to the senses, for as the snow melts it produces vapor."

Nigrus, our fellow citizen, had come back from his studies, having spent no long time in the company of a distinguished philosopher — but long enough that, without grasping the man's real teaching, he had become filled with its more tiresome features, imitating his master's fault-finding manner and cross-examining his companions on every subject. So when Aristion was giving us a dinner, Nigrus found fault with the rest of the provisions as extravagant and over-elaborate, and said that wine ought not to be poured out strained, but, as Hesiod bade, should be drunk straight from the jar, keeping its natural strength and power.

"Such straining," he said, "first of all cuts out its sinews and quenches its heat, since it often blooms and breathes itself away in the straining; and second, it displays fussiness and affectation and a luxury that squanders what is useful for the sake of what is pleasant. For just as the practice of castrating cocks and pigs, making their flesh soft and womanish contrary to nature, belongs not to healthy people but to those corrupted by gluttony — so too, if I may use a metaphor, those who strain the unmixed wine emasculate it and make it effeminate, being unable, through weakness, either to carry its strength or to drink a moderate amount, because of their own intemperance.

Rather, this is a device and a contrivance of theirs for drinking more: they remove the wine's weight and leave only its smoothness, just as people give boiled-down wine to invalids who crave cold drinks uncontrollably. Whatever gives wine its temper and strength, this they remove and strip away in the straining. A strong proof of this is its spoiling — the fact that it does not keep, but degenerates and wastes away, as if cut off from its root, the lees. The ancients, indeed, called wine outright by the name 'lees' — just as we are accustomed to call a man 'soul' or 'head,' naming him from his most essential part; and we speak of those who gather the vintage of the vine as 'lees-gathering,' and Homer somewhere used the word 'vintage-time'; and he was accustomed to call wine itself 'gleaming' and 'red' — not, as Aristion

gives it to us pale and sallow through excessive straining." Aristion laughed and said, "No, my friend, not pale, nor bloodless, but mild and gentle — to judge from its very look, for a start. You, though, insist on gorging yourself on the night-black, dark-robed wine, and you fault the straining as if it were a bilious vomiting, through which the wine, releasing what is heavy, intoxicating, and unwholesome, becomes light and mixes with us without violence — the very wine, I think, that Homer says the heroes drink. For he does not call 'gleaming' what is murky, but what is clear and bright; the poet who spoke of bronze as 'man-strengthening' and 'gleaming' would not have called it 'gleaming' if it were dark.

So then, just as the wise Anacharsis, while finding fault with other things among the Greeks, praised the charcoal-burners because they leave the smoke outside and bring fire home — so you wise men would do better to find fault with other things. If we push out and disperse the wine's disturbing and troublesome element, delighting in the wine itself without prettifying it, and without cutting off its temper and edge as one would iron's, but rather cleansing it as one would rust or grime, in what way do we go wrong? "Because, by Zeus, it is stronger when unstrained"? But a man too, my friend, when delirious and raving is stronger too; but when, by the use of hellebore or a regimen, he is brought back to health, that violent, high-strung force departs and fades away, and true strength and soundness of mind come to his body.

So too the straining of wine, by removing its harsh, maddening quality, brings it into a gentle and healthy condition. Over-elaborateness, I think, differs very greatly from cleanliness: for women who rouge themselves, perfume themselves, and wear gold and purple seem over-elaborate; but no one finds fault with bathing, anointing, or arranging one's hair. The poet delightfully shows the difference in the passage where Hera adorns herself: 'First with ambrosia she cleansed every stain from her immortal skin, and anointed herself richly with oil' — up to this point it is simply care and cleanliness. But when she takes up the golden pins and the earrings wrought with such fine skill, and finally, at the end, takes hold of the sorcery that is in the girdle, the matter becomes over-elaborateness and a wantonness unbefitting a wife.

So too with wine: those who tint it with aloes or sweeten it with cinnamon and saffron are dressing it up like a woman and pimping it out for the symposia; but those who remove from it what is foul and useless are tending and cleansing it. Otherwise you might call all these things over-elaborateness, beginning with the house itself: why is it so carefully plastered? Why is it opened up on the side from which it will best receive clean air and enjoy the light as it moves around toward its setting? Why is every cup polished and scoured all over so as to shine and glitter? Or was the cup meant to be free of filth and rancid smells, while what is drunk from it is to be full of mold or stains?

And why need I mention other things? For the very working of wheat into bread is nothing other than a process of purification — see with how much labor it is carried out: it is not merely a matter of sifting, sieving, separating, and distinguishing the grain from what does not belong to it, but the kneading, which presses out the roughness of the dough, and the baking, which draws off the moisture, purify and reduce the matter down to what is edible alone. What, then, is strange if straining likewise removes the lees of wine, as one would coarse meal or refuse — especially since this purification requires neither expense nor much trouble?"

There is an ancestral sacrifice which the archon performs at the public hearth, while each of the others performs it privately at home; it is called "the driving out of Bulimos." They strike one of the household slaves with rods of the chaste-tree and drive him out through the doors, saying as they do so, "Out with Bulimos, in with wealth and health!" Now when I was serving as archon, a good many people took part with me in the sacrifice; and when we had performed the customary rites and reclined again at table, the discussion first turned on the name itself, then on the formula they pronounce over the one being driven out, but above all on the affliction and what accompanies it.

It seemed that "bulimos" signifies a great or public famine, especially among us Aeolians, who use π in place of β; for we do not say "boulimos" but "poulimos," as though it were a "great hunger" (polys limos). And it seemed that "boubrostis" was something different; we took our evidence for this from Metrodorus' Ionian History, for he records that the Smyrnaeans, who were formerly Aeolians, sacrifice a black bull to Boubrostis, cutting it up and burning it whole, hide and all. And since all hunger seems akin to disease, and bulimos especially so, arising when the body has suffered something contrary to its nature, they reasonably set "wealth" in opposition to it as to a deficiency, and "health" as to a disease —

Just as "to be seasick" was originally named for those whose stomachs grow weak on board ship and during a voyage, but through common usage has come to be the name of the affliction for anyone who suffers it in any way whatsoever — so too, it seems, "to be ravenously hungry" (bouliman), beginning from that origin, has extended its meaning to this case. These points, then, we all filled out together as a shared contribution of remarks. But when we came to grips with the cause of the affliction, the first question raised was why those who travel through deep snow become especially ravenous — as indeed Brutus, going from Dyrrachium toward Apollonia, was endangered by this affliction.

There was a heavy snowfall, and none of those carrying provisions kept up with him; so when he began to faint and collapse, his soldiers were forced to run up to the city walls and beg bread from the enemy sentries guarding them; and having received it, they at once revived Brutus — which is why, when he later became master of the city, he treated everyone with kindness. Horses and donkeys suffer this affliction too, especially when they are carrying dried figs or apples. And what is most remarkable is that bread, more than any other food, restores not only men but also pack animals, so that even if they eat the smallest amount of it, they are cured and can walk again.

When silence fell, reflecting that the arguments of our elders, while they set at rest and satisfy the lazy and untalented, give the ambitious and learned a starting point of their own and the boldness to seek out and track down the truth, I recalled the Aristotelian treatises, in which it is said that, when there is great chilling from outside, the internal parts become intensely heated and produce a great deal of melting matter; and this, if it flows down into the legs, produces fatigue and heaviness, but if it flows to the sources of movement and respiration, produces faintness or even weakness.

When this argument had been stated, what naturally followed took place: some attacked the doctrine, others defended it vigorously. Socles said that the starting point of the argument was very well laid down: for the bodies of those who walk through snow are indeed sufficiently chilled and compacted; but that the melting matter produces heat, and that this heat then takes hold of the sources of respiration, seemed to him to beg the question. He thought it more likely that the heat, being contracted and increased within, consumes the body's nourishment, and then, once this too runs short, dies down like a fire, itself fading away; that is why such travelers grow extremely hungry, and, on eating even a very small amount, immediately flare up again — for what is eaten becomes, as it were, fuel to kindle the heat anew.

Cleomenes the physician, however, said that the word 'hunger' (limos) is bound up in the name quite apart from the actual thing, just as 'drinking' is contained in 'swallowing,' and 'bending' in 'straightening up.' For bulimia, he said, is not really hunger, as it seems, but an affection in the stomach that produces faintness through a rush of heat. So, just as things with a strong smell help against fainting fits, so bread revives those who are ravenous — not because they lack nourishment, since they revive at once on receiving even the smallest amount, but because it calls back the breath and strength that are sinking away.

That it is faintness and not hunger is shown by the case of pack animals: for carrying dried figs or apples does not create any deficiency, but rather a kind of heartburn, and, by Zeus, a sort of dizziness. To us, however, this too seemed to be said only in a moderate degree, and it seemed possible, starting from the opposite premise — positing not compression but rarefaction — to preserve the plausibility of the explanation. For the vapor that flows off from snow is, as it were, the finest chaff of the frozen mass, an extremely fine-grained powder; yet it has a certain cutting, dividing power, not only on flesh but even on silver and bronze vessels — for we see that these do not hold the snow in:

as it evaporates it is used up, and it fills the outer surface of the vessel with a thin, crystal-like moisture, which the vapor leaves behind as it departs imperceptibly through the pores. This same vapor, striking those who walk through snow as something sharp and flame-like, seems to burn their extremities by cutting into and passing through the flesh, just like fire; hence a great rarefaction occurs throughout the body, and the heat flows outward because of the coldness of the vapor, and, being quenched near the surface, it dissipates as a fine, dewy sweat, so that the body's strength melts away and is used up.

Now if a person keeps still, not much heat leaves the body; but when movement quickly converts the body's nourishment into heat, while the heat is carried outward, and the flesh is broken down, a sudden failure of strength is bound to occur. That being chilled not only congeals but also melts bodies is clear: for in great winters whetstones of lead melt away; and both the sweating that occurs and the fact that ravenous hunger befalls many who are not even hungry point rather to a rarefaction and a flowing-away than to a compaction of the body. Bodies are rarefied

and in winter, as has been said, it is by the thinness of the breath; but otherwise it is fatigue and motion that sharpen the heat within the body: for having become thin and wearied, it flows out abundantly and is dispersed through the body. It is likely that apples and dried figs breathe out something of this kind, so that they refine and break up the heat of pack animals; for different things are naturally suited to be absorbed and dissolved by different agents.

The question was once raised why, although there are many liquids, the poet is accustomed to adorn the rest with their own particular epithets — calling milk “white,” honey “pale-green,” and wine “red” — yet he calls oil merely “moist,” fittingly, from the quality common to all liquids alone. The answer given was that, just as the sweetest thing is that which is sweet all the way through, and the whitest that which is white all the way through, so too a thing is called “moist” in the fullest sense when nothing in it is dry: and this is the case with oil.

In the first place, its smoothness displays the uniformity of its parts: for it is consistent with itself all the way through, in respect of touch. Next, it offers the clearest surface for the sight to mirror itself in: for there is nothing rough in it to break up the reflection, but from every part, because of its liquidity, it bends back even the smallest ray of light onto the eye — just the opposite of milk, which of all liquids alone does not reflect, because of the great deal of earthy matter mixed into it. Further, when stirred, it makes the least noise of all liquids, for it is liquid all the way through,

whereas in the others, as they flow and are carried along, the hard and earthy particles knock and strike against each other and make a noise because of their roughness. Moreover it alone remains unmixed and undiluted, for it is the densest of liquids: it has no empty spaces or pores between its dry and earthy parts within itself to receive whatever is thrown in, but because of the likeness of its parts it is well-fitted together and continuous. And when the oil foams, it does not admit air, because of its fineness and continuity. This is also the reason why fire is nourished by it: for fire is nourished by nothing except what is moist, and this alone is combustible. From wood, at any rate, the airy part departs as smoke, while the earthy part is left behind reduced to ash;

only the moist part is consumed by the fire, for by this it is naturally nourished. Water, then, and wine, and the rest, since they share largely in what is turbid and earthy, when they fall upon the flame tear it apart both by their roughness and by their weight, pressing it down and quenching it; but oil, because it is most purely liquid, changes because of its fineness and, once overcome, catches fire. The greatest proof of its liquidity is

the fact that from the smallest quantity it spreads and diffuses over the largest area: for neither honey nor water nor any other liquid, however small a quantity, undergoes such an expansion, but is quickly used up and exhausted because of its dryness. Oil, however, being everywhere pliable and soft, spreads over the body of those anointed with it and flows along together with them to the greatest distance, because of the liquidity by which its parts are drawn out,

so that it also remains and is hard to wash out. A garment soaked with water dries easily, but to clean out stains of oil is no ordinary task, for it penetrates most of all because it is the finest and most liquid of things. And indeed people find it harder to get diluted wine out of garments, as Aristotle says, because it is finer and penetrates more into the pores. Aristion’s cook was in high favor among the diners,

since, besides preparing the rest of the meal skillfully, he served up a cock that had just been sacrificed to Heracles, tender as if it had been killed the day before, though it was in fact fresh and newly slaughtered. When Aristion said that this happens quickly if the bird, as soon as it is killed, is hung from a fig tree, we sought the reason. That a strong and violent vapor issues from the fig tree is attested both by observation and by

what is said about bulls: that the fiercest bull, when tied to a fig tree, grows calm and submits to being touched, and altogether lets go of its rage as though it were being worn away. But the greatest part of the cause and power lay in the pungency: for the fig tree is the most acrid-sapped of all plants, so that the fig itself, the wood, and the leaf are all saturated with it; hence, when burned, its smoke

stings especially sharply, and its ash, once burnt, produces a very cleansing powder — and all of this is due to heat. Some think that the sap causes milk to curdle not by entangling and gluing together the particles of the milk through the unevenness of their shapes, with the smooth and rounded ones being squeezed out to the surface, but rather by melting away, through heat, the unstable and watery part of the liquid. Evidence of this is

also the fact that the sap, useless as it is, is sweet, yet is the worst of drinks: for it is not the smooth parts that are separated out by the uneven ones, but rather the cold and unconcocted part that is halted by the heat. Salt, too, contributes to this effect, for it is hot; but against the supposed entangling and binding it works in the opposite direction, since salt is by nature especially apt to dissolve things. So then the fig tree gives off a hot, pungent,

and cutting vapor, and this it is that breaks down and ripens the flesh of the bird. The same thing happens when wheat is placed in a pit together with niter, on account of heat. That the fig has something hot in it, they infer from the wine jars: when these are placed in a storage pit, the wine in them is quickly used up. There is a saying current among the Romans, Sossius Senecio, that they attribute to a witty and kindly man—

who, when he had dined alone, said he had “eaten,” not “dined,” that day — as though he always longed for the fellowship and friendliness that sweeten a dinner. Evenus used to say that fire is the most pleasant of seasonings, and Homer calls salt “divine,” while most people call it “the Graces,” because, being mixed into most things, it makes them agreeable and pleasant and welcome to the taste; but of a dinner

and a table the truly most divine seasoning is a friend who is present, familiar, and well known — not because he eats and drinks together with the company, but because he shares in and imparts conversation, provided there is in it something useful, persuasive, and suited to what is being said; since for most people idle chatter over wine drives them, in their foolishness, into their passions and further distorts them. For this reason it is worth taking

no less care in choosing our topics of conversation than our friends when we invite them to dinner, holding the opposite view and practice from the Spartans; for they, when they admit a young man or a stranger to their common mess, point to the windows and say, “Through here no word goes out”; we, on the other hand, accustom ourselves to use words that can be carried out to everyone and shared with all, because our subjects contain nothing licentious or blasphemous

or malicious or ungenerous. One may judge from the examples, of which this book contains the seventh set of ten. It happened once, in summer, that one of the guests came out with the ready-made line that everyone uses, ‘Soak your lungs with wine, for the star is rising again’; and Nicias of Nicopolis, the physician, said, ‘It is no wonder if a poet like Alcaeus was ignorant of something that even Plato the philosopher was ignorant of. And yet

Alcaeus might somehow find some support, in that the lung, being near the stomach, does enjoy some of its moisture, and so it is plausible that it is dampened on that account; but the philosopher,’ he said, ‘after writing so clearly that drinks pass through the lung, has left even his most eager defenders no plausible line of defense on his behalf. For the misapprehension is a great one. In the first place, since the passage of moist food

needs to be mixed with the dry, it is likely that the same vessel underlies both, namely the gullet, which delivers the food, softened and soaked, into the stomach below; and again, since the lung has become altogether smooth and dense, how does the barley-meal drunk in a posset pass through it without being caught? This is the very difficulty that Erasistratus rightly raised against him. And indeed, in the case of most of the parts of the body,’

he continued, ‘Plato, in tracing through his argument the purpose for which each part exists, and wishing to understand the use for which nature made each one — as indeed befits a philosopher to think — does not properly account for the function of the epiglottis, which is appointed for this very purpose: that in the swallowing of food it should press upon the windpipe and prevent anything at all from slipping into the lung; for terrible are the roughnesses and lacerations produced by coughing’,

when something slips past and the breath is driven out; and this structure, lying between the two passages and inclining toward each, falls upon the gullet when we speak, and upon the windpipe when we eat and drink, keeping the course clear for the breath and for respiration. Further,’ he said, ‘we know that those who drink gently keep their bellies moister than those who gulp down liquid all at once: for the gulped liquid is at once driven’,

by its own force straight into the bladder; whereas liquid drunk gently lingers longer among the food and softens it, so that it becomes mingled with it and remains. This would not happen if the liquids were separated off immediately upon swallowing, and did not rather become entangled with us and escort the food along together, using the liquid as a kind of vehicle, as Erasistratus used to say.’ While Nicias was expounding these matters, Protogenes the grammarian said that he had observed that

Homer, before anyone else, understood that the gullet is the vessel of food, and the windpipe that of breath — which the ancients called the ‘asphagus’; hence they were accustomed to call men with loud voices ‘eris-pharagoi.’ For, having said that Achilles struck Hector’s throat where death of the soul comes swiftest, he adds: ‘nor did the bronze-heavy ash spear cut through the windpipe, so that he might yet address him in reply with words.’ As if

the windpipe were the proper channel of voice and breath, while he had set down the throat separately as the passage for the other. When silence fell upon this speech, Florus said, ‘Shall we let Plato go by default, with no one to defend him?’ ‘Not we,’ I said; ‘for if we abandon Plato, we shall at the same time have to abandon Homer along with him, who is so far from driving liquid away and turning it aside from the windpipe that he even has the food expelled together with it in that very passage.’

