Volume 1

The Deipnosophists, or, Banquet of the learned, of Athenæus / literally translated by C.D. Yonge, B.A. ; with an appendix of poetical fragments, rendered into English verse by various authors, and a general index.

  • Athenaeus
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Deipnosophists, or, Banquet of the learned, of Athenæus / literally translated by C.D. Yonge, B.A. ; with an appendix of poetical fragments, rendered into English verse by various authors, and a general index. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/468 (page 7)
    TUOSE WHO HAVE WRITTEX ABOUT FEASTS. i 8.] 7. Arcliestratus the Syracusan or Geloan, in ins work to which Clirysippus gives the title of Gastronomy, but Lynccus and Callimachus of Hedypathy, that is Pleasure, and which Clearchus calls Deipnology, and others Cookery, (but it is an epic poem, beginning. Here to all Greece I open wisdom’s store;) says, A numerous party may sit round a talde, But not more than three, four, or five on one sofa; For else it would be a disorderly Babel, Like the hireling piratical band of a rover. But he does not know that at the feast recorded by Plato there were eight and twenty guests present. IIow keenly they waleh for a feast in the town. And, asked or not, they arc sure to go down; says Antiphanes; and he adds— Such are the men the state at public cost Should gladly feed ; and always Treat them like flics at the Olympic games And hang them up an ox to feast upon. 8. AVinter produces this, that summer bears; says tlie bard of S^macusc.' So that it is not ca.sy to jiut all sorts of things on the table at one time; but it is eas}' to talk of all kinds of subjects at any time. Other men have written descriptions of feasts; and Tinachidas of Pdiodcs has done BO in an epic ])ocm of eleven books or more; and Numc- nius the Hcraclean, the pupil of Dieuchas the physician; and