For he says, “wine gushed out from his throat, and gobbets of human flesh,” unless one is to say that the Cyclops, just as he had a single eye, also had a single passage, the same for both food and voice; or that the word he uses, “pharynx,” means the gullet and not the windpipe, contrary to the way it has always been used by everyone, both long ago and now. I have brought these points forward not for lack of witnesses, but because truth itself

led me to them, since indeed many good witnesses stand ready for Plato. Set aside, if you like, Eupolis, who in his Flatterers says: “for Protagoras used to bid us drink, so that our lung might be washed clean before the Dog Star rises”; set aside too the elegant Eratosthenes, who speaks of ‘the lung, deep and moistened with unmixed wine’; and Euripides, saying plainly “wine passing through the channels of the lungs,” clearly

shows himself to have seen something even sharper than Erasistratus: for he saw that the lung has cavities and is pierced through with pores, through which it lets moisture pass. For breath had no need of pores for its exit; rather, the lung has become sieve-like and full of many passages for the sake of the liquids and of whatever slips along together with liquids. And it is, my good man, no less fitting for the lung than for the gullet

to pass along together with the drink the barley-meal and the meal-groats, since our gullet, too, is not smooth, as some say, nor slippery, but has roughnesses, on which it is likely that the fine and small particles that come up against them and catch there escape the act of swallowing. But it is not right to say either the one thing or the other; for nature’s ingenuity in matters of function is beyond the reach of argument,

nor is it possible for reason to describe worthily the precision of the instruments she employs — I mean the breath and the heat. Further, among the witnesses I summon for Plato, Philistion of Locri, a very ancient man and one distinguished in your art, and Hippocrates, and Dioxippus the follower of Hippocrates: for these men set forth not some other path but the very one that Plato

pointed out for the drink. Indeed the much-honored epiglottis did not escape the notice of Dioxippus, but he says that it is around this that the liquid, being separated off during swallowing, flows into the windpipe, while the food rolls on into the gullet; and that nothing of the food falls into the windpipe, but the gullet, along with the dry food, also receives a certain part of the liquid mixed in with it,

for it is plausible that the epiglottis lies before the windpipe as a partition and a regulator, so that the drink may filter through gently and little by little, rather than the breath being forced and disturbed by it rushing in quickly and all at once. This is why birds have not developed, and do not have, an epiglottis: for they neither suck nor lap, but peck, letting the drink down little by little and gently moistening

and wetting the windpipe. Enough, then, of witnesses. Plato’s argument first has its warrant from observation itself. For when the windpipe is wounded, the liquid is not swallowed, but, as when a channel is cut open, it is seen falling out and spurting forth, even though the gullet remains sound and uninjured. Next, we all know that in cases of lung disease thirst follows, most intense, caused by dryness

or by heat, or by some other cause that, together with the inflammation, produces the craving; and what is an even greater proof than this: those animals in which no lung has grown, or in which only a very small one has grown, have no need of drink at all, nor do they desire it, because the desire for its proper function is inborn in each of the parts; and where there are no such parts, there is neither need

nor eagerness for the activity performed through them. In general, the bladder would seem to have come into being for nothing, in the case of those who have one: for if the gullet takes up the drink together with the food and hands it over to the belly, the residue of the liquid food needs no channel of its own, but a single common one suffices for both, as if by a shared conduit, brought in together by the same route to the same place: but as it is, separate

has the bladder come to be, and separate the intestine: because the one proceeds from the lung, the other from the gullet, the two being separated off at once during swallowing. Hence no trace of the dry residue appears in the liquid, resembling it neither in color nor at all in smell — although it would naturally have come to share in those qualities, had it been mixed and soaked together with it in the belly

and not be strained out so pure and untainted. But no stone has ever formed in the stomach either — and yet there was just as much reason for the liquid to congeal and solidify there as in the bladder, if indeed everything that is drunk passed into the stomach by way of the gullet. But it seems that the gullet, drawing off at once from the windpipe enough — and only a moderate amount — of the passing liquid, uses it up for the softening and reducing of the food to chyle, and therefore produces no excess of liquid; while the lung, distributing from itself, as it were, both breath and moisture to the parts that need them, secretes the remainder into the bladder. These explanations are far more plausible than the others. Yet perhaps the truth in such matters is ungraspable, and one ought not, in a matter so obscure and so much disputed, be so dogmatic — especially not one who lays first claim to reputation and ability as a philosopher."

In our readings of Plato, the terms "horn-struck" and "unsoftenable" always occasioned inquiry — not as to what they meant, for it was clear that, since people believed the seeds that struck against the horns of oxen produced unsoftenable fruit, they called a stubborn, hard man "horn-struck" and "unsoftenable" by the same metaphor. But the dispute was about the very cause itself, on account of which this happens to seeds that strike against the horns of oxen. And we often begged off from our friends, deterred not least by Theophrastus's discussion, in which he has collected and recorded many facts whose cause is undiscoverable by us — such as the scratching-about of hens after they have laid, the seal that swallows its rennet when caught, the horn that the stag buries, and the eryngo plant, which, when a single goat takes it into her mouth, brings the whole herd to a standstill: for among such cases the horn-striking of seeds too is commonly cited as a fact that commands belief, though its cause is either undiscoverable or exceedingly difficult. But once at Delphi, over dinner, some of our companions set upon us, arguing that not only does counsel and judgment grow better from a full stomach, but wine also makes our inquiries keener and our pronouncements bolder, and they asked me to say something about the problem. Now I had no poor advocates for declining — Euthydemus my fellow-priest and Patrocles my son-in-law — who brought forward not a few facts of this kind drawn from farming and hunting. It was thought, for instance,

that hail is the sort of thing turned aside by hail-watchers using the blood of a mole or women's rags; and that wild fig branches, tied onto cultivated fig trees, keep the fruit from falling and hold it together and help it ripen; and that deer, when caught, shed a salty tear, but pigs a sweet one. "But if you go looking into these things," said Euthydemus, "you will presently have to account for celery and cumin as well — the one people think grows better for being trampled and crushed underfoot as it sprouts, the other for being sown with curses and abuse." Since Florus thought this all play and nonsense, while none of the others would give up the inquiry as ungraspable, I said, "I have found a remedy, with which, if you too will resolve some of the difficulties you have raised, you can press this argument home against me. It seems to me that cold produces hardness in wheat and chickpeas, compressing and congealing their substance to the point of hardness, while warmth makes them easily loosened and soft. Hence those are wrong who apply to such cases the Homeric line about

the "no year bears" fields: for naturally warm places, given a favorable blending of air, produce softer fruits. Now of the seeds that fall from the hand straight into the earth, those that sink in and are, so to speak, born under cover enjoy more fully the earth's warmth and moisture; but those that strike against the horns of oxen do not meet with the "best good order," as Hesiod calls it, but, being knocked aside and slipping off, resemble things thrown rather than things sown. Hence either the cold destroys them outright, or, striking their bare coats, makes them hard to dissolve, sapless, and woody. For you can see that even among stones, the parts embedded in earth, as if alive, are softer than those on the surface — warmth keeps them so; that is why craftsmen bury the stones they mean to work, as if ripening them by warmth, while those left in the open air, bare, become resistant, hard to shape, and unsoftenable because of the cold. And they say that grain too, if it remains longer on the threshing floor exposed and bare, becomes harder than grain gathered up at once. In some places, too, a wind that strikes the grain while it is being winnowed makes it hard because of the cold, as they report happens at Philippi in Macedonia; but chaff heaped over stored grain protects it. And one should not be surprised to hear farmers say that of two parallel furrows, one produces hard grain and the other soft; and, most remarkable of all, that of the pods of a single bean plant, some are of one sort and some of another — obviously because a cold wind or rain has struck some less and others more."

Alexion, my father-in-law, made fun of Hesiod for advising us to "drink freely at the opening and the closing of the jar, but be sparing in the middle" — precisely where the best wine is found. "For who," he said, "does not know that the middle of wine is best, the top of oil, and the bottom of honey? He ought rather to have told us to leave the wine in the middle alone and wait until it turns for the worse, once the jar has run low." When this had been said, we let Hesiod go and turned to inquiring into the cause of the difference. The matter of the honey gave us little trouble, since almost everyone knows that the lightest part is lightest because of its porousness, while the dense and continuous part settles below the rest by its weight; and if you turn the vessel upside down, each part in a little while resumes its proper place, one sinking, the other rising to the top. Nor was wine left without plausible explanations either: first, its potency, being a kind of heat, seems reasonably to be concentrated most in the middle, and this is best preserved there; and second, the lower part is spoiled by the lees, while the upper part on the surface is corrupted by the nearness of the air. For we know that air is most apt to alter the character of wine — that is why people bury the jars and cover them, so that as little air as possible may touch them. And, most important of all, a full vessel does not let wine spoil as readily as one that has grown depleted; for a great deal of air flows in to fill the empty space and alters it all the more, whereas in full vessels the wine is held together by itself and admits little of the corrupting influence from outside. Oil, too, gave us no poor occasion for discussion. One person said that the lower part of the oil grows worse, being clouded by the sediment, and that the upper part is not really better but only seems so, because it is farthest from what harms it. Another blamed the density of oil, on account of which it is most resistant to mixture and admits none of the other liquids into itself except when forced in by some blow; hence it does not even mix with air, but keeps apart because of the fineness and continuity of its particles, so that it is changed less by air, since the air cannot master it. Aristotle seemed to oppose this account, having observed, as he says, that oil grows more fragrant and altogether better in vessels that have been partly emptied; he then assigns the cause of the improvement to the air, since there is more of it, and it prevails more as it settles into the depleted vessel. "Perhaps, then," I said, "the air both benefits oil and harms wine by the very same power. For aging is advantageous to wine, but disadvantageous to oil, and the air, falling upon each, removes this aging: what is cooled stays fresh, while what has no outlet grows old quickly and withers through continuous confinement — so it has plausibly been said that the air, approaching what lies at the surface, keeps it fresh. That is why the top of wine is the worst part, and the top of oil the best; for aging produces the best condition in the one, the worst in the other."

Florus, being fond of old customs, would not allow the table to be cleared bare, but always left some food remaining on it. "And this is not the only thing," he said, "that I know my father and grandfather carefully observed — they also never let a lamp go out; for the ancient Romans were most scrupulous about this too, whereas people nowadays put it out right after dinner, so as not to waste oil needlessly." Eustrophus the Athenian, who was present, said, "Well, what more good does that do them, unless they also learn the clever trick of our friend Polycharmus, who said that after much deliberation over how the slaves might be kept from stealing the oil, he barely worked out the solution — to fill the lamps to the brim the moment they went out, and then check again the next day whether they remained full." Florus laughed and said, "Well then, since that problem is solved, let us examine the question why it is likely that the ancients were just as scrupulous about lamps as about tables." The question of the lamps was taken up first, and his son-in-law Caesernius supposed that, because of its kinship with the undying, sacred fire, the elders regarded the destruction of any fire whatsoever as something to be religiously avoided: for there are two kinds of destruction, as with a human being — one violent, when the fire is put out by force, the other as if natural, when it wastes away of itself. The sacred fire, then, they guarded against both, continually feeding and watching it; but the other fire they let waste away of itself, without doing it violence or begrudging it, as though they were taking the life from a creature, so that it should not be kept alive to no purpose. Lucius, the son of Florus, said that the rest was well said, but that in singling out the sacred fire they did not thereby honor and revere it as better or more solemn than other fire; rather, just as some Egyptians revere and honor the whole race of dogs, others that of wolves or crocodiles, yet each people keeps and feeds only a single animal — some a dog, others a crocodile, others a wolf, since it was not possible to keep them all — so here too the care and guarding bestowed on that one fire was a symbol of scrupulous regard for fire in general. "For nothing else so resembles a living thing as fire does — moving and feeding itself, and by its brightness revealing all things and making them plain, as the soul does; and its power, not without a share in the vital principle, shows itself most of all in its quenching and destruction: for it cries out and makes sounds and resists, just as a living thing does when it is killed by violence — unless you have something better to say," he said, looking toward me. "None of the causes given," I said, "do I find fault with; but I would add that the custom is also a lesson in kindliness: for it is not right to destroy food when one has had one's fill, nor, after drinking deep from a spring, to blind and hide its source, nor to destroy the markers of a voyage or a road once one has made use of them, but to leave and preserve what is useful for those who will need it after us. Hence it is not honorable, out of stinginess, to extinguish the light of a lamp we no longer need, but rather to preserve and leave it, in case someone in need should come while it is still there and burning: for indeed, if it were possible, it would be a fine thing to lend even sight and hearing to another, and, by Zeus, prudence and courage too, when we ourselves are about to sleep and rest. Consider, too, whether it was not from a similar training in gratitude, carried to an extreme, that the ancients revered fruit-bearing oaks, and the Athenians called a certain fig tree sacred and forbade the felling of the sacred olive: for such practices do not, as some say, incline men toward superstition, but accustom our sense of gratitude and fellow-feeling, even in our dealings with insensate and inanimate things. Hence Hesiod rightly does not allow food to be served from pots that have not first been offered to the fire, but bids us render the fire its first-fruits and its due honor for its service; and the Romans did well in their use of lamps, in that they did not take back the nourishment they had given, but let it be used and let it shine as long as it lived."

When I had said this, Eustrophus said, "Does this, then, also give a fitting opening to the discussion of the table, for one who thinks that something should always be left over from dinner for the servants and the servants' children? For they take pleasure not so much in receiving as in sharing. That is why they say the kings of the Persians not only always send out portions to their friends, commanders, and bodyguards, but also always set out the dinner of the slaves and of the dogs on their own table, so far as possible making fellow-diners and fellow-hearth-companions of all whom they employ; for even the fiercest of beasts are tamed by a share in food." And I, laughing, said, "But that 'stored-away fish' of the proverb, my friend — why do we not bring it out too, along with the Pythagorean measure, on which he forbade us to sit, teaching us always to leave something over from what is present for the future, and to remember tomorrow in the midst of today? Among us Boeotians, at any rate, the saying 'leave something also for the Medes' is on everyone's lips, from the time when the Medes overran Phocis and the farthest parts of Boeotia, plundering and pillaging as they went; and everywhere, always, the maxim 'leave something also for strangers who arrive' ought to be ready to hand — just as I, for my part, find fault with Achilles' table, always caught empty and starved: for when the envoys around Ajax and Odysseus arrived, he, having nothing ready, is forced to cook and prepare food from scratch; and again, wishing to show Priam kindness, he 'leaps up' and slaughters a white sheep, and skins and roasts it, spending a great part of the night on these tasks. But Eumaeus, being, as he was, the well-bred nursling of a wise man, had no such trouble when Telemachus appeared, but at once feasted him once he had sat down, setting before him platters of roasted meat, 'which they had left over the day before, when they were eating.' And if this seems a small thing, that other point is not small — the checking and holding back of appetite while the means of enjoyment is still at hand: for those accustomed to abstain from what is present desire less what is absent."

Lucius then took up the point and said he recalled hearing from his grandmother that the table is sacred, and that nothing sacred ought to be left empty. “And it seemed to me,” he said, “that the table is also an image of the earth: for besides nourishing us, it is round and stable, and by some is fittingly called a ‘hestia,’ a hearth. For just as we hold that the earth must always have and bear something useful for us, so too we think the table ought not to be seen empty and left bare of anything set upon it.”

At the Pythian games Callistratus, who was superintendent of the Amphictyons, when a fellow citizen and friend, a singer to the flute, arrived too late for the official registration, barred him from the competition according to the law; but in entertaining us he brought him into the banquet dressed and garlanded, as if for a contest, adorned along with the chorus in splendid fashion.

And by Zeus, at first it was a charming performance; but then, once he had shaken and rattled the company thoroughly, and perceived that most of them had given way and, carried off by pleasure, were letting him do as he pleased, playing wildly on his pipe and indulging every excess, he threw off all restraint and showed that music, more than any wine, intoxicates those who take it in however it comes, and without limit. For they were no longer content to shout and clap while reclining, but in the end most of them leapt up and joined in movements that were unbecoming of free men, though well suited to those strains and melodies.

When they had stopped, and the drinking-party was returning again to order, as though out of a fit of madness, Lamprias wanted to say something and speak frankly to the young men; yet, being afraid that he might come across as too disagreeable and unpleasant, he hesitated. At that point Callistratus, as if offering him an opening, said something of this sort to lead in: “I myself,” he said, “absolve the love of listening and the love of spectacle from the charge of intemperance — though I do not altogether agree with Aristoxenus, who says that the word ‘good’ is applied to these pleasures alone. For people also call dishes ‘good’ and perfumes ‘good,’ and say they have ‘fared well’ after dining pleasantly and expensively. Nor do I think Aristotle was right to excuse from the charge of intemperance the enjoyments that come through sight and hearing, on the ground that these alone are peculiar to human beings, while animals, having a nature suited to the others, both use and share in them.

For we observe that many of the irrational creatures too are charmed by music — deer, for instance, by the pipe; and for mares in heat a tune is piped which men call the ‘horse-tune.’ And Pindar says that the dolphin, in the windless expanse of the sea, was stirred to dance by the lovely melody of pipes. And men hunting scops-owls take them by dancing, since the birds delight in the sight and, imitating the movements, sway their shoulders this way and that along with the hunters. So I see nothing peculiar to such pleasures except that they alone belong to the soul, whereas the others terminate in the body and around the body: melody, rhythm, dance, and song, passing beyond mere sensation, lodge their charm and their tickling delight in the rejoicing part of the soul itself.

That is why none of such pleasures is hidden away, nor needs darkness and encircling walls, as the Cyrenaics say; rather, stadiums and theaters are built for them, and to watch or hear something in the company of many others is more delightful and more dignified — a mark, surely, not of intemperance and self-indulgence, but of a liberal and refined pastime, one that seeks as many witnesses of itself as possible.”

When Callistratus had said this, Lamprias, seeing those patrons of the entertainers growing still bolder, said: “That is not the reason, son of Leon; rather, it seems to me that the ancients were not right to call Dionysus the child of Lethe — Forgetfulness — for they ought to have called him her father, since it is because of him that you too now seem to have forgotten that, of the errors people commit concerning pleasures, some are caused by intemperance and others by ignorance and inattention.

Where the harm is manifest, people go wrong there through intemperance, forcing down their reasoning; but whatever does not immediately and on the spot exact the penalty of self-indulgence, that they choose and do out of ignorance of the harm. That is why we call those who go astray over food, sex, and drink — who are followed by many illnesses, the ruin of their fortunes, and disgrace — intemperate: like that Theodectes, who, though suffering from an eye infection, said ‘Welcome, dear light,’ when his beloved appeared; or Anaxarchus of Abdera, who, as they say, knowing full well, was wretched all the same, for his nature, pleasure-struck, carried him the opposite way — a nature which most of the sophists themselves cower before.

But those pleasures which, while the desires concerned with belly, private parts, taste, and smell are drawn up in opposition to them, and while people are on guard against being caught by these, steal in unnoticed around the eyes and ears and take up secret residence there, lying in ambush — those who succumb to such pleasures, though no less prone to passion and self-indulgence than the others, we do not likewise call intemperate. For it is not through knowing but through inexperience that they are swept along, and they suppose themselves superior to pleasure if they sit through a whole day in the theaters without food or drink — as if a jar should pride itself on not being lifted up by the belly or the base, while it is easily carried off by the ears.

Hence Arcesilaus said it made no difference whether one were a catamite behind or in front. One must fear the softness and self-indulgence that tickles through the eyes and through the ears no less; and one must not consider a city unconquerable merely because it keeps its other gates secure with bars, bolts, and portcullises, if the enemy can get inside by passing through just one; nor consider oneself unconquered by pleasure, if one has been taken not through the shrine of Aphrodite but through the Museum or the theater — for one has equally given way and handed over one's soul to be led and carried off by pleasures.

For the pleasures of every cook and perfumer, pouring over us drugs more pungent and more elaborate than those of melodies and rhythms, lead us on and corrupt us, in a way testifying against themselves; for of these there is nothing blameworthy, nor anything changed, as Pindar said of the things upon the table — whatever splendid things earth and the surging sea bring us — once they are simply set before us. But no dish, no food, and not even this excellent wine we are drinking, when consumed, has ever drawn out of us, through pleasure, such a cry as the piping and drumming just now have filled the house with — if not the whole city — with uproar, clapping, and shouting.

That is why one must be especially wary of these pleasures: they are the strongest, precisely because they do not, like those concerned with taste, touch, and smell, terminate in the irrational and merely physical part of the soul, but instead lay hold of the part that judges and thinks. Moreover, against the other pleasures reason, even when it falls short in the struggle, still manages to resist, and some passions themselves often stand in the way: in the fish-market, for instance, stinginess checks the gourmand's reaching hand, and love of money has turned love of a costly courtesan aside — just as, in Menander, each of the drinking companions, when the pimp brought in some haughty young girl to tempt them, bent his head down and simply chewed away at his sweetmeats.

For borrowing money is a harsh penalty for intemperance, and loosening one's purse-strings is not at all easy. But as for these so-called liberal pleasures concerning the ears and eyes, the music-loving, pipe-loving frenzies, one may draw and enjoy them free of charge and without payment from many quarters — at contests, at theaters, at banquets — with others providing the expense.

That is why corruption comes so readily to those whose reasoning does not step in to help and guide them.” A silence followed, and then he said: “What, then, must reasoning do, or what must it say, for us to ask its help? It will hardly wrap earmuffs around us like those of Xenocrates, nor will it make us get up in the middle of dinner if we notice a lyre being tuned or a pipe starting to sound.” “No indeed,” said Lamprias, “but whenever we fall in among the Sirens, we must call upon the Muses and take refuge on the Helicon of the ancients.

For a man in love with something costly cannot be brought Penelope, nor be given Pantheia to live with; but a man who delights in mimes, in wretchedly composed and affectedly clever melodies and songs, can be led over instead to Euripides, Pindar, and Menander, ‘washing his brine-soaked hearing,’ as Plato says, ‘with a fresh stream of words.’ For just as the magi bid those possessed by demons recite and repeat to themselves the Ephesian Letters, so we too, when stirred by such warblings and leapings, by frenzied cries and head-tossing riot, ought to call to mind and set beside them those sacred and solemn Letters, comparing them with songs, poems, and words held in common, so that we shall not be utterly overwhelmed by this thing, nor let ourselves be carried off sideways, as if borne along by a smooth-flowing stream.”

Homer represents Menelaus as coming of his own accord to the banquet Agamemnon gave for the chiefs; for he knew in his heart how his brother was toiling, and he did not overlook the fact that his brother's oversight had become obvious, nor did he reproach him by staying away, as fault-finding and difficult people do, who fasten upon such oversights and lapses of memory in their friends, taking more pleasure in being neglected than in being honored, so that they may have grounds for complaint.

As for the custom of the ‘called-along,’ whom people nowadays call ‘shadows’ — those who are not themselves invited but are brought to the dinner by the ones who were invited — the question was raised where this custom first arose. It seemed to have begun with Socrates, who persuaded Aristodemus, though uninvited, to go with him to Agathon's house, and who then had something rather comic happen to him: for Socrates, quite unnoticed, fell behind along the way, and Aristodemus went in ahead of him — literally a shadow going on before a body that had the light behind it.

Later, however, in receiving guests — especially those of persons in authority — it became necessary for hosts who did not know the followers and attendants accompanying the guest to extend the invitation for the guest's sake, while still setting some limit on the number, so that they might not suffer what befell the man who once entertained King Philip in the countryside: Philip arrived bringing many companions, and the dinner had not been prepared for so many. Seeing the host thrown into confusion, Philip quietly sent word around to his friends, bidding them leave room for a cake; and they, expecting this, held back from the dishes already set before them, and so the dinner proved sufficient for everyone.

While I was rambling on about this to those present, Florus decided it was worth some serious inquiry into the matter of these so-called ‘shadows,’ to work out whether it is proper for those invited to walk along and follow in this way. His son-in-law Caesernius rejected the practice altogether, saying that we ought above all to follow Hesiod's advice and invite the man who loves us to the feast; failing that, we should call upon our own acquaintances and intimates, to share with us the libation, the table, the conversation that arises over wine, and the goodwill of the occasion.

“As it is,” he said, “we behave like those who hire out ships for freight, allowing whatever anyone brings to be loaded aboard; just so we hand over our banquets to others and let them be filled up from whoever happens to turn up, whether they are agreeable or worthless. I would be astonished if an agreeable man ever arrived as someone else's guest — or rather uninvited, since often the host does not know him at all; and if the host does know him and is on familiar terms with him and yet has not invited him, it is all the more shameful for that man to go, as though he were being caught out for sharing in the other's hospitality in a sense by force and against the host's will.

Moreover, to go ahead of, or to lag behind, the man who invited him, on the way to another's house, carries with it a certain awkwardness, and it is hardly becoming to need witnesses, on approaching one's hosts, to prove that one has come to dinner not as an invited guest but as so-and-so's shadow. And again, to tag along and keep watch over another man's time for oiling and bathing, whether he is slow or quick about it, is thoroughly illiberal and worthy of a Gnatho — if indeed Gnatho became the cleverest of men at dining at others' expense.

And indeed, if there is any time when people are especially permitted to say, ‘Tongue, if you wish to boast a little, speak freely,’ and the greatest frankness, mixed with playfulness, attends what is said and done over wine, how then could a man conduct himself in such company if he is not a genuine, self-invited guest, but in a sense illegitimate, smuggled into the party? For both using frankness and refraining from it toward those present lays one open to easy misconstruction. Nor is it a small evil, this casual use of names and this buffoonery, for men who are not offended but instead put up with being called ‘shadows’ and answering to the name — for it accustoms one, through this readiness to be led by mere words, toward shameful conduct itself.

That is why, whenever I have invited companions, I have sometimes given the name ‘shadows’ — for the city's usage is strong and hard to resist; but as for myself, invited by one man to go to another's house, up to now I have held out against complying.”

When silence followed these words, Florus said: “This second point presents the greater difficulty; but inviting in this way is necessary in the reception of strangers, as was said before, for it is neither decent to entertain a guest without his friends, nor easy to know beforehand whom he will bring with him.” And I said to him: “Consider, then, whether those who have granted hosts this manner of inviting have not also granted, to those invited, the right to comply and go along. For it is no more fine to give what ought not be given, or to ask for it, than it is to summon what ought not be summoned, or to consent to it, or to do it.

Now, in dealings with rulers or with strangers there is no choice or selection involved in the invitation; one must simply receive those who come along with them. But otherwise, when entertaining a friend, it is more friendly to invite him personally, in a way that shows one is not ignorant of his acquaintances, intimates, and kin — for the honor and the favor are greater when it is plain that one does not fail to notice which people the friend embraces most, with whom he is most glad to spend time, and that one is pleased for them to be honored equally whether invited directly or merely brought along.

Not but that there are occasions when the host must act on his own judgment, just as those who sacrifice to a god together with the gods who share his altar and his temple offer a joint prayer for them all without naming each one individually. For neither food nor wine nor perfume puts a man in so pleasant a mood as does a well-disposed and agreeable fellow-guest. But to inquire closely and question what particular dishes and pastries the man about to be entertained enjoys most, and to ask about differences among wines and perfumes, is altogether vulgar and shows the manner of the newly rich; whereas for a man who has many friends, relations, and intimates, to invite for himself those among them with whom he would most gladly spend time, and in whose company he is most cheered, and to bring these along above all, is neither unpleasant nor out of place.

For neither sailing together, nor living in the same house, nor pleading a case jointly with people one does not wish to be with, is as unpleasant as dining together with them — and, conversely, dining together is as pleasant as those other things are unpleasant; for the symposium is a shared partnership in seriousness and play alike, in conversation and in action. Hence it is not chance acquaintances but those who are truly dear to us that...

—and be intimate with one another, so that they may spend the time pleasantly together. Cooks prepare their dishes by blending different flavors—sharp, rich, sweet, and pungent—but a dinner party cannot become good and pleasing unless the guests brought together are of one kind and share the same feelings. Now since, as the Peripatetics say, the first mover is unmoved, while the last thing moved does not move anything else, and between the two is that which both moves other things and is itself moved by others, so too," I said, "in our discussion, since there are three kinds of people—the one who only invites, the one who is only invited, and the one who both invites and is invited—we have already spoken of the one who invites; it would be no worse to go through the others as well," I said,

"as far as I see fit. The man, then, who is invited by another and in turn invites others is bound, I think, first of all to spare the crowd, and not, as though foraging in enemy territory, to provision himself indiscriminately from everyone around him, nor, like men seizing territory at draughts, always to block and drive off all the friends of his host in favor of his own—so that the men giving the dinner suffer what those suffer who carry out meals as offerings to Hecate and the averting gods: they do not taste them themselves, nor do the people at home, except for a share of the smoke and the commotion. For those who say 'having sacrificed to the Delphians, he buys his own meat back' are merely joking with us; but this really happens to those who receive strangers who are thoughtless, or friends who arrive with a crowd of shadows, like Harpies, and strip and plunder their dinners. In the next place, one ought not

to go off to another man's dinner with whatever company he happens to have, but should above all invite the host's own household and intimates, competing with the host himself and forestalling him with invitations; failing that, one should invite his own friends whom the host himself would have wished to choose—being reasonable, choosing reasonable men, and if fond of learning, choosing men fond of learning, or, if he is a man of influence, men of influence—long since seeking, in one way or another, to bring them into

acquaintance and fellowship with the host. For to hand over and provide, to a man so disposed, the beginning of an association and of friendliness is a rather happy stroke, and a graceful one; but the man who brings in people uncongenial and ill-matched—heavy drinkers to a teetotaler, or dissolute and extravagant men to one plain in his way of life, or again gloomy old men, or bearded sophists with a booming voice, to a young man fond of drinking and playful—is out of season, repaying kindness with unpleasantness. For

the guest who has been invited ought to be no less agreeable to his host than the host is to his guest; and he will be agreeable if he makes not only himself but also those who come with him and on his account both charming and gracious. As for the one who still remains of the three—the man invited by one person to go to another's house—he is one who, shrinking from the very name 'shadow' and resenting it,

will indeed seem, in truth, to be afraid of a mere shadow; yet the matter calls for the greatest caution. For it is not right readily to follow just anyone, nor in just any manner; rather, one must first consider who the inviter is. For if he is not a very close acquaintance, but rather one of the rich or one of the powerful, wanting, as if for a stage production, a splendid retinue, or fully persuaded that he is doing a favor and paying an honor by the invitation, he is to be declined at once. But if he is a friend and an intimate, one should not obey at once, but only if it seems that he has need of some necessary meeting and companionship that admits of no other occasion—either because he has arrived from far away after a long absence, or is about to depart, and clearly, out of goodwill, desires and longs to spend time together—and provided he brings along not a large or a strange company, but only himself, or himself with a few companions; or if, apart from all this, he is working to bring about

through the invitation some beginning of familiarity and friendship between the one invited and the host, the host being a decent man and worthy of friendship. But as for worthless men, the more they lay hold and entangle themselves, the more, like brambles and cleavers, they must be stepped over; and even if the men bringing one along are decent but are not bringing one to decent company, one ought not to follow along or put up with it, as though taking a bad medicine mixed with honey—

a bad friend by means of a good one. It is also out of place to go to see a person who is a complete stranger and unfamiliar, unless he is a man of outstanding virtue, as has been said, and one is doing this to make a beginning of friendship and would be glad to arrive easily and simply, in the company of another, to see him. And indeed, of one's own intimates, one should go especially, when invited by another, to see those who themselves are permitted to go with others

to see us. For Philip the jester thought it more laughable to come to dinner uninvited than invited; but for good men who are friends, to come uninvited to other good men who are friends is more dignified and more pleasant, if they arrive at the right moment, unlooked for and uninvited, in the company of other friends, delighting their hosts and at the same time honoring those who brought them. But least of all is it fitting to go, when not invited by them but by others, to rulers or

wealthy men or potentates—guarding, not unreasonably, against a reputation for shamelessness, bad taste, and ill-timed ambition." There was talk at Chaeronea, over wine, about entertainments, with Diogenianus of Pergamum present, and we had trouble fending off a deep-bearded sophist of the Stoa, who brought forward Plato accusing those who make use of flute-girls over their wine, on the ground that they are unable to keep one another's company by means of speech.

And yet Philippus of Prusa, who was present, from the same wrestling-school, bade us leave alone those guests at Agathon's table, who spoke things more delightful than any flute or harp; for it was no wonder that a flute-girl was dismissed when those men were present, but rather it would have been strange if forgetfulness of both drink and food had not overtaken the party, through sheer pleasure and enchantment. And yet Xenophon was not ashamed, with Socrates

and Antisthenes and other such men present, to bring in the jester Philippus, showing the men, as Homer showed 'the onion as relish for drink.' And Plato has inserted Aristophanes' speech about love, like a comedy, into the Symposium, and at the end, throwing open the outer door, brings in a most colorful scene—Alcibiades, drunk, crowned, and reveling. Then follow the sparring matches with Socrates

and the encomium about Agathon and Socrates. O dear Graces, is it lawful to say that if Apollo himself had come to that symposium with his lyre tuned, those present would have begged the god to hold off, until the discourse was brought to its conclusion and reached its end? "Then can it be," he said, "that those men, who possessed such grace in conversation, nevertheless made use of interludes

and varied their symposia with such amusements as these; while we, mixed together with men of public and market-place affairs—and often, when we happen to be so, with common and rather boorish people—banish such grace and pastime from our parties, or else leave them ourselves, fleeing as if from the approach of the Sirens? Yet Cleitomachus the athlete, getting up and leaving whenever anyone brought in talk of love, was admired for it; and shall a philosopher

who flees from a symposium at the sound of a flute, and, when a harp-girl tunes her strings, shouts for his sandals and orders the lamp lit at once, not be laughable, loathing the most harmless pleasures the way dung-beetles loathe perfumes? For if ever, then surely most of all over wine, one ought to indulge in such play and give one's soul over to the god for these purposes. As for Euripides, though in other respects he is dear to me, he has certainly not

persuaded me, in his prescription about music, that it should be brought in for griefs and heavy sorrows; for there, one must set over the sick, like a physician, speech that is earnest and sober, but such pleasures as these should be mixed in with Dionysus, set down as a part of play. For there is something charming in the remark of the Laconian who, watching at Athens the contests of new tragedies, and seeing the elaborate preparations of the sponsors and

the eager efforts of the trainers and the rivalry, said that the city did not seem to him to be behaving sensibly, playing with such great earnestness; for truly, when playing, one ought to play, and not purchase one's leisure at the cost of great expense or of time useful for other things, but rather, in drinking and relaxation, taste a little of such things, and at the same time, while enjoying oneself, consider whether there is anything useful to be got from them."

When this had been said, as the sophist was wanting to argue back again, I headed him off, saying, "Rather, Diogenianus, one might consider this: of the many kinds of entertainment there are, which sort would best fit a drinking-party, and let us call on this wise man here to judge; for being unaffected by, and immune to the charm of, everything, he would not be led astray into choosing the more pleasant over the better." So, when

both Diogenianus and the rest of us urged him, he, without hesitating at all, said that he would drive all the rest off to the stage and the orchestra, but would bring in what had recently been introduced at Rome into dinner parties, though it had not yet caught on widely. "For you know," he said, "that of Plato's dialogues some are narrative and others dramatic; of these dramatic ones, then, the lightest are taught

to boys, so that they can recite them by heart; and there is added a delivery suited to the character of the persons represented, a shaping and modulation of the voice, and gestures and expressions that follow what is being said. These things the austere and cultivated people welcomed with extraordinary delight, but the unmanly and those whose ears have been corrupted through lack of taste and culture—the sort Aristoxenus says vomit bile whenever they hear something in the enharmonic mode—rejected them; and

I should not be surprised if they reject it altogether, for effeminacy is gaining the upper hand." And Philippus, seeing some of the company growing rather displeased, said, "Spare us, my good man, and be sparing in your abuse of us; for we were the first, when the practice was being introduced at Rome, to be displeased by it, and we took to task those who thought it fit to make Plato an accompaniment to wine, and to listen to Plato's dialogues over their sweets and perfumes while they drank on—

at which time, with Sappho's poems and those of Anacreon being read aloud, I for my part felt I should set down my cup out of shame. But since much occurs to me to say, I am afraid I may seem to be talking to you with a certain earnestness rather than in play; and so, as you see, I hand over to my friend Diogenianus, along with the cup, the task of 'washing the salty ear with a draught of sweet speech.'" Diogenianus then took it up and said, "But I hear that these speeches too

are sober ones; so that wine does not seem to be wronging us, nor to be getting the better of us. Still, I am afraid that I myself may have to submit an account of my conduct; and yet a great deal of the entertainment ought to be pared away. First, tragedy, as being not at all suited to a drinking party but rather too solemn in its declamations, and given to contriving the portrayal of events involving suffering and lamentation. And from dancing I dismiss the Pyladean style, which is grand, emotional, and

involves many characters; but out of respect for those praises which Socrates delivered concerning dancing, I welcome the Bathyllian style, which from the outset, in its plain form, touches on the cordax, portraying some pantomime of Echo, or of a Pan or Satyr reveling together with Love. Of comedies, the Old Comedy is unsuited to men who are drinking, on account of its unevenness; for the earnestness in its so-called parabases and

its outspokenness are far too undiluted and intense, and its readiness for jibes and buffoonery is dreadfully overdone and unrestrained, and full of indecent expressions and licentious names; further, just as at the dinners of great men each of those reclining has his own wine-pourer standing by, so here each guest will need a grammarian at his side to explain each detail—who Laispodias is in Eupolis, and who Cinesias in Plato,

and who Lampon in Cratinus, and each of the other people made fun of; so that our symposium would turn into a schoolroom, or else the jokes would go by unheard and unintelligible. But as for the New Comedy, what objection could anyone raise? It is so thoroughly blended into symposia that one could steer the drinking-party through better without wine than without Menander. For its diction is sweet and its handling of affairs

is plain and everyday, so that it is neither despised by the sober nor a source of distress to those who are drunk; and useful, unaffected maxims flow through it, and it softens the harshest of characters, as though in fire, by means of wine, and bends them toward greater gentleness; and its mixture of earnestness with play would seem to have been made for no other purpose than to provide, to men who have been drinking and are relaxed, pleasure and benefit at once.

Even its love affairs, in his work, have their proper season for men who have been drinking and are about to go home shortly afterward and rest beside their own wives; for there is no love of a male boy in all those many plays, and the seductions of maidens turn, for the most part, into marriage; and the affairs with courtesans, if the women are forward and bold, are broken off through some act of self-restraint or repentance on the young men's part; but for those

who are good and love in return, either some legitimate father is discovered, or some period of time is added to their love, allowing a humane show of consideration and restraint. These things, for men engaged in some other business, are perhaps worth no serious attention; but in the act of drinking, I should not be surprised if their charm and grace, together with a certain shaping and adornment, produce an effect that assimilates men's characters to those that are decent

and humane." Diogenianus, then, either finished or paused and fell silent; and when the sophist attacked him again, thinking it necessary to go through certain speeches of Aristophanes as well, Philippus, addressing me, said, "This man has satisfied his own desire, having praised Menander, who is most to his taste, and seems no longer to care about anything else. Many of the entertainments remain unexamined by us,

about which I should be glad to hear you speak; and we shall judge the contest of the animal-carvers tomorrow, if it please our guest and Diogenianus, while sober." "Well then," I said, "there are certain mimes, of which some are called 'plots' and others 'farces'; and I think neither kind is suited to a symposium—the 'plots' because of the length of the pieces and the difficulty of staging them, and the 'farces,' being full

of buffoonery and vulgar scurrility, are not fit to be watched even by the slave-boys who carry the sandals, at least if their masters are sensible men. Yet most people, even with women reclining beside them and young children present, put on display representations of deeds and words which disturb the soul more than any drunkenness. But the lyre, at any rate, has long been, even as far back as Homer's time, a familiar accompaniment of the feast,

and it is not fitting to dissolve so ancient a friendship and intimacy; rather, one need only ask the lyre-singers to remove the excessive dirges and lamentation from their songs, and sing instead things auspicious and fitting for men at a festive gathering. As for the flute, it is not possible to banish it from the table even if one wished to; for the libations long for it together with the garland, and the divine joins its voice with the paean, and then it strikes up...

...and passed through the ears, pouring in a sweet sound that brought calm all the way to the soul; so that if the strong wine had not shaken loose or dissolved some troublesome and anxious thought, this, yielding to the grace and gentleness of the melody, grows quiet—provided that the music itself keeps due measure, without working the hearers into passion or, with its droning pipes and many-stringed excess, unsettling and driving out of place a mind already made pliant by wine and unsteady. For just as grazing animals do not understand speech that carries meaning, but herdsmen rouse them and lull them again with careless hisses and clicks of the tongue, or with pipes and shells, so too whatever is bestial and herd-like in the soul, unintelligent and deaf to reason, is soothed and calmed by those who play and pipe to it with melodies and rhythms.

Nevertheless, if I must say what I myself think, I would never hand the symposium over to the pipe alone, or to the melody of the lyre without speech and song, as though letting it be swept along by a mere current. We must train ourselves, both in our serious moments and in our play, to derive our pleasures from reasoned speech and to spend our time in conversation; and melody and rhythm should be served up like a relish alongside speech, not offered on their own account, nor should we indulge them like gluttons. For just as no one rejects the pleasure that accompanies wine and food along with the need for nourishment, while Socrates used to box the ears of that pleasure which comes from perfumes, as unnecessary and superfluous—so too, when the sound of the harp and the pipe merely strikes the ears on its own account, we should not give it entry; but if it follows along with speech and song, feasting and delighting the reason within us, then let us admit it—recalling that Marsyas was punished by the god precisely because, having stopped his own mouth with the strap and the pipes, he dared to compete with bare melody against song accompanied by the lyre. Let us only take care," I said, "that to fellow drinkers capable of delighting one another through conversation and philosophy we do not bring in anything from outside that will be more a hindrance to good company than any form of entertainment.

For it is not only those who, having safety at home and from their own resources, still wish to import it from elsewhere, as Euripides said, who are foolish, but also those who, though great cheerfulness and good spirits are already present among them, make it a point of pride to bring in pleasures from outside. Indeed, the munificence of the Great King, shown toward Antalcidas the Spartan, appeared strikingly tasteless and boorish, when he dipped a garland of mingled roses and crocus in perfume and sent it to him, thereby quenching its natural, proper beauty and doing outrage to the flowers. It is much the same thing, when a symposium has its own charm and its own proper music within it, to pipe and play upon it from outside, taking away what belongs to it by adding what is foreign. Indeed, the occasion most calling for hired performers would be when the symposium is heaving and bristling toward quarrel or contentiousness, so as to quench some abusive exchange and to interrupt an inquiry that is being carried into an unpleasant rivalry and a sophistical contest, and to check disputes proper to the assembly and the marketplace, until the symposium once again becomes, from the start, calm and unruffled."

There was talk over dinner, while Nicostratus was our host, about the matters the Athenians were about to debate in assembly. When someone said, "Gentlemen, we are doing a Persian thing, deliberating over wine," Glaucias took him up and said, "Why more Persian than Greek? For it was a Greek who said, 'counsel and cunning are better on a full stomach'; and it was Greeks who, together with Agamemnon, besieged Troy—men to whom, once they had eaten and drunk, the old man would first begin to weave his counsel, becoming the one who proposed to the king the best course, saying, 'Give a feast to the elders,' for, he says, 'you will obey him who, when many are gathered, devises the best counsel.' For this reason too, the peoples who enjoyed the best-ordered constitutions in Greece, and clung most closely to their ancient customs, kept their governing bodies together over wine. For the institutions called among the Cretans the Andreia, and among the Spartans the Phiditia, held the rank of secret deliberative councils and aristocratic assemblies, just as, I think, do our own Prytaneum and Thesmotheteion here; and not far removed from these is Plato's nocturnal assembly of the best and most statesmanlike men, to which the greatest matters, most worthy of consideration, are referred. And those who pour a last libation to Hermes, when they are about to remember bed—do they not thereby bring reasoned speech together with wine into the same place? At any rate, as though the wisest of gods were present and watching over them, men pray to him as they are first departing. And the ancients of old, as though Dionysus himself needed no help from Hermes, called him Eubouleus, 'Good Counselor,' and for his sake called the night itself euphrone, 'the kindly-minded.'"

When Glaucias had gone through all this, it seemed to us that those turbulent debates had been fairly well lulled to sleep; and, so that they might be still further forgotten, Nicostratus introduced another inquiry, saying that at first he had not much cared about the practice, since it seemed to him a Persian one; but now that it had been shown to be Greek, he needed an argument to help him against the absurdity that appeared on the face of it. "For reasoning, like an eye in a fluid that is being tossed about, becomes hard for us to move and hard to put to work; and the passions, from every side, like reptiles stirring toward the sun, are set in motion toward wine and, rising up, make the judgment unsteady and unsettled. Hence, just as reclining is better for drinkers than sitting, because it holds the body still and releases it from all motion, so it is best for the soul, too, to remain undisturbed; and if that is not possible, then, just as to children who cannot keep still one gives not a spear and sword but a rattle and a ball, so the god gave the wand of fennel to those who are drunk—put into their hands the lightest of weapons and the softest of defenses, so that, however quickly they strike, they do the least harm. For the mistakes of drunken men ought to be laughable, not pitiable and tragic, involving great failures. Moreover—and this is the most important point in deliberations about the weightiest matters—wine takes away from drunken men the very thing that a person lacking judgment and inexperienced in affairs most needs: to follow those who think clearly and to listen to the experienced."

Wine takes this away—so that Plato says its very name (oinos) arose "because it makes drinkers think (oiesthai) they have sense": for no drinker, however much he may fancy himself distinguished, or handsome, or rich, fancies it so strongly as he fancies himself wise. That is why wine is so full of talk, and fills men with untimely chatter and a domineering conceit, so that we are inclined not to listen but rather to be listened to, and to lead rather than to follow, as is fitting." "But," he said, "one could easily gather points for this side of the case, since they are obvious; what is needed is to hear the opposing arguments, whether some younger man or some older one is prepared to give them." Then our brother, quite craftily and in a sophist's manner, said, "Do you really think anyone could find the arguments the problem admits of, on the spur of the present moment?" And when Nicostratus firmly affirmed that he did think so, given so many lovers of learning and statesmen present, our friend smiled and said, "Then do you think that you yourself could speak adequately to us about these matters, while holding that, because of wine, one is disqualified for practical and political deliberation? Or is this like supposing that a man who has been drinking sees well enough with his eyes but mishears with his ears those who meet him and converse with him, yet hears precisely those who sing and pipe?

For just as here it is more likely that the useful, rather than the merely elegant, attracts the attention of the senses, so it is with the mind as well. I should not be surprised if something subtle and philosophical escapes a man over wine, while, when his mind is drawn to practical deliberations, it is likely to grow concentrated and to pull itself together for clear thinking—just as Philip at Chaeronea, though he was babbling a great deal in his drunkenness and making himself ridiculous, the moment word reached him concerning a truce and peace, composed his face, drew his brows together, and, driving off his rambling, unrestrained manner, gave the Athenians a very well-considered and sober answer. And yet drinking is a different thing from being drunk, and we think that those who are drunk enough to babble nonsense ought to go off and sleep it off, whereas, in the case of men who otherwise have good sense but who continue drinking wine over an extended time and drink it through, there is no need to fear that they will fail in judgment and lose their skill—seeing that dancers and lyre-players perform no worse at symposia than in theaters. For skill, when present, keeps the body upright in its activities and moving safely along with it; and to many men, wine, functioning as an ally that lends boldness, adds not a repulsive or unmixed boldness but one that is graceful and persuasive—just as they say Aeschylus, too, composed his tragedies while drinking; and it is not, as Gorgias said, that one of his plays, the Seven against Thebes, is "full of Ares," but rather that all of them are full of Dionysus.

For wine, being, in Plato's words, one that "warms the soul together with the body," makes the body run freely and opens up passages for imaginative ideas, which come streaming in along with the boldness of speech. For some men, who have an inventive nature but, while sober, one that is timid and rigid, when they come to drinking, are made to give off vapor, like frankincense, through the warmth. And wine drives away fear, which is no less an obstacle than anything else to men deliberating, and extinguishes many of the other passions that are mean-spirited and ignoble, and it unfolds, as it were, certain folds of malice and festering resentment hidden in the soul, and brings every character and passion into full view in speech. It is, moreover, most productive of frankness, and, through frankness, of truth itself; and where frankness is absent, neither experience nor quickness of mind is of any use. In fact, many men succeed better by using whatever thought presents itself than if they craftily and cunningly conceal what occurs to them.

There is, then, no need to fear that wine stirs up the passions; for what it stirs is not the basest part—except in the most wicked men, whose faculty of deliberation is never sober in any case. Rather, just as Theophrastus used to call barbershops "wineless symposia" because of their chatter, so too a wineless drunkenness, and a sullen one, dwells forever in the souls of the uneducated, forever disturbed by some anger or ill will or contentiousness or meanness of spirit—all of which wine, for the most part, blunts rather than sharpens, making men not foolish or stupid but simple and free of cunning—men who do not overlook their own advantage, but who choose the honorable course. Those, however, who consider cunning to be cleverness, and false opinion and meanness of spirit to be prudence, naturally declare foolish those who, over wine, state plainly and without guile what appears to them. The ancients, on the contrary, called the god Eleuthereus, "the Liberator," and Lysios, "the Loosener," and believed him to possess a great share of the prophetic art—not because of "his Bacchic frenzy and madness," as Euripides put it, but because, by removing and freeing the soul from its servility, its excessive fearfulness, and its distrust, he grants men the ability to deal with one another in truth and frankness."

Those, Sossius Senecio, who banish philosophy from symposia do not do the same thing as those who take away the light, but worse—inasmuch as, when the lamp is removed, moderate and self-controlled men will be no worse off, since their sense of shame counts for more with them than their seeing one another; but when ignorance and lack of culture are present along with wine, not even that golden lamp of Athena could furnish a graceful and orderly drinking-party. To gorge oneself with others in silence is altogether swinish, and perhaps impossible; and the man who abandons reasoned speech at a symposium, but will not permit its being used in an orderly and beneficial way, is far more absurd than a man who thinks the guests at his dinner ought to drink and eat, but who pours them undiluted wine and sets before them relishes that are unseasoned and unprepared. For no drink and no food is as unpleasant and harmful, when not prepared in the proper manner, as speech that is passed around a symposium untimely and thoughtlessly.

Philosophers who denounce drunkenness call it "wine-babble"; and to babble is nothing other than to indulge in empty and nonsensical talk. And when disorderly chatter and nonsense fall into undiluted wine, insolence and drunken outrage are the most tasteless and graceless result. It is not without point, then, that among us too, at the Agrionia, the women search for Dionysus as though he had run away, then stop and say that he has taken refuge with the Muses and is hidden among them; and a little later, when dinner is over, they pose riddles and puzzles to one another—the mystery rite teaching us that we must use, over drink, speech that has some element of contemplation and culture in it, and that when such speech is present alongside drunkenness, what is savage and frenzied is concealed, held down benignly by the Muses.

This book, then, contains, first, what we happened both to hear and to say last year at Plato's birthday celebration. It is the eighth book of the Table Talk. On the sixth day of the rising month of Thargelion we had celebrated the birthday of Socrates, and on the seventh we were celebrating that of Plato; and this occasion first provided us with talk suited to the coincidence, which Diogenianus of Pergamum began. For he said that Ion had put it well concerning fortune, that though differing greatly from wisdom, it produces very many things resembling it; and this seemed to him to have brought about, quite artfully as if of its own accord, not merely that the two birthdays fall so close together, but also that the elder man and teacher should have come first in reputation.

It occurred to me to mention to those present a good many other cases of coincidences that had converged on the same occasion: such as the matter concerning the birth and death of Euripides—born on the day on which the Greeks fought their sea battle against the Mede at Salamis, and dying on the day on which Dionysius the Elder, the tyrant in Sicily, was born; fortune thus, as Timaeus said, at one and the same time leading offstage the imitator of tragic sufferings and bringing onstage the real performer of them. They also called to mind the death of Alexander the king and that of Diogenes the Cynic, which took place on the same day. And it was generally agreed that King Attalus had died on his own birthday; while as for Pompey the Great, some said he died on his birthday, others that he died in Egypt one day before his birthday. Pindar, too, came up for mention, since he had been born at the time of the Pythian games and had furnished the god with many splendid hymns.

And Florus said that Carneades, too, did not deserve to be left out of mention at Plato's birthday celebration—a man who was the most illustrious devotee of the Academy; for both men, he said, were born at a festival of Apollo, the one at the Thargelia in Athens, the other while the Cyrenaeans were celebrating the Carneia; and both peoples keep their festival on the seventh day. "And you, prophets and priests," he said, "call the god, since he was born on that day, Hebdomagenes, 'Seventh-born.' That is why those who attribute Plato's begetting to Apollo...

"and I do not think anyone would say that those who dedicate this offspring of Plato to Apollo are dishonoring the god, since through Socrates he has been made a physician for us, like another Chiron, for even greater sufferings and diseases." At the same time he recalled the vision and voice said to have come to Ariston, Plato's father, in his sleep, forbidding him to have intercourse with his wife or touch her for ten months. Tyndares the Spartan then took up the discussion and said, "It is indeed fitting to sing and say of Plato that 'he did not seem to be the son of a mortal man, but of a god'; for I am afraid that the notion of the divine may seem to conflict with what is incorruptible, in that the begetting is no less problematic than the begotten thing itself: for that too is a kind of change and an experience of being acted upon — as Alexander himself, I think, suspected when he said that he recognized himself as most mortal and corruptible especially in the act of intercourse with a woman and in sleep, on the grounds that sleep comes about through weakness, and that all generation is a passing-away and corruption of something proper to oneself into something else.

"But I take heart again when I hear Plato himself calling the unbegotten and eternal god the father and maker of the cosmos and of all other begotten things — not, of course, because they come into being through seed, but through some other power of the god, which imparts to matter a generative principle, whereby matter is acted upon and changes, the god having implanted it. For the courses of the winds, too, escape the notice of the female bird, except when the moment of laying is at hand. And I think there is nothing strange in it, if the god, without approaching as a man does, but by certain other contacts through other means and touches, turns and fills the mortal with a more divine offspring. And the story is not my own," he said, "but the Egyptians say that Apis too is engendered in this way, by the touch of the moon; and in general they attribute to a male god intercourse with a mortal woman, but they do not think, conversely, that a mortal man could furnish the beginning of conception and pregnancy to a female god, because they hold that the substances of the gods consist in air and breaths and certain kinds of heat and moisture."

At this a silence fell, and then Diogenianus began again and said, "Since we have had discussions about the gods, shall we, on the occasion of Plato's birthday, take up Plato himself as a partner in the conversation, by examining what notion he had in mind when he declared that god always does geometry — if indeed one ought to accept this saying as Plato's?" When I had said that this is written nowhere clearly in any of his books, but has sufficient credibility and is characteristic of the Platonic manner, Tyndares immediately took up the point and said, "Do you suppose, Diogenianus, that the saying hints at something recondite and hard to discern, rather than exactly what he himself has often said and written, in praise of geometry, namely that it draws us away from clinging to sense-perception and turns us back toward the intelligible and eternal nature, the contemplation of which is the goal of philosophy, as it were the culminating vision of a mystery rite? For the nail of pleasure and pain, which fastens the soul to the body, seems to carry the greatest evil in this: that it makes the objects of sense more vivid than the objects of intellect, and forces the mind to judge by feeling rather than by reason. For, growing accustomed through intense suffering and pleasure to attend to what wanders and shifts about the body, as though it were the truly existent, the mind is blinded, and it loses that organ and light of the soul which is worth 'ten thousand eyes,' the only thing by which the divine can be beheld.

"Now in all the so-called branches of learning, as in mirrors that are unwarped and smooth, traces and images of the truth of intelligible things are reflected; but geometry especially, according to Philo, being the origin and mother-city of the others, leads back and turns the mind, purifying and releasing it, as it were, gently from sense-perception. That is why Plato himself found fault with the followers of Eudoxus, Archytas, and Menaechmus for trying to reduce the doubling of the solid to instrumental and mechanical constructions, as though attempting, by means other than reason, to find two mean proportionals in whatever way was available: for in this way, he thought, the good of geometry is lost and destroyed, as it runs back again to the world of sense and is not carried upward, nor does it lay hold of the eternal and incorporeal images, in reference to which god is always god."

After Tyndares, Florus, who was his companion and always liked to make a show, in jest, of being his admirer, said, "You have done the argument a service by making it not your own but common property — for you have given someone the chance to refute it by demonstrating that geometry is necessary not for the gods but for us. For god surely has no need of a branch of learning that serves like an instrument to turn and redirect the mind from things that come to be toward things that truly are; for those realities exist in him, and with him, and around him. But see whether Plato, in this hint, has escaped your notice as saying something relevant and proper to you — inasmuch as he blends Lycurgus with Socrates no less than with Pythagoras, as Dicaearchus thought. For Lycurgus, as you surely know, banished arithmetical proportion from Sparta as being democratic and mob-like, and introduced geometrical proportion instead, as suited to a temperate oligarchy and a lawful kingship; for the one assigns equality by number, the other what is fitting by ratio, and does not mix everything together indiscriminately, but there is in it a clear discrimination between the good and the bad — not by scales or by lots, but by allotting to each always what is proper to it, according to the difference of virtue and vice. This is the proportion that god applies to affairs, called, my dear Tyndares, justice and retribution, teaching us that the just is equitable, not that equality is just; for the equality that most people pursue, being the greatest of all injustices, god removes it as far as possible and preserves what is fitting, defining things geometrically according to reason and according to law."

We applauded this. But Tyndares said Florus was being envious, and he called on Autobulus to take up the argument against Florus and chastise it. Autobulus declined to do that, but brought forward instead an opinion of his own. He said that geometry is a study of nothing else than the properties and modifications having to do with limits, and that god fashions the cosmos in no other way than by giving limit to matter, which is unlimited — not in size or number, but because the ancients were accustomed to call "unlimited" whatever is indefinite and unbounded on account of its disorder and irregularity. For shape and form are the limit of everything that has been shaped and formed, and matter, deprived of these, was in itself formless and shapeless; but when numbers and ratios came to be present in it, as though it were bound and encompassed by lines, and from lines by planes and depths, it furnished the first forms and differentiations of bodies, as it were foundations, for the generation of air and earth and water and fire.

"For it would have been impossible and impracticable for equalities of sides and similarities of angles and harmonious proportions to arise in octahedra and icosahedra, and further in pyramids and cubes, out of matter that is disordered and wandering, without something to set bounds to each thing and articulate it geometrically. Hence, once limit had come to be present in the unlimited, the universe was fitted together and blended in the best possible way and became, and continues to become, bounded — while matter is always forcing its way toward re-emerging into the indefinite and fleeing from being made subject to geometry, and reason lays hold of it and circumscribes it and distributes it into forms and differences, from which all growing things have derived their generation and constitution." When this had been said, they asked me too to contribute something to the discussion. I praised the opinions that had been expressed as genuine and proper to those who had put them forward, and said that they had sufficient plausibility. "But," I said, "so that you may not undervalue yourselves nor look entirely outside your own resources, listen to the argument on this subject most highly esteemed among our teachers.

"For among the most geometrical of theorems, or rather problems, is this: given two figures, to construct a third that is equal to the one and similar to the other; and it is said that upon discovering this Pythagoras offered a sacrifice. For this is certainly far more elegant and more musical than that other theorem, which demonstrated that the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the squares on the sides about the right angle." "You put it well," said Diogenianus, "but what has this to do with the argument?" "You will readily understand," I said, "if you recall the division in the Timaeus, where he divided into three the primary things from which the cosmos derived its generation, of which we call the one god, by the most just of names, another matter, and another form. Now matter is the most disordered of underlying things, form the most beautiful of paradigms, and god the best of causes. He wished, then, so far as was possible, to leave nothing that could be bounded unbounded, but to order nature by reason and number, making one thing out of all the underlying elements together, as much as form and as much as matter combined could produce.

"Hence, having set himself this problem — given two things, to make a third — he made, and makes, and forever preserves the cosmos, equal to matter and similar to form: for since it always exists in a state of generation and change and all manner of experiences, on account of the innate necessity of its bodily nature, it is aided by its father and maker through the reason that defines its being with reference to the paradigm; and the circumference of existing things is more beautiful than that which is merely proportionate." A commotion arose while we were dining at Athens at Ammonius's house, resounding through the residence, as people outside were shouting for the general — for Ammonius was serving his third term as general. When he had sent some of his attendants to quell the disturbance, and they had sent the men away, we ourselves began to inquire why those inside hear along with those shouting from outside, while those outside do not in the same way hear those inside.

Ammonius said that this had already been resolved by Aristotle: that a voice from within, carried outward into the vast and open air, is immediately dimmed and dispersed, while a voice coming from outside inward suffers nothing of the kind, but is held together and remains distinct; but this other matter required more explanation — why voices are more resonant at night, and preserve their clarity along with their volume more purely. "To me, then," he said, "it does not seem a poor contrivance of providence to have furnished clarity for hearing at a time when sight has little or no work to do at all. For since the air is dark, according to Empedocles, 'of desolate, blind night,' whatever it takes away from the eyes' power of perceiving in advance, it restores through the ears. But since it is necessary also to track down the causes of things that come about of necessity by nature, and this too is proper to the natural philosopher — the study of material and instrumental principles — who among you," he said, "will be the first to offer a plausible account?" When silence followed, Boethus said that, when he was still young and playing the sophist, he used to employ postulates from geometry and take unproved hypotheses, but now he would use some of the propositions already demonstrated by Epicurus.

"Existing things move within what does not exist; for much void is scattered and mixed among the atoms of the air. Now when the air is diffused and has breadth and circulation on account of its rarity, the empty spaces between its particles that are left are small and slight, and the atoms, being scattered about, occupy a large amount of space; but when it is contracted and a compression of the atoms into a small space occurs, and they collide with one another under compulsion, they create much open space and large gaps outside themselves. This happens at night on account of the cold; for heat relaxes and separates and dissolves compressions — hence things that boil, and soften, and melt occupy more room than their bodies did before; and conversely, things that congeal and cool contract toward one another and draw together and leave voids in the vessels that contain them, and spaces from which they have withdrawn.

"Now the voice, when it advances and meets many bodies packed closely together, is either altogether blunted, or suffers great breaks and many collisions and delays; but in an empty space free of bodies it has a smooth and continuous and unimpeded run to the ear, preserving its clarity together with its speed all the way with the sound. You see indeed that the empty parts of vessels, when struck, respond more readily to the blows and extend the sound far, and often, being carried round in a circle, transmit it widely; but a vessel filled with a solid body, or with some liquid altogether, becomes deaf and voiceless, since the sound has no road or space by which to pass through. Of the bodies themselves, gold and stone, on account of their density, produce thin and harsh sounds and quickly extinguish the notes within themselves; but bronze is sonorous and talkative, in that it is full of voids and light and thin in bulk, not compressed by many bodies pressing on one another, but possessing an abundant mixture of a yielding and impalpable substance,

which gives it facility for its other motions as well, and receives the voice kindly and sends it on its way, until someone, laying hold of it as though along a road, arrests it and blinds the void — at which point it stops and ceases to advance further, on account of the obstruction. These things," he said, "seem to me to make the night resonant, and the day less so, since the heat and diffusion of the air produce only small intervals between the atoms." "Let no one," he said, "raise objections to the first hypotheses." And I, at Ammonius's bidding to say something in reply to him, said, "Your first hypotheses, my dear Boethus, although they contain a great deal of void, may stand; but you are not right to posit void as what preserves and moves sound. For it is proper to silence and stillness to be untouched, unaffected, and unstruck, whereas voice is the striking of a resonant body, and resonant is what is sympathetic with itself and continuous in its own substance, and easily moved and light and uniform and responsive because of tension and continuity — such as is the air among us. For water and earth and fire are themselves voiceless, but all of them give sound when breath falls upon them

and produce noises and crashes; whereas bronze has no share of void at all, but being blended with uniform and smooth breath, is readily struck and resonant. And if one must judge by sight, iron appears to have more of what is porous and full of void and honeycomb-like; yet it is exceedingly harsh-sounding and the most mute of the metals. There was, then, no need to trouble the night by contracting its..."

There was no need to cause trouble for the night by contracting and stretching taut its air, and elsewhere again leaving spaces and voids—as though the air were an obstacle to sound and were destroying the very substance of which it is itself the substance, body, and power. Without such devices, irregular nights—misty and stormy ones—would surely have to be more resonant than clear, evenly mixed nights, on the theory that atoms are pushed together in one place while the place they leave behind is left empty of bodies; and, most obviously of all, a cold day would have to be more resonant than a warm summer night. Neither of these is true.

So, having abandoned this explanation, I turn instead to Anaxagoras, who says that the air is set in motion by the sun with a trembling motion full of pulsations, as is evident from the tiny specks and fragments that constantly flit through a beam of light, which some call "motes." These particles, he says, hiss and crackle in response to the heat during the day and by their noise make speech hard to hear, whereas at night their agitation and sound become manifest.

When I had said this, Ammonius said, "Perhaps we shall look ridiculous, imagining we are refuting Democritus and correcting Anaxagoras. Still, the hissing must be removed from Anaxagoras' particles: it is neither plausible nor necessary. The trembling of the particles, and their motion as they are agitated in the light, are enough by themselves, often, to tear voices apart and scatter them. For the air, as has been said, is the body of voice; and by furnishing itself as substance, when it is stable it transmits the parts and movements of sounds far off, in a straight, smooth, and continuous line. Calm and stillness are resonant, and the opposite holds too, as Simonides says: 'nor did any leaf-shaking blast of winds then arise, which might have hindered the honey-sweet voice, as it spread, from reaching the ears of mortals.' Often the agitation of the air does not even let the articulate shape of speech reach our perception fully formed, yet it always carries something of its volume and magnitude. Night itself, then, by itself has nothing that sets the air in motion; but day has a great one—the sun—as Anaxagoras himself said."

Thrasyllus, Ammonius' son, took this up and said, "Then what has come over us, in god's name, that we think we must appeal to theoretical motions of the air while overlooking its plain, visible turbulence and violence? For that great ruler in heaven—the sun, our Zeus—does not creep up unnoticed or gently stir the smallest particles of air; the moment he appears he raises up and sets everything in motion, giving favorable signs, rousing peoples to their work. And they follow, as though reborn, 'thinking new thoughts with each day,' as Democritus says, with activities neither silent nor idle. Ibycus was not wrong to call dawn 'famed,' since it is then that both hearing and speaking already occur. But at night, the air being for the most part waveless and unheard, since everything is at rest, it naturally sends the voice up to us unbroken and whole."

Aristodemus of Cyprus, who was present, said, "But watch out, Thrasyllus, that this is not disproved by the night-battles and night-marches of great armies, which make voices carry no less far, even though the air is in turmoil and agitation. There is also a cause on our own side: what we ourselves say at night is for the most part urgent—rousing someone with pressing emotion, or making inquiries—so that we make our calls strained and forceful. Whatever rouses us to action and speech at just the time we are naturally disposed to keep still is no small or gentle thing, but something great, driven by the compulsion of some pressing need, so that our voices too are carried more forcefully."

When the Isthmian Games were held, in the second term of Sospis' presidency of the games, we managed to avoid his other banquets, at which he entertained many guests at once, and often all the citizens together; but on one occasion, when he received his closest friends and men of letters at his home, we too were present. When the first tables had been cleared, someone came bringing Herodes the orator a palm branch and a woven crown, sent by an acquaintance who had won a prize for a speech of praise. Herodes accepted these graciously and sent them back, saying he was puzzled why the different contests each have their own crown, while the palm belongs to all of them alike.

"I, for one," he said, "am not persuaded by those who point to the equality of its leaves—rising up opposite each other and growing out together, as it were—and claim this resembles a contest and rivalry, and that the very word 'victory' (nikē) derives from 'not yielding' (mē eikon); for a great many other plants too distribute nourishment to their paired leaves with what amounts to exact measure and weight, producing a marvelous equality and order. Still less convincing are those who suppose the ancients loved the palm for its beauty and fine growth, inferring this from Homer, who compared the bloom of the Phaeacian girl to 'a young shoot of a palm.' You surely are not unaware that people also pelted victors with roses and campions, and some even with apples and pomegranates, as beautiful things, always honoring their champions this way. But the palm has nothing so conspicuously superior to other plants, since in Greece it does not even bear edible fruit, only fruit that is unripe and unfit to eat. If, as in Syria and Egypt, it produced its date—most delightful of all things to look at, and in sweetness to eat as a dessert—nothing else could be compared to it. The king, they say, being especially fond of the Peripatetic philosopher Nicolaus, who was sweet in character, slender and tall, and full in the face with a ruddy blush, used to call the largest and finest dates 'Nicolauses,' and to this day they are still called that."

In saying this, Herodes seemed to have brought in the story about Nicolaus no less pleasantly than the question itself. "All the more reason, then," said Sospis, "for each of us to be eager, as far as each is able, to contribute something to the question. I offer mine first: the reputation of victors ought to remain, as far as possible, unfading and ageless, and the palm is among the longest-lived of plants, as the Orphic verses too attest somewhere: 'a creature living as long as the crown-topped shoots of palms.' And it is almost alone in truly possessing what is falsely claimed of many other plants. What is that? To keep its leaves steadfastly, to be truly evergreen. For neither the laurel, nor the olive, nor the myrtle, nor anything else said not to shed its leaves, do we ever see keeping the very same leaves forever; rather, as the first ones fall away, others grow in their place, and, like a city, each remains ever-living and undiminished only as a whole. But the palm, casting off none of what grows on it, is truly and constantly evergreen; and it is precisely this strength of it that people especially associate with the might of victory."

When Sospis had finished, Protogenes the grammarian, addressing Praxiteles the guide by name, said, "Shall we simply let these orators go on arguing their own way, from probabilities and plausibilities, while we ourselves contribute nothing from history? And yet I believe I recall—having read it recently in the Attic histories—that Theseus was the first to hold a contest on Delos, and that he tore off a branch of the sacred palm, which was then called a 'spadix.'" Praxiteles replied, "This is uncertain, and people will say we should ask Theseus himself why, when he presided over the contest, he tore a branch from the palm rather than from laurel or olive. Consider instead whether the prize of victory is really Pythian, instituted by Amphictyon; for there too victors were first adorned, in honor of the god, with laurel and palm, since people dedicate to the god not laurels or olives but palms—as Nicias did on Delos when serving as choregos for the Athenians, and as the Athenians did at Delphi, and, earlier still, Cypselus the Corinthian. For our god besides is a lover of contests and of victory, competing himself in lyre-playing, song, and discus-throwing, and, as some say, even in boxing, and lending aid to men who compete, as Homer testifies, portraying Achilles saying: 'we bid these two men, being the best, to raise their fists and box hard for this prize, and to whichever Apollo grants the endurance to win...' And of the archers, the one who prayed to the god hit the mark and took first prize, while the other, too proud to pray, missed the target. Nor, indeed, is it likely that the Athenians dedicated their gymnasium to Apollo without reason, by mere chance; rather, they believed that the god from whom we have our health also gives good condition and strength for contests. And since there are light and heavy events, it is recorded that the Delphians sacrifice to Apollo as a boxer, and the Cretans and Lacedaemonians as a runner. And do not the dedications of spoils, first-fruits of victory, and trophies at Delphi likewise testify that this god has the greatest share in the power to win and to prevail?"

While he was still speaking, Cephisus, son of Theon, broke in and said, "But none of this smells of history or of guidebooks at all—it has been dragged up from the very heart of Peripatetic commonplaces and argued merely for plausibility. What's more, my friends, by hoisting up the god like a piece of stage machinery, in tragic fashion, you are simply trying to frighten off anyone who disagrees. The god, as is fitting, is equally well-disposed to everyone. Let us instead, following Sospis—for he leads us well—return again to the palm, since it offers our discussion plenty of handholds. The Babylonians hymn and sing of it as providing them three hundred and sixty kinds of uses; for us Greeks it is scarcely useful at all, and this very fruitlessness might belong to an athletic ideal: being the most beautiful and the largest of trees, it is, through its own good discipline, unfruitful among us—just as an athlete's regimen consumes his nourishment on his body, so only a small and poor amount is left over for the palm to put into seed.

But beyond all this it has a peculiar property, shared by no other tree, which I am about to mention: if you lay weights on top of a palm-wood beam and press down on it, it does not yield by bending downward, but curves the other way, as though resisting the force applied to it. The very same thing happens in athletic contests: those who give in to their trials through weakness and softness are pressed down and bent by them, while those who vigorously endure their training are raised up and grow, not only in body but in spirit as well."

Someone raised the question why ship-captains draw their water from the Nile at night rather than by day. To some it seemed that they feared the sun, since it pre-heats liquids and makes them more prone to spoil: everything that has been heated or warmed is always more ready to change, having already, through the loosening of its quality, been made susceptible. Cold, by contrast, by compressing things, seems to hold each thing together and preserve it in its natural state—water not least of all, since coldness is a property naturally proper to water, as snow shows, keeping meat resistant to spoiling for a long time. Heat, on the other hand, drives many things, honey among them, out of their own proper quality: honey spoils when boiled, but if it stays unheated it even helps preserve other things from spoiling.

The strongest confirmation of this explanation was found in still, marshy waters: in winter they are no different from other waters to drink, but in summer they turn foul and unwholesome. Since night is thought to correspond to winter, and day to summer, people suppose that water stays more unaltered and unaffected if it is drawn at night. To these fairly plausible arguments there was added another account, confirmed, as it were, by the plain but reliable experience of sailors: they said they draw the water at night while the river is still settled and quiet, whereas by day, with many people drawing water and sailing about, and many animals stirring through it, it becomes churned up, thick, and earthy—and such water is prone to spoil, since all mixed things are more liable to decay than unmixed ones, for mixture produces strife, strife produces change, and putrefaction is itself a kind of change.

That is why painters call the mixing of colors "corruption," and why the poet used the word "stained" for dyeing, while common usage calls what is unmixed and pure "incorruptible" and "undefiled." Earth especially, when mixed with water, alters and spoils its natural, drinkable quality; hence still, hollow waters, which fill up with much earth, are more prone to spoil, while running waters escape and shake off the earth carried against them. Hesiod did well to praise a spring that is "ever-flowing, outflowing, and unmuddied," for what is uncorrupted is wholesome, and what is unmixed and pure is uncorrupted. The differences among kinds of soil bear this out no less: waters running through mountainous, rocky ground are firmer than those of marshy, level ground, since they carry off little earth.

The Nile, however, enclosed by soft country—or rather mixed with it as blood is mixed with flesh—enjoys sweetness and is filled with nutrients of a weighty, nourishing power, but it flows along mixed and turbid, and all the more so when it is stirred up, for motion mixes the earthy element into the water; but when it settles, the earthy part sinks down and departs by its own weight. That is why they draw water at night, getting ahead of the sun as well, under whose action the finest and lightest part of the water is always drawn off and lost.

When my younger sons had lingered in the theater over some performances and arrived rather late for dinner, Theon's sons jokingly mocked them, calling them "dinner-delayers" and "gloom-suppers" and the like; and they, defending themselves, called the others in turn "dinner-chasers." One of the older men remarked that it is really the one who is late for dinner who deserves the name "dinner-chaser," since whenever he is running behind he appears to hurry along faster than a walking pace. He also recalled a witty remark of Galba, Caesar's jester, who used to call those who arrived late to dinner "dinner-cravers," since, busy as they were, their love of dining kept them from ever declining an invitation.

I remarked that Polycharmus too, when he was a popular leader in Athens and was giving an account of his life before the Assembly, said, "These, men of Athens, are my achievements"—and added, among other things, "never, when invited to dinner, did I arrive last." Such a thing is generally thought quite in keeping with democratic manners; conversely, people forced to wait for latecomers resent them as disagreeable and oligarchic. But Soclarus, speaking in defense of the young men, said, "Nor, indeed, is Pittacus said to have been called a 'gloom-supper' by Alcaeus for dining late, but rather..."

...as one who took pleasure, for the most part, in disreputable and worthless drinking companions. But dining too early was once considered disgraceful, and they say that the word for “breakfast” (akratisma) comes from akrasia, “lack of self-control.” Theon took this up and said, “Not at all — not if we are to believe those who record the ancient way of life. For they say that the men of old, being industrious and temperate at once, ate bread at dawn dipped in unmixed wine and nothing else; and this, they say, is why that meal was called akratisma, from the unmixed wine (akratos), while they called what was prepared for the evening meal opson, ‘relish’ — for they dined late, once their business for the day was done. From this a further question arose about deipnon (dinner) and ariston (the midday or morning meal), and where each got its name. Ariston seemed to be identical with akratisma — Homer bears witness to this when he speaks of Eumaeus and his companions preparing their ariston ‘at the appearing of dawn’ — and it seemed plausible that ariston was named for the early hour, just as aurion, ‘tomorrow,’ is. Deipnon, on the other hand, was so named because it gives rest (dianapauei) from toil, since people dine after doing something, or in the middle of doing it; this too can be gathered from Homer, who says, ‘when the woodcutter got his deipnon ready.’ Unless, by Zeus, the truth is rather this: that they took their ariston straightaway and without trouble, casually, from whatever was at hand, while their deipnon was already elaborately prepared beforehand — and so they called the one ‘easiest’ and the other, as it were, ‘the labored one.’”

Our brother Lamprias, who is naturally impudent and fond of a laugh, said he would show that the Roman names for these meals were a thousand times closer to the Greek originals than the Greek names themselves — so much license being granted to talking nonsense. For, he said, the Romans call dinner cena because of its communality (koinonia); the old Romans used to eat their ariston by themselves, but they dined together with their friends. The midday meal, meanwhile, was called prandium after the hour, since endios means ‘midday,’ and the rest one takes after ariston is called endiazein; or else the word signifies some early food or nourishment which they take before they grow faint from hunger. “And indeed,” he said, “to leave aside the bedding, the wine, the honey, the oil, the tasting, the toasting — countless other things plainly use the very same words. Who would not say that komos in Greek becomes comissatio, and that mixing (kerasai) becomes miscere, as in Homer, ‘and she in turn mixed honeyed wine in the bowl’? That mensa is the table, from being set ‘in the middle,’ and panem is bread, as loosening hunger; that the wreath is corona, from the head, just as Homer likened the helmet to a stephane; that caedere is keirein, ‘to cut,’ and dentes are the teeth, and labra the lips, from taking (lambanein) food through them? Either we must listen to these derivations too without laughing, or else we must not so easily accept those other ones either — cutting words apart and demolishing them piece by piece, like little walls, and slipping through the gaps we make.”

Sullas of Carthage, when I arrived in Rome after a long absence, announced a dinner — the hypodektikon, as the Romans call it — and invited, among a few other companions, a pupil of Moderatus the Pythagorean named Lucius, from Tyrrhenia. This man, seeing our Philinus abstaining from living creatures, as was natural, was led on to speak of Pythagoras’s teachings, and declared Pythagoras to be Tyrrhenian — not by descent from his father, as some others claim, but himself born, raised, and educated in Tyrrhenia — insisting on this most of all from the symbols, such as: not to leave the bedclothes in disorder on rising from bed; not to leave the impression of a pot lifted from the ashes but to smooth it away; not to receive swallows into the house; not to step over a broom; and not to keep at home any bird with curved talons. For he said that these precepts, though spoken and written by Pythagoreans generally, were actually observed and kept only by the Tyrrhenians.

When Lucius had said this, the matter of the swallows above all seemed strange — that a harmless, man-loving creature should be shut out just like the birds of curved talon, which are the most savage and murderous of all. And indeed the one explanation by which some of the ancients thought to resolve the symbol — as an allusion aimed at slanderous and whispering acquaintances — Lucius himself did not accept; for the swallow has the least share of any bird in whispering, and no more talkativeness or chatter than jays, partridges, or hens.

“Is it, then,” said Sullas, “because of the myth of the child’s murder that they hold swallows in abomination, casting on us from a distance those sufferings out of which, they say, Tereus and the women did and suffered lawless and terrible things — and to this day they call the birds ‘Daulids’? And when Gorgias the sophist was fouled by a swallow, he looked up at it and said, ‘That is not fine, Philomela.’ Or is this too an empty notion? For the nightingale, though implicated in the very same tragic tale, they neither exclude nor banish.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “this too has some sense to it, Sullas. But consider whether, in the first place, by the very reasoning that excludes the curved-taloned bird, the swallow too falls into disrepute among them: for it is a flesh-eater, and it kills and eats above all the cicadas, sacred and musical creatures that they are; and its flight hugs the ground, as it hunts small, delicate creatures, as Aristotle says.

“Again, alone among the creatures that share our roof, it lives with us contributing nothing and lodges without paying any due. Yet the stork, though it shares neither shelter nor warmth nor any safety or help from us, still pays some toll for the ground it occupies: it goes about destroying creatures hostile and hateful to man — toads and snakes. The swallow, by contrast, receives all these benefits from us, and once she has reared her chicks to maturity, departs ungrateful and unheard-of again. And here is the strangest thing of all: alone among the creatures that live in our houses, the fly and the swallow are never tamed to man, nor will they tolerate touch, or companionship, or any sharing in work or play — the fly out of fear, because it is so often mistreated and driven off, the swallow because she is by nature man-hating and, through her distrust, forever untamed and suspicious. If, then, we must view such matters not straightforwardly but, bending them back as it were, look for the reflections of other things within them, then he who set up the swallow as an example of fickleness and ingratitude does not mean to allow those who attach themselves to us for the occasion, and worm their way in, to be made close intimates beyond that point, given a share in hearth, home, and our most sacred things.”

Having said this, I think I gave the conversation license to continue, for I now pressed on boldly and confidently to the other symbols, offering fairly moral interpretations of each. As for the mark left by the pot, Philinus said they wipe it away to teach that one should leave no visible trace of anger behind, but that once it has boiled up and then subsided and settled, all resentment should be wiped clean away. The disturbing of the bedclothes seemed to some to hold no hidden meaning at all, but rather to make plain, in itself, what is unbecoming: that a place and an impression, like a mold, should be seen left behind by a man who has slept with his wedded wife. Sullas, however, guessed rather that the symbol was meant to deter sleeping during the day, since the bed is stripped of its readiness for sleep at once, at dawn — implying that one ought to rest at night and, once risen, act by day, and not overlook, so to speak, any trace of a fallen body; for a sleeping man is of no more use than a dead one. In support of this seemed to stand also the Pythagorean precept enjoining their companions never to lighten anyone’s burden, but rather to help load it on and pile it further — as men who allow themselves neither leisure nor ease.

Since, while all this was being said, Lucius neither found fault nor praised, but kept silent, listening quietly and looking down at himself, Empedocles, addressing Sullas by name, said: “Lucius our friend, if he is troubled by what is being said, then it is time for us to stop as well. But if these matters fall under the rule of silence, still I think that this at least is neither forbidden to say nor unfit to be carried to outsiders: that they abstained above all from fish. This too is recorded of the ancient Pythagoreans, and I myself have met pupils, in our own time, of Alexicrates, who, while otherwise partaking of other things moderately — and indeed even offering sacrifice, by Zeus — nonetheless refuse absolutely to so much as taste fish. The reason Tyndares the Spartan gave for this rule of silence was that it was a special privilege: that fish are called ellopes, as having their voice (opa) confined and shut in; and that the man who shares my name, bringing his teaching to a Pythagorean close, said, ‘guarding the doctrines within a silent mind, though it be less than they deserve,’ and that, altogether, these men regarded silence as something divine, since even the gods reveal what they intend to the wise through deeds and facts, without speech.”

When Lucius replied gently and simply that the true account, perhaps, still remained hidden and unspoken even now, but that there was no begrudging an attempt at what is plausible and likely, Theon the grammarian spoke first, saying that to prove Pythagoras Tyrrhenian would be a great undertaking, and not an easy one; but it is agreed that he spent a long time in the company of the wise men of Egypt, and that he emulated many of their practices, and approved above all those concerning the sacred rites of the priests — among them the matter of beans, since Herodotus says the Egyptians neither sow beans nor eat them, nor can even bear to look at them. And we know that their priests still abstain from fish even now; and in their state of ritual purity they also shun salt, so as to eat no relish, nor anything else mixed with sea-salt. Others give various other reasons for this, but there is one true one: hatred of the sea, as something not of our kind, alien to us, or rather altogether hostile by nature to the human element. For, they say, the gods are not nourished by the sea, as the Stoics suppose the stars to be; rather, on the contrary, it was into the sea that the father and savior of their land perished — the one they call the outflow of Osiris. And in mourning for the one born in its left-hand regions and destroyed in its right-hand ones, they hint at the ending of the Nile and its destruction, which occurs in the sea. For this reason they consider neither its water fit to drink, nor anything it nourishes or produces pure or akin to themselves, since such creatures share with them neither a common air nor a common food; but the very air that preserves and nourishes everything else is deadly to those creatures, as beings that have come into existence and live contrary to nature and need. And one should not be surprised that they consider sea creatures alien and unfit to be mixed into their own blood and breath, seeing that they will not even deign to greet ships’ pilots when they meet them, because such men make their living from the sea.”

Sullas, approving of this, added, concerning the Pythagoreans, that they for the most part tasted of sacrificial victims only after offering the first portions to the gods; but that no fish is ever fit for sacrifice or offering. I then, once they had finished, said that many people, both philosophers and laymen, would take up arms on Egypt’s behalf where the sea is concerned, reckoning up the many benefits it has provided to make our life easier and more pleasant. “But the Pythagoreans’ truce with fish, on the grounds that they are not of our kind, is strange, indeed rather absurd — or rather altogether savage, a kind of Cyclopean privilege granted to other creatures over kinship and intimacy, while they themselves are cooked and consumed at our hands. And yet they say that Pythagoras once bought up a catch of fish and then ordered the net let go — not as one indifferent to the fish as foreign and hostile, but as one paying ransom for captives who had become his friends and kin.”

“It is for this reason,” I said, “that the fairness and gentleness of these men suggests we should suspect quite the opposite: that perhaps it was for the sake of practicing justice, and habituating themselves to it, that they especially spared sea creatures — since these, unlike other creatures, give men no pretext at all, however slight, for ill-treatment, as fish do us no wrong, nor are they even capable of doing so. One may infer, both from their sayings and from their sacred rites, that the men of old considered it an accursed and unlawful act not merely to eat, but even to kill, any creature that does no harm; but hemmed in by sheer numbers pressing upon them, and, they say, urged on by some oracle from Delphi bidding them defend their crops as these were being destroyed, they began to sacrifice animals — yet still troubled and afraid as they did so, they called the act erdein and rhezein, ‘to perform,’ as though doing something momentous in sacrificing a living creature; and even now they keep strict watch against slaughtering a victim before it has nodded in assent under the libation poured over it. So scrupulous were they with regard to every kind of wrongdoing. And yet — to leave everything else aside — if people had abstained only from hens or hares, it would not have been long before, through sheer numbers, it became impossible either to inhabit a city or to enjoy the fruits of the earth; so that, necessity pressing them at first, it soon became, through pleasure, an easy matter to put an end to abstaining from meat altogether. But the race of sea creatures neither consumes the same air as we do, nor the same water, nor encroaches on our crops, but is contained as it were within another world of its own, keeping to its own boundaries; and death stands as the penalty over those who cross them, so that it gives the belly no pretext, small or great, against them. Rather, the hunting and netting of every kind of fish is plainly the work of gluttony and a love of delicacies, disturbing the seas for no just cause and plunging down into the depths. For surely no one calls the red mullet a ‘ravager of fields,’ nor the parrotfish a ‘grape-eater,’ nor calls any mullet or bass a ‘seed-gatherer,’ as we name land creatures in accusation; nor could one charge the largest fish with anything of what we pettily hold against the weasel or the household fly. And so, restraining themselves not by law alone from wronging man, but also by nature from wronging anything that does no harm, they made least use of fish among their relishes, or none at all; for even apart from the question of injustice, the whole business surrounding fish seems to display a kind of intemperance and gluttony, being extravagant and overly elaborate. This is why Homer represents not only the Greeks abstaining from fish while encamped beside the Hellespont, but sets no seafood before the luxury-loving Phaeacians either, nor before the dissolute suitors, though both peoples are islanders; and the companions of Odysseus, sailing over so vast a sea, nowhere let down hook, or line, or net, so long as barley-meal remained; but when the ship’s provisions had run out, shortly before they laid hands on the cattle of the Sun, they took to catching fish, making it not a relish but a necessary food, ‘with bent hooks, and hunger gnawed at their bellies’ — driven by that same necessity both to eat fish and to devour the cattle of the Sun. This is why abstinence from fish has become, not only among the Egyptians or the Syrians but among the Greeks as well, a part of ritual purity — warding off, I think, along with what is just, also the excess and extravagance of such eating.”

Nestor then took up the argument: “As for my own fellow citizens, they get no credit at all—just like the Megarians. And yet you have often heard me say that the priests of Poseidon, whom we call hieromnemones, never eat fish; for the god is called Phytalmios, ‘the Nurturer.’ The descendants of Helen the ancient also sacrifice to Poseidon as ancestral god, holding that man was born from the moist element, as the Syrians likewise believe; and that is why they too revere the fish, as a kinsman and foster-brother, philosophizing rather more reasonably than Anaximander. For Anaximander does not declare that fish and men came into being among the same beings, but that men were first generated within fish, and were nourished there like dogfish, and when they became capable of helping themselves, then came forth and took to dry land. So then, just as fire consumes the wood from which it was kindled—though that wood was, so to speak, its mother and father—so too (as the poet who inserted the Marriage of Ceyx into the works of Hesiod put it) Anaximander, having declared the fish to be the common father and mother of mankind, thereby discredited it as food.”

Philo the physician insisted that the disease called elephantiasis had become known only quite recently, since none of the ancient physicians had made any mention of this affliction, being occupied instead with other, minor and obscure conditions difficult for most people to observe. I myself, for my part, produced as a witness on his behalf Athenodorus the philosopher, who records in the first book of his Epidemics that it was only in the time of Asclepiades that not only elephantiasis but also hydrophobia first came to light. Those present were astonished that new diseases should then, for the first time, have had their origin and formation in nature; but they thought it no less astonishing that such considerable symptoms could have escaped notice for so long a time. Most of them, however, inclined rather toward the second view, as being the more plausible for human nature—holding that nature is least of all, in matters of this kind, fond of novelty, and no eager artisan of new conditions in the body, any more than in a city. Diogenianus then said that the diseases and affections of the soul, too, follow a certain common and ancestral path.

“And yet,” he said, “vice is manifold and adventurous of every sort, and the soul is self-governing and master of itself, able, if it wishes, to change and turn easily; still, its very disorder has a certain order, and it keeps due measure even in its passions, as the sea does in its overflowings, and no form of wickedness has broken out that was unrecorded even among the ancients. Rather, there are many varieties of desire, countless movements and shapes of fear, and the forms of grief and pleasure are a task too great to enumerate exhaustively; none of this is a thing of today or yesterday, but it has always existed, and no one knows from where it first appeared. How, then, could a new disease or a late-born affection come to the body, when the body—unlike the soul, which has within itself its own source of motion—is instead bound up with causes shared in common with the rest of nature, and mixed into a compound whose very indeterminacy wanders within fixed limits, like a ship tossing about within a confined course? For the constitution of disease is not without cause, so as to introduce, contrary to all order, a coming-into-being and a power out of nothing, and it is no easy task to discover a genuinely new cause—one that did not simply declare that unprecedented air, or strange water, or untasted foods, now for the first time flowing in here from certain other worlds or spaces between worlds, are the reason. For it is from these very things—the things by which we also live—that we fall ill; there are no seeds of disease that belong to disease alone. Rather, it is the vices of these things in relation to us, and our own errors regarding them, that disturb nature; and these disturbances have everlasting varieties, though they are often called by new names.

For names belong to convention, but the affections themselves belong to nature; hence it is that, being variously colored within these fixed bounds, they have produced the illusion of novelty. Just as it is possible for a sudden barbarism or solecism to arise in the parts of speech and in their combinations with one another, so too the mixtures of the body have fixed kinds of slips and transgressions, belonging in a sense to nature itself, even among the things that are contrary to nature. In this respect the mythographers, too, are clever: they say that altogether monstrous and prodigious animals came into being at the time of the Battle of the Giants, when the moon was deviating from its course and not making its risings from its accustomed point. In just the same way, some people think it fitting that nature gives birth to new diseases as if they were portents, fabricating for the change a cause that is neither plausible nor implausible, but simply pointing to the excess and the greater degree of certain affections as constituting their novelty and difference. This is not correct, my dear Philo: intensification and increase add magnitude or quantity, but they do not remove the underlying thing from its own kind. Just so, I think, elephantiasis is not some intensified form of one of the scaly, mangy conditions, nor is hydrophobia one of the disorders of the stomach or of melancholy. And yet this, surely, is remarkable: that not even Homer was ignorant of it, unbeknownst to you—for by ‘the raging dog’ he is clearly referring to this very affliction, from which men, too, are said to ‘rage,’ or go mad.”

When Diogenianus had gone through these points, Philo himself replied with a measured response to his argument, and urged me to join him in speaking on behalf of the ancient physicians—on the ground that they would be liable to a charge of neglect, or of ignorance in the gravest matters, if indeed these diseases do not turn out to be more recent than their own era. In the first place, then, it seemed to us that Diogenianus was not right to insist that intensifications and relaxations make no difference and do not remove a thing from its kind; for on that reasoning we would have to say that vinegar does not differ from sour wine, nor bitterness from astringency, nor darnel among the wheat from mint among the sweet herbs. And yet these are plainly departures and changes of quality—the relaxations being cases of things withering away, the intensifications cases of things growing more vehement. Or else we would have to say that there is no difference between the flame of a thin vapor and the mere glow of a flame, nor between the hoarfrost of dew and the hail of a rainstorm, but that all these are simply intensifications and vehemences of the same thing; and it would then be time to say that blindness differs not at all from dimness of sight, nor cholera from mere nausea, but only by degree, by more and less. Yet none of this is reasonable. For if they grant that what has now come about is simply the acceptance of an intensification and a vehemence, then, in the first place, since the novelty consists in quantity and not in quality, the paradox remains just the same; and secondly, as Sophocles said—not badly—about things disbelieved because they did not exist before, when the question is whether they have now come into being: ‘all things uncreated came first, once for all.’ It seems reasonable, too, that the affections did not all run out toward their coming-into-being at once, in a single dash, as if a single starting-gate had fallen, but that, one following upon another in constant succession, each received its first origin at some particular time.

“One might conjecture,” I said, “that those conditions arising from deficiency, and whatever is produced by an onset of heat or cold, were the first to appear in human bodies; but that surfeit, luxury, and self-indulgence came upon men later, the result of idleness and leisure amid an abundance of necessities that produced a great deal of harmful residue—residue in which the varied forms of disease, and every manner of their combination and mixture with one another, are constantly producing something new. For what accords with nature is ordered and well defined, since nature is order, or the product of order; but disorder, like the sand of Pindar, escapes number, and whatever is contrary to nature is at once indeterminate and unlimited.

“Things admit of being true only in a single, simple way, but of being false in countless ways: rhythms and harmonies, too, have their fixed rules, yet the ways in which men go wrong in lyre-playing, song, and dance could not be encompassed by anyone. Indeed, Phrynichus the tragic poet says of himself: ‘Dance gave me as many figures as the waves the deadly night of winter raises on the sea.’ And Chrysippus says that the combinations arising from only ten simple propositions exceed a million in number. But this was refuted by Hipparchus, who demonstrated that the affirmative form contains one hundred thousand and one thousand and forty-nine compound combinations, and the negative form of it three hundred and ten thousand, nine hundred and fifty-two. Xenocrates, for his part, declared that the number of syllables which the letters produce in combination with one another amounts to twenty times ten thousand times ten thousand.

What wonder is it, then, if the body—possessing within itself so many powers, and constantly taking on so many qualities introduced through food and drink, and employing motions and changes that keep neither a single fixed occasion nor always the same order—should, through the combinations of all these things with one another, sometimes produce diseases that are new and unfamiliar? This is just as Thucydides records the plague at Athens to have occurred, inferring its lack of precedent chiefly from the fact that the flesh-eating animals would not touch the corpses. So too those who fell ill around the Red Sea, as Agatharchides has recorded, experienced other symptoms both new and unrecorded: little snake-like worms that ate through their shins and popped out from their arms, and which, when touched, would retreat back in again, and produced unbearable inflammations as they coiled themselves within the muscles. This affliction, like many others, is known to have occurred neither before nor since to anyone but those people alone. Indeed, a certain man suffering from difficulty urinating, over a long period, passed a stalk of barley-straw complete with joints. And we know of our own guest-friend Ephebus at Athens expelling, together with a great quantity of seed, a small hairy creature that moved swiftly on many feet.

Aristotle records that Timon’s tortoise in Cilicia hibernated for two months of every year, showing no sign at all that it was alive except by breathing alone. And indeed, in the records of Menon’s school it is written down as a sign of a liver ailment that domestic mice would be carefully watched and chased—a thing which is nowhere seen to happen now. We ought not, then, to be astonished if something occurs that did not exist before, nor if something that did exist before has since disappeared; for the cause lies in the nature of bodies, which takes on different compositions at different times. As for introducing new air or strange water as a cause, let us set that aside, if Diogenianus does not wish it—though we do know that the followers of Democritus both say and write that, when worlds outside our own perish and bodies of a foreign kind flow in from the effluence, the beginnings of plagues and unfamiliar afflictions often intrude here as a result. Let us also set aside the local devastations among us caused by earthquakes, droughts, and rainstorms, by which the winds and the springs, having an earth-born nature, are necessarily affected along with the earth and change along with it. But as for the change that has occurred with respect to food, delicacies, and other habits of diet on the body, this must not be passed over.

Many things once untasted and inedible have now become most pleasant, such as wine mixed with honey and the womb of animals; and they say that the ancients did not even eat brain, which is why Homer says, ‘I value him no more than a fig,’ speaking in this way of brain, referring to the practice of throwing it away and discarding it in disgust. And we know that many of our older contemporaries are still unable to taste ripe cucumber, the Median apple (citron), or pepper. From such things, then, it is reasonable that bodies should experience strange effects and shift gradually in their compositions, producing their own peculiar quality and residue; and further, that the order and rearrangement of foods should make no small difference. For what are called ‘cold tables’—of oysters, sea urchins, raw vegetables—once occupied, as Plato says of light things, the position from tail to mouth; now, having been transferred, they occupy the first place instead of the last.

A great matter, too, is that of what are called appetizers taken before drinking: the ancients did not even drink water before eating something solid, whereas people nowadays, fasting and already half-drunk, take hold of their food with a body already soaked through and seething, offering thin, sharp, and pungent things as kindling for the appetite, and then gorging themselves on the rest in that condition. And nothing is weaker in the face of change, or more productive of the origin of new diseases, than the great susceptibility of the flesh to what happens at the baths—just as iron is softened and made to flow by fire, and then receives its tempering and hardening from cold water. ‘There flow into Acheron the Pyriphlegethon’: this, I think, is what one of those who lived not long before us might have said, on the opening of a bathhouse door.

For those men of old used such loose and soft habits that King Alexander himself once slept in the bathhouse while running a fever, and the wives of the Gauls used to bring pots of porridge into the baths and eat together with their children while bathing at the same time. But nowadays the baths seem to rage like mad dogs, barking and tearing at us: the air drawn in within them, having become a mixture of moisture and fire, allows no part of the body to remain at rest, but shakes and disturbs every particle of it and dislodges it from its place, until we quench ourselves, all fevered and boiling. ‘There is, then, no need,’ I said, ‘my dear Diogenianus, for the argument to resort to extraneous or otherworldly causes; the change in diet itself is quite capable, on its own, of both generating some diseases and making others disappear.’”

While reading Aristotle’s Physical Problems on our journey to Thermopylae, Florus himself, as philosophical natures are generally prone to do, became filled with many perplexities and passed them on to his companions, bearing witness to Aristotle’s own statement that wide learning creates many starting points for perplexity. Now the rest of these questions provided us with a not ungraceful pastime during the day, in our walks; but the matter said about dreams—that they are unreliable and false, especially during the leaf-shedding months—came up again after dinner, I am not sure how, when Favorinus had taken up other subjects for discussion. To your companions, then, who are my sons, it seemed that Aristotle had resolved the difficulty; and they thought there was no need to inquire or say anything more than, like him, to blame the fruits of the season. For, being still young and full of vigor, they generate a great deal of turbulent breath within the body—

for it is not likely that wine alone ferments and grows agitated, nor that oil, when newly pressed, makes a crackling noise in lamps, as the heat throws off vapor in waves; rather, we see that fresh grain, too, and all the season’s fruit, are swollen and distended until they breathe off what is gaseous and unconcocted. And as evidence that some foods are conducive to bad dreams and disturbing to the visions seen in sleep, they used as testimony both beans and the head of the octopus, which those who wish to practice divination through dreams are told to avoid. Favorinus himself, though in most respects an utterly devoted admirer of Aristotle, and one who assigns the Peripatetic school the largest share of plausibility, on that occasion nonetheless offered some argument...

...of Democritus, an old argument that he brought out, as it were, from smoke and dimness, and set about clearing and brightening. He put forward this very homely doctrine that Democritus states: “images sink deep into bodies through the pores and produce the visions that occur in sleep as they are carried back up; and these images travel about, coming off from everything—from utensils and clothes and plants, but especially from living creatures—because of much agitation and heat, not only bearing shapes and impressions molded from the body—as Epicurus supposes, following Democritus up to this point but then abandoning the argument—but also gathering up and drawing along with them, from each source, impressions of the movements and deliberations of the soul, and of characters and passions, and when they strike upon us, they speak and report, as if alive, to those who receive them, the opinions, reasonings, and impulses of those who sent them out, whenever they approach while keeping their images distinct and unconfused.”

This happens above all when their passage occurs through smooth air, unimpeded and swift. But the autumn air, in which the trees shed their leaves, has much unevenness and roughness, and it distorts and deflects the images in many directions, and makes their clarity faint and weak through the slowness of their passage as it grows dim—just as, conversely, images that leap forth quickly and are carried swiftly from things that are seething and burning hot render their impressions fresh and significant.

Then, looking over at Autobulus and his companions with a smile, he said, “But I see that you are already able to fight shadows against these images, and to think you are accomplishing something by applying touch to an old opinion as if to a painting.” And Autobulus said, “Stop your embroidering at us; we are not unaware that, wishing to make Aristotle's opinion prevail, you have set up Democritus's opinion as a mere shadow beside it. So we shall turn to that opinion and do battle with it, since it accuses the new fruits and the dear autumn produce unjustly. For summer bears them witness, and so does the late season, when the autumn fruit is most green and bursting with sap, as Antimachus said;

for those of us who eat it fresh, just as it is produced, are less troubled by deceptive and false dreams. But the leaf-shedding months, already encamping alongside winter, keep their foods in digestion, and what remains of the tree-fruits is shriveled and wrinkled, having let go of that sharp, maddening quality entirely. Moreover, those who drink new wine at the earliest opportunity drink it in the month of Anthesterion, after winter; and that day we call the day of the Good Spirit, while the Athenians call it the Jar-Opening.

We see even the workers, fearful, always drawing off the must while it is still fermenting. So let us abandon this slandering of the gods' gifts and take another road, the one that the very name of the season points to, along with the airy and false dreams. For it is called ‘leaf-shedding’ on account of the coldness and dryness that then causes the leaves to fall away—except for whatever is warm or oily, such as olive, laurel, and palm, or moist, such as myrtle and ivy;

for in these plants the blending of qualities helps them, but not in the others: for the sticky, cohesive quality does not remain, either because the moisture is thickened by cold or dried up through deficiency or weakness. Now it is possible for plants too to flourish and grow through moisture or warmth, but this is truer still of animals; and conversely, cold and dryness are destructive. That is why Homer charmingly used to call mortals ‘the moist ones,’ and called rejoicing ‘being warmed,’ while he called what is painful and fearful ‘chilling’ and ‘shivering.’

The words ‘bloodless’ and ‘skeleton’ are applied to corpses, the name itself reproaching their dryness. Further, blood, which has the most sovereign power within us, is at once both warm and moist, while old age lacks both qualities. And as the year runs its course, autumn seems to be, as it were, its old age: for the moist has not yet arrived, and the warm is no longer strong; and this condition, being plainly one of dryness together with coldness, renders bodies vulnerable to diseases.

It is inevitable that souls share the condition of bodies, and especially that, when the breath grows chilled and thickened, the power of divination is dimmed, like a mirror clouded over with mist. It therefore yields nothing clear or articulate or well-defined in its visions, so long as it remains thick, unlit, and contracted.”

This is the ninth book of the Table Talk, dear Sossius Senecio; it contains the discussions that took place at Athens in the Museum, and especially it is fitting that the number nine should belong to the Muses.

As for the number, if it exceeds the customary ten questions, that should not cause surprise: for it was right to render to the Muses everything belonging to the Muses in full, and to take nothing away, as though from sacred things, since we owe them more and finer offerings than these. Ammonius, while serving as strategos at Athens, held an examination in the Diogeneion of those who were learning letters, geometry, rhetoric, and music, and he invited to dinner those teachers whose pupils had distinguished themselves.

Many of the other scholars were present too, and pretty much all of our usual circle. Now Achilles invited to dinner only those among the combatants who had actually fought in single combat, wishing, as they say, that if any anger or harshness had arisen between men under arms, they might lay it aside and set it down once they had shared a common feast and table. But with Ammonius the opposite happened:

for the rivalry and contentiousness of the teachers, once they had gotten into their cups, grew still more intense; and by now there were propositions and challenges flying about, undisciplined and disorderly. So first he ordered Eraton to sing to the lyre; and when he had sung the opening lines of the Works, ‘So after all there was not just one kind of Strife,’ he praised him for having fitted the words so suitably to the occasion.

Then he raised the subject of the timeliness of verses, how it sometimes has not only charm but also great usefulness. And the rhapsode's case was immediately on everyone's lips: at the wedding of Ptolemy, who was marrying his sister—an act considered strange and unlawful—the rhapsode had begun with those very lines, ‘And Zeus called Hera his sister and his wife.’ And there was the one at the court of King Demetrius who was reluctant to sing after dinner,

so the king sent to him his son, still a small boy, Philip, and the singer immediately took up the boy and sang, ‘To rear this child of mine worthy of Heracles and of us.’ And Anaxarchus, when he was being pelted with apples by Alexander at dinner, rose up and said, ‘Some god shall be struck by a mortal hand.’ But best of all was the Corinthian boy taken captive when the city was destroyed:

Mummius, going carefully among the freeborn children who knew their letters, ordered one to write a verse, and the boy wrote, ‘Thrice blessed, four times blessed, the Danaans who perished then.’ They say Mummius was moved and wept, and set free all those connected with the boy. He also recalled the story of the wife of Theodorus the tragic actor, who would not receive him into her bed while the contest was still close at hand;

but when he had won and come in to her, she embraced him and said, ‘Son of Agamemnon, now that is permitted to you.’ After this, several of those present were moved to bring up many untimely remarks as well, on the ground that it is not without use to know and guard against them: for instance, they say that when Pompey the Great, on returning from his great campaign, was present as his daughter's tutor gave a demonstration, and a book was handed to her, the girl happened upon this very opening,

‘You have come from war: would that you had perished there.’ And when an unattributed rumor reached Cassius Longinus that his son had died abroad, and no one could say whether it was true or dispel the suspicion, a senator, already an older man, came in to him and said, ‘Will you not disdain, Longinus, an untrustworthy rumor and malicious talk—as though you did not know and had not read the line, “Rumor never wholly perishes”?’

And the man at Rhodes, when a grammarian asked him for a line to use as a demonstration in the theater, held out to him, ‘Get off the island quickly, most contemptible of the living—’ it being unclear whether he meant it as a joke or missed the mark unintentionally. This, at any rate, wittily soothed the uproar. Since it was customary at the Museum gatherings for lots to be passed around and for those paired together to propose learned questions to one another, Ammonius, fearing that some of the men in the same profession might be paired together,

ordered, without drawing lots, that the geometer should put a question to the grammarian, and the musician to the rhetorician, and then that the returns should be reversed in the opposite order. So Hermias the geometer put first to Protogenes the grammarian the question of stating the reason why the letter alpha is placed first among all the letters. Protogenes gave the answer commonly stated in the schools: that the vowels rightly take precedence over the consonants and semivowels;

and among the vowels, since some are long, some short, and some—called ‘of two times’—are both, these naturally differ in power. And among these same vowels again, the one holding the most commanding rank is the one fit to be placed before the other two, and subordinate to neither—such as alpha: for this letter is willing neither to be ranked second to iota nor to upsilon, and to be combined with either

so as to form a single syllable out of the two, nor to share their condition, but as though indignant, it springs away and always seeks a beginning of its own; whereas whichever of those two you please, when placed first, can be used together with the other that follows and harmonizes with it, and can form the syllables of words, as in ‘tomorrow,’ ‘to play the flute,’ ‘Ajax,’ ‘to feel shame,’ and countless others. Therefore, like athletes in the pentathlon, it surpasses and wins by three points:

in most cases by being a vowel, and further, among vowels, by being one of two times, and further still by these same qualities naturally fitting it to lead and never to come second or to follow. When Protogenes had finished, Ammonius called on me and said, ‘You are no help at all to Cadmus, you Boeotian, whom they say placed alpha first of all because the Phoenicians so name the ox, which',

they place not second or third, as Hesiod does, but first among necessities.’ ‘Not at all,’ I said; ‘for I am more bound to help my own grandfather, if I can, than the grandfather of Dionysus. For Lamprias, my grandfather, used to say that the first sound naturally produced among articulate sounds is emitted through the power of alpha: for the breath in the mouth is shaped chiefly by the movements of the lips,

and when these first open, with the upper part parting, this sound comes out—one that is quite simple and requires no effort at all, calling for no engagement or restraint of the tongue, but is sent out with the tongue lying in its place; which is also why infants utter this as their very first sound. And he said that the verb ‘to hear’ [aíiein] was likewise named from the perception of sound,

and many similar words, such as ‘to sing’ [áidein], ‘to play the flute’ [auleîn], and ‘to raise a cry’ [alalázein]. And I think that ‘to lift’ [aírein] and ‘to open’ [anoígein] too were not inappropriately named from the opening and raising of the lips, by which this sound issues from the mouth. That is also why the names of the consonant letters, with one exception, all make use of alpha, as if it were a light

for the blindness that otherwise surrounds them: only the letter pi lacks this feature, for phi and chi are respectively pi and kappa aspirated.’ In response to this, Hermias said he accepted both accounts, and I said, ‘Why then did you not also explain to us whether there is any reason for the number of the letters, as it seems to me there is?

I take as evidence the fact that the total of the consonants and semivowels, in relation to one another and to the vowels, did not come about by chance, but according to the first proportion—as we call it. For there being nine, and eight, and seven, the middle number both exceeds and is exceeded in the same ratio; and of the outer terms, the greatest bears the same ratio to the smallest

as the number of the Muses bears to that of Apollo: for the group of nine belongs, of course, to the Muses, and the group of seven has been allotted to the Leader of the Muses; and when these two are added together, they naturally double the middle number, since the semivowels too share in a way in the power of both.’ And Hermias said, ‘Hermes is said to have been the first of the gods in Egypt to discover letters; that is also why

the Egyptians draw the ibis first among their letters, as belonging properly to Hermes—not rightly, in my own opinion, since they thus grant precedence in matters of letters to a mute, voiceless creature. To Hermes above all the number four is assigned; and many record that the god was born on the fourth day of the waxing month. Indeed the first, so-called Phoenician letters, named for Cadmus, numbered four times four, as the group of four supplied them;

and of the letters discovered later, Palamedes first added four, and Simonides afterward added just as many more. Moreover, that among all numbers the first perfect one is—the triad, as having a beginning, middle, and end, and the hexad, as being equal to the sum of its own parts—this is clear. Of these, then, the hexad multiplied by the tetrad, and

the triad multiplied by the ogdoad, the first perfect number of the first cube, has furnished the sum of twenty-four.’ While he was still speaking, Zopyrion the schoolmaster was visibly laughing and muttering asides; and when Hermias finished, he could not restrain himself but called such things sheer nonsense: for the number of the letters, he said, had come to be so great, and their order arranged as it is, by no reasoned principle but by a kind of coincidence,

just as, he said, the first line of the Iliad happens to have the same number of syllables as the first line of the Odyssey, and again the last line matches the last, purely by chance and automatically. After this we restrained Hermias, who wanted to put some question to Zopyrion; but Maximus the rhetorician, from farther off, asked him, out of Homer, which hand of Aphrodite Diomedes wounded.

When Zopyrion quickly countered by asking in which leg Philip was lame, Maximus said, ‘It is not the same thing: for Demosthenes has given no explanation on that point; but you, if you admit you are at a loss, others will show where the poet indicates the wounded hand to those with sense.’ So we thought Zopyrion had been thoroughly refuted, and since he kept silent, we asked Maximus to demonstrate. ‘First then,’

Maximus said, ‘since the verses run thus: “Then, reaching out, the son of great-hearted Tydeus wounded the tip of her hand, leaping forward with his sharp spear,” it is clear that, since he wished to strike the left hand, he had no need to leap across, because he was already facing her right hand with his own left as they approached from opposite sides; for it was reasonable that the stronger hand, especially as Aeneas was being carried off, should be the one holding him back, and that other hand

Wound her, and let the wounded goddess be carried up into heaven, while Athena laughed and said: "Surely some daughter of Achaea has been inciting the women of Troy again, whom she now loves exceedingly, to go along with the Trojans — caressing one of the deep-bosomed Achaean women, she has scratched her delicate hand against a golden brooch." "I think that you too, best of teachers," he said, "whenever you affectionately stroke and caress one of your pupils, ought not to do this with the left hand but with the right — just as it is fitting that Aphrodite too, being the most dexterous of the goddesses, shows affection to the heroines in this way."

This made everyone else more cheerful, but Sospis the rhetorician, noticing that the grammarian Hylas alone was silent and sullen — for he had not fared very well in the recitations — cried out to him, raising his voice, "Such alone was the soul of Telamonian Ajax," and went on addressing the rest of the line even more loudly to him: "But come here, lord, that you may hear our word and speech: tame your might and your unyielding spirit." Hylas, still uneven-tempered from his irritation, answered rudely that the soul of Ajax, having drawn the twentieth lot in Hades, had according to Plato exchanged its nature for that of a lion, whereas he himself often felt it would be better to become the donkey of the comic old man than to see men inferior to himself living more conspicuously than he.

Sospis laughed and said, "Well then, while we are about to put on the pack-saddle, if you care at all for Plato, teach us by what reasoning he has made the soul of the son of Telamon proceed by lot to the twentieth choice." Hylas, thinking he was being mocked, waved this off in disgust, and being out of sorts our brother took up the question and said, "Well then, does not Ajax always rank second in beauty, stature, and courage, 'after the blameless son of Peleus'? And twenty is the second decade, and the decade is the strongest among numbers, just as Achilles is among the Achaeans?" When we laughed, Ammonius said, "Let these remarks of yours, Lamprias, stand as jests aimed at Hylas; but for us, not in jest but in earnest — since you have willingly taken up the argument — go through the reason."

So Lamprias, taken aback, then after pausing not long, said that in many places Plato plays with us through the use of names; but wherever he mixes some myth with his discourse about the soul, he there makes the fullest use of intelligence. For just as he calls the intelligible nature of heaven a winged chariot because of the harmonious revolution of the cosmos, so here he names the messenger of the dead, of Pamphylian stock, "son of Harmonius," and calls him Er, hinting that souls are born according to harmony and are fitted together with bodies, and when released they are borne together from every side into the air, and from there they turn again to their second births.

"What, then, prevents us from taking the word 'twentieth' as spoken not with reference to the truth but as 'likely' (eikos) and fashioned for the sake of the argument, or with reference to the lot, as meaning 'at random' (eike) and happening by chance? For he always touches on the three causes, being indeed the first to do so — or rather the one who best understood how what is according to fate is naturally intertwined and interwoven with what is according to chance, and again what is in our own power with each of these and with both together. But now he has marvelously indicated the power that each of these has in our affairs, assigning the choice of lives to what is in our own power — for virtue and vice are without a master — while attaching living well to those who choose rightly, and the opposite to those who choose badly, by the necessity of fate. The fallings of the lots, scattered in disorder, introduce chance also into the upbringings and civic constitutions that each group obtains, forestalling much of what is ours."

"See, then, whether it is unreasonable to seek a cause for things that happen by chance; for if the lot appears to have come about by some reasoning, it no longer happens by chance or automatically, but from some fate and providence." While Lamprias was still speaking, Marcus the grammarian seemed to be calculating something and counting to himself; then, when Lamprias stopped, he said, "Of the Homeric souls that he has named in the Nekyia, the soul of Elpenor, not yet mingled with those in Hades because his corpse had not been buried, wanders as it were on the border; and the soul of Tiresias surely ought not to be counted together with the others, since to him alone, though dead, Persephone granted a mind, that he alone should be wise and converse and understand among the living, before drinking of the blood.

If, then, setting these aside, Lamprias, you count the rest, it turns out that Ajax's soul is the twentieth to come into the sight of Odysseus, and that Plato is playing on this, coloring his account with reference to the Homeric Nekyia." When everyone made a stir at this, Menephylus the Peripatetic, addressing Hylas, said, "Do you see that the question was not mockery or insult? But, my good man, leave aside the ill-tempered and ill-named Ajax, as Sophocles calls him, and side instead with Poseidon, whom you yourself are accustomed to tell us was often defeated — here by Athena, at Delphi by Apollo, at Argos by Hera, at Aegina by Zeus, at Naxos by Dionysus — yet everywhere gentle and free from resentment about his misfortunes; here at least he even shares a temple with Athena, in which there is also an altar of Forgetfulness set up."

And Hylas, as if made more cheerful, said, "But this has escaped you, Menephylus, that we also remove the second day of the month Boedromion not with reference to the moon, but because on that day the gods are thought to have contended over the land." "In everything," said Lamprias, "Poseidon has proven more civic-minded than Thrasybulus, in that, even when not prevailing as Thrasybulus did, he yet — being defeated — 'men are to be deceived by oaths.'" And Glaucias said, "I for my part have heard this saying told of Polycrates the tyrant; but it is likely to be said of others too. Why do you ask this?" "Because, by Zeus," said Sospis, "I see boys playing at odd-and-even with knucklebones, and Academics doing the same with arguments; for such quibblers are no different from those who ask whether the things gathered in the hand are even or odd."

Then Protogenes stood up and, calling me by name, said, "What has come over us, that we let these orators live in luxury, laughing at others, while they themselves are asked nothing and propose no contributions to the conversation? Unless, by Zeus, they will say that they have no share in the fellowship of wine, being admirers and emulators of Demosthenes, a man who drank wine his whole life long." "That is not the reason for this," I said, "but rather that we have asked them nothing. But if you have nothing more useful to propose, I think I shall put to them one of Homer's rhetorical theses, a case of conflicting laws."

"Which one is that?" he said. "I will tell you," I said, "and put it to them at the same time, so let them now pay attention. For Alexander, on stated terms, made his challenge thus: 'But set me in the middle, and Menelaus dear to Ares, to fight for Helen and all her possessions; and whichever of the two prevails and proves the stronger, let him take all the goods rightly and lead the woman home.' And again Hector, proclaiming it and setting the challenge before everyone, used almost the very same words: he bids the other Trojans and all the Achaeans lay their fine armor upon the bounteous earth, while he himself in the middle, and Menelaus dear to Ares, fight alone for Helen and all her possessions; and let the wife and possessions go with whoever proves victorious.

Menelaus having accepted, they make the agreement binding with oaths, and Agamemnon leads off: 'If Alexander slays Menelaus, then let him himself lead away Helen and all the possessions; but if fair-haired Menelaus kills Alexander, let him take all the goods rightly and lead the woman home.' Since, then, Menelaus won but did not kill him, each side, taking up its own claim, presses it upon the enemy — the one demanding on the grounds that Paris had been defeated, the other refusing to give up on the grounds that he had not died.

How, then," I said, "might one most rightly state and arbitrate this case of conflicting laws — a task not for philosophers nor for grammarians, but for orators who, like you, practice both grammar and philosophy?" Sospis then said that the word of the one who issued the challenge was more authoritative, like a law: "for that man announced the terms on which they would contend, and those who accepted and agreed to it are no longer free to add conditions of their own. And the challenge was not made concerning killing and death, but concerning victory and defeat — and quite rightly so. For it was fitting that the woman belong to the better man, and the one who wins is the better man, while it often happens that even good men die at the hands of inferior ones — as Achilles later died, shot by Paris; and we would not, I think, say that Achilles' death was a defeat, nor his killer's a victory, but rather an unjust stroke of luck for the one who struck him.

But Hector had been defeated even before he died, since he did not stand his ground but was afraid and fled when Achilles came at him; for the one who gives up and flees has suffered an undisputed defeat and has conceded that his opponent is the better man. That is why, first, Iris, bringing the news to Helen, says that 'with long spears they will fight over you, and to the one who proves victor you will be called dear wife'; and then Zeus awarded the prize of the battle to Menelaus, saying, 'Victory plainly belongs to Menelaus dear to Ares.' For it would be absurd that, whereas he defeated Podes by hurling a spear at him from a distance while he neither expected nor guarded against it, and this counted as a victory, the other — who gave up, fled, and dove into the folds of his wife's robe, letting himself be spoiled while still alive — should not deserve to carry off the victor's prize, having by his own challenge proven the better man and the survivor."

Glaucias, taking this up, said that, first, in decrees and laws, in agreements and covenants, the later terms are held to be more authoritative and more binding than the earlier ones: "the later agreements were those made through Agamemnon, having death, not the defeat of the one overcome, as their end. Then, the first challenge was made in words alone, but the latter were accompanied also by oaths, and curses attended those who transgressed them, accepted and agreed to not by one man but by all — so that these became truly a covenant, and the former only a challenge. Priam bears witness to this, as he departs after the oaths of the contest: 'Zeus, surely, and the other immortal gods, know to which of the two the fulfillment of death is destined' — for he knew that the agreements had been made on these terms. That is why, shortly after, Hector says, 'high-throned Zeus, son of Cronos, did not bring the oaths to fulfillment' — for the contest remained unfulfilled and had no undisputed outcome, since neither man had fallen.

For this reason it seems to me that the question was not even truly one of conflicting laws, since the later agreements included the earlier ones within themselves; for the one who killed has won, but the one who won did not kill. To put it concisely, Agamemnon did not annul Hector's challenge but clarified it; he did not change it but added to it the most decisive element, placing victory in the act of killing — for this is complete victory, whereas the other pretexts and counter-arguments have their difficulties, as in the case of Menelaus, who neither wounded nor pursued him. Just as, then, in genuine cases of conflicting laws, the judges side with whichever party has nothing disputable in its claim, letting go of the less clear one, so here too one must consider the agreement that leads to an unambiguous and recognized conclusion to be the more binding and more authoritative one. And, what is most important, the very man who seemed to have won, not having withdrawn when his opponent fled nor having stopped, but 'ranging everywhere through the throng, if anywhere he might catch sight of godlike Alexander,' has himself testified that the victory was invalid and incomplete, since his opponent had escaped.

Nor did he forget the words spoken by Alexander himself: 'whichever of us death and fate is appointed for, let him die, and you others be parted quickly.' Therefore it was necessary for him to seek out Alexander, so that by killing him he might complete the task of the contest; but not having killed him nor captured him, he was not justified in demanding the victor's prize. For indeed he had not won, if one must judge by his own words, when he reproached Zeus and lamented his failures: 'Father Zeus, no other god is more baneful than you; truly I thought to punish Alexander for his wickedness, but now my sword is broken in my hands, and the spear flew from my grasp in vain, and I did not strike him' — for he himself admits that it was nothing to have cut through the small shield and to have seized the helmet as it fell off, if he did not strike and kill his enemy."

After this we poured libations to the Muses, and having sung a paean to Apollo, leader of the Muses, we joined Erato in singing to the lyre, from Hesiod, the passage about the birth of the Muses. After the song, Herodes the orator said, "Listen, you who steal Calliope away from us, saying that she is present with kings alone — surely she does not resolve syllogisms or ask questions that involve exchanging one term for another, but does the things that belong to the work of orators and statesmen. Of the others, Clio takes up the encomiastic function — for they used to call praises 'klea' — and Polymnia the historical, for there is 'memory of many things'; and in some places they say that all the Muses together are called 'Mneiai,' as at Leiai.

For my part, I also lay some claim to Euterpe: if, as Chrysippus says, she has been allotted what is delightful and pleasing in social intercourse. For the orator is no less a man of social conversation than one skilled in the courtroom and in deliberative speaking; for these faculties involve both goodwill and advocacy and defense, and we make the greatest use of praise and blame — and in these we achieve no trivial or small things, if we do it skillfully; but if inexpertly and without art, we miss the mark. For the line 'alas, how this man is dear and honored by all' applies, I think, all the more to men, in proportion as they possess persuasiveness and charm in their social relations, which are well suited to them."

And Ammonius said, "It is not right to begrudge you, Herodes, for grasping at the Muses with a full hand — for the goods of friends are held in common. And it was for this reason that Zeus begot many Muses, so that all might draw abundantly from what is good; for not all of us engage in hunting, or soldiering, or seafaring, or manual crafts, but all of us who reap the fruit of the broad earth have need of education and of speech — which is why he made Athena one, and Artemis one, and Hephaestus one, but made the Muses many. As to why there are nine and neither fewer nor more, one might ask...

“...tell us? I think you must have thought about it, being so fond of the Muses and so learned in music.” “And what is so clever about that?” said Herodes. “Everyone has on his lips, and every woman sings, the number nine, since it is the first square number formed from the first odd number, and it is odd multiplied by odd, inasmuch as it divides into three equal odd parts.” And Ammonius, smiling, said: “You have recalled that manfully. And add to it this much besides: that the number is also composed from the first two cubes joined together, one and eight, and again, by another combination, from two triangular numbers, three and six, each of which is itself a perfect number. But what has this more to do with the Muses than with the other gods? It would be fitting because we have nine Muses — but do we have nine Demeters, or nine Athenas, or nine Artemises?

Surely it does not persuade even you that the Muses came to be so many in number because the name of their mother is made up of that many letters.” When Herodes had laughed and a silence fell, Ammonius urged us to take up the question. So my brother said that the ancients knew only three Muses: “but it is pedantic and boorish to cite proof of this before so many and such distinguished men.

The reason is not, as some say, the melodic genera — the diatonic, the chromatic, and the enharmonic — nor the boundary notes that mark off the intervals, the nete, the mese, and the hypate; and yet the Delphians did in fact give the Muses these very names, not rightly attaching them to a single science, or rather to a part of the single science of music, namely the harmonic part. Rather, all the sciences, as

I believe, and the arts that are carried through by reasoned discourse, the ancients, having observed that they fell into three kinds — the philosophical, the rhetorical, and the mathematical — made of the three a gift and grace of the gods, which they called Muses. Later, in Hesiod’s time and after, as their powers came to be more fully disclosed, dividing each of the three again into three species, each containing within itself further differences,

they observed the following: in the mathematical kind there is the part concerned with music, the part concerned with arithmetic, and the part concerned with geometry; in the philosophical kind, the logical, the ethical, and the physical; and in the rhetorical kind, they say the encomiastic came into being first, the deliberative second, and the forensic last. Since none of these could be considered godless or unmusical, but each was thought worthy of a higher guiding power,

it was reasonable that they did not make the Muses equal in number to these but discovered that they already were. Just as the number nine divides into three triads, each of which is again divided into as many units, so too there is one thing common to all — the correctness of reasoning about its proper subject — and this has been distributed three by three among each of the three kinds; and then again, each Muse individually presides over and adorns one

faculty. I do not think that poets and astronomers can charge us with neglecting their arts, since they know no less than we do that astronomy is allied with geometry, and poetry with music.” When this had been said, the physician Tryphon remarked, “And why have you shut the shrine of the Muses against our art?” whereupon Dionysius of Melite took up the question: “You are calling many others besides yourself to join the accusation; for

we farmers too claim Thalia as our own, since we credit her with the flourishing and thriving growth and preservation of plants and seeds.” “But you are not being fair,” I said, “for you also have Demeter Anesidora and Dionysus, ‘who makes glad the wooded haunts of trees, the holy light of autumn,’ as Pindar says; and we know that physicians have Asclepius as their patron, and make use of Apollo the Healer in every way,

but of none of the Muses’ leader. For, as Homer says, ‘all men have need of gods,’ but not all men have need of all the gods alike. But I marvel that it escaped Lamprias what is said by the Delphians. For they say that the Muses among them are named not after notes or strings, but rather, since the universe has been divided in three parts, the first is the portion of the fixed stars, the second that of the planets,

and the last that of the region beneath the moon; and all of these are bound and arranged together according to harmonious ratios, and each has its own guardian Muse: of the first sphere, Hypate; of the last, Nete; and of the one in between, Mese, which holds them together and turns mortal things, as far as possible, toward the gods, and earthly things toward the heavenly — just as Plato too hinted with the names of the Fates,

calling one Atropos, one Clotho, and one Lachesis; for over the revolutions of the eight spheres he set not the Muses but the Sirens, equal in number to them.” Menephylus the Peripatetic then took up the point and said: “The Delphian account has some measure of plausibility, but Plato is absurd, setting up the Sirens in place of the Muses over the eternal and divine revolutions — spirits not at all benevolent or

kindly — while either leaving out the Muses altogether or addressing them by the names of the Fates and calling them daughters of Necessity. For Necessity is unmusical, while Persuasion is musical, and I think that she who loves to dwell with the Muses far more — as Empedocles’ Grace — detests harsh, unyielding Necessity.” “Quite so,” said Ammonius, “the necessity that operates in us involuntarily and against our choice is harsh, but the necessity that is

among the gods is not harsh, I think, nor hard to obey, nor forceful, except toward the wicked, just as in a city law is, for the best citizens, their own best guide, unalterable and inviolable, not because change is impossible for it but because it is undesired. As for the Sirens of Homer, they do not frighten us contrary to reason in the myth, but he too was rightly hinting

that their musical power is not inhuman or destructive, but that to souls departing from here to there, and wandering after death, it instills, it seems, a longing for heavenly and divine things and forgetfulness of mortal things, holding them spellbound and singing them to rest; and other souls follow and accompany them out of joy. Here among us, some faint echo of that music

reaches us through words and calls forth and reminds our souls of that former state; but the ears of most people are plastered and sealed over with fleshly obstructions and passions, not waxen ones; while the soul that by its natural gift perceives and remembers is affected no less than by the most frenzied loves, yearning and longing, yet unable to release itself from the body.

I myself, however, do not altogether agree with these men; rather it seems to me that Plato, having called the axes spindles and distaffs, and the stars whorls, in an unusual way here also calls the Muses Sirens — ‘those who speak’ divine things and utter them in Hades, just as Sophocles’ Odysseus says that the Sirens who came to him were daughters of Phorcus, ‘chanting the laws of Hades.’ The Muses are eight in number and accompany the

eight spheres, while one has been allotted the region around the earth. The eight, then, presiding over the revolutions, maintain and preserve the harmony of the wandering stars with the fixed ones and with each other; while the one that oversees and circles the region between earth and moon bestows on mortals, as far as they are naturally able to perceive and receive it, grace and rhythm and harmony, through

speech and song bringing persuasion as an ally of political and social life, soothing and charming what is turbulent and errant in us, calling it back gently, as it were from a wrong road, and setting it right. ‘But those whom Zeus has not loved are terrified when they hear the cry of the Pierian Muses,’ as Pindar says.” When Ammonius had added to this the saying of Xenophanes, that such things, as he was accustomed to say, are ‘held as opinion, resembling the truth,’ and urged each of us to declare and say what he thought,

I, after a brief pause, said that “Plato himself supposes that he can discover the powers of the gods, as it were, by tracing their names; and let us likewise place in heaven and around heavenly things one of the Muses, who evidently is Urania; and it is reasonable that those things need no elaborate or varied governance, since they have one simple cause governing their nature;

but where there are many discords and many irregularities and transgressions, there we must station the eight Muses, each correcting a different kind of vice and disharmony. And since life is partly a matter of seriousness and partly of play, and needs to be handled musically and with due measure, our serious part — Calliope, Clio, and Thalia — being the guide of the science and contemplation concerning

the gods, will be thought to turn and help set that part right; while the remaining Muses will not, out of weakness, overlook the part of us that inclines toward pleasure and play growing licentious and bestial, but will receive and escort it, blended gracefully and decorously with dance and song and choral movement possessing rhythm and harmony and reason. I, however, since Plato leaves in each of our actions two

starting points — the innate desire for pleasures, and the acquired opinion that reaches for what is best, and calls the one reason and the other, at times, passion, and since each of these two again has its own further differences — I see that each truly requires great and divine guidance. To begin with, one part of reason is political and kingly, and over this Hesiod says

Calliope is set; ambition Clio is especially allotted to exalt and glorify together with it; while Polyhymnia belongs to the love of learning and to the memory of the soul — wherefore the Sicyonians call one of their three Muses Polymatheia. To Euterpe everyone would assign the contemplative part of the truth concerning nature, leaving to no other kind purer or finer enjoyments and delights. Of

desire, the part concerned with food and drink Thalia makes sociable and fit for the symposium instead of inhuman and bestial — wherefore we say that those who are together in wine with kindness and cheer are ‘making festivity’ (thaliazein), not those who behave with insolence and drunken abuse; while over the earnest pursuits of intercourse, Erato, present together with persuasion that carries reason and a sense of timing, removes and quenches the maddening and frenzied element of pleasure,

leading it instead to friendship and trust, not to outrage or licentiousness. And the pleasure of the eyes — whether it belongs more to reason, or to passion, or is common to both — the remaining two, Melpomene and Terpsichore, take in hand and adorn; so that the one becomes not bewitchment but cheerful delight, and the other not sorcery but charm.” After this, when a pyramid-cake had been brought in, they carried it off

as the prize for dancing; and my brother Lamprias, together with Meniscus the trainer, was appointed judge, for he had danced the pyrrhic dance convincingly, and in his gesturing at the wrestling schools he seemed to surpass the other boys. As many were dancing with more eagerness than musical skill, some thought it fitting that the two who were most esteemed and wished to preserve proper rhythm should dance movement against movement. Thrasybulus then asked Ammonius what the term

‘movement’ (phora) meant, and this gave Ammonius occasion to discuss the parts of dancing at greater length. He said there are three: movement, figure, and indication. For dancing consists of motions and positions, just as melody consists of notes and intervals; and here the pauses are the limits of the motions. The motions, then, they call

‘movements,’ while the positions and postures into which the motions are carried and come to rest they call ‘figures,’ as when dancers, having arranged the body into the figure of Apollo or Pan or some Bacchant, hold that shape as if drawn in outline. The third element, ‘indication,’ is not imitative but truly points out the things themselves. For just as poets use proper names in a pointing, indicative way — naming Achilles and Odysseus

and the earth and the sky, as they are called by most people — but for vividness of expression and for imitations they employ coined words and metaphors, saying that broken streams of water ‘murmur’ and ‘babble,’ and that arrows fly ‘eager to taste flesh,’ and that an evenly matched battle ‘holds heads level in the fray’; and they fashion many compound words to imitate

limbs in motion — as Euripides says of Perseus, ‘flying through the holy heaven of Zeus, the Gorgon-slayer,’ and Pindar, of the horse, that it ‘sped its unspurred frame beside the Alpheus in the race,’ and Homer, of the horse-racing, that ‘the chariots plated with bronze and tin ran on with the swift-footed horses’ — so too in dancing, the figure is imitative of shape and form, while the

movement is expressive of some feeling, or action, or power; and by their indications, dancers properly point out the actual things themselves — the earth, the sky, those standing nearby — which, when done in a certain order and measure, resembles the proper names used in poetry, when they are brought forth with a certain grace and smoothness, as in such phrases as ‘reverend Themis and quick-glancing Aphrodite, and Hera of the golden crown’

‘and fair Dione’; and ‘of Hellen were born law-dispensing kings, Dorus and Xuthus and Aeolus, glorious in the chariot.’ Otherwise, for those too pedestrian and clumsy in their rhythm, such expressions come out as ‘of one was born Heracles, of the other Iphiclus’; and ‘her father, and husband, and son were kings, and her brothers, and her ancestors’; and ‘Greece calls her the Olympian.’ For such errors

occur also in dancing, in the matter of indications, if they lack plausibility or grace along with propriety and simplicity. And in general he said he would transfer Simonides’ saying from painting to dancing: that dancing is silent poetry, and poetry in turn is speaking dance; whence he said that painting has no share in the art of poetry, nor poetry in that of painting, and that the two make no use whatsoever

of one another. But between the arts of dancing and poetry there is every kind of partnership and mutual participation, and especially in imitating the class of songs called hyporchemes, both arts actively bring to completion the same imitation, through figures on the one hand and words on the other. It would seem, as in painting, that poems resemble the colors, and dance movements resemble the outlines, by which the forms are defined. This is shown by the poet who is thought

to have succeeded best in the hyporchemes and to have been the most persuasive of himself in this, by his statement that each art needs the other; for he says, ‘imitate, as you whirl on eager foot, either the untamed horse or the Amyclaean hound, pursuing the winding melody’; or again, ‘as over the flowering Dotian plain flies the horned deer in search of death, twisting its neck to look back with its other head, and all along the track,’ and so forth.

the poems all but smooth out the very disposition proper to dancing, and summon the hands and the feet — or rather draw and stretch the whole body to the rhythms, as if with cords — so that when these words are being spoken and sung, people are unable to keep still. He himself, at any rate, is not ashamed to praise his own dancing no less than his poetry, when now, grown old,

"I mingle light dancing with the song of the feet — they call it the Cretan manner." But nothing of the present day has profited so much from bad taste in music as dancing has. That is why it has suffered what Ibycus, in his fear, expressed: "I dread lest, having sinned in some way before the gods, I win honor at the price of men." For she too, having taken to herself a certain vulgar, popular poetry, and having fallen from that heavenly poetry, now holds sway over

the senseless and foolish theaters, like a tyrant who has made almost the whole of music her subject, but has utterly lost the honor that truly belongs to her among men of sense and godlike men. These, more or less, Sossius Senecio, were the last of the discussions held on that occasion in the Museum, at the house of the good Ammonius.

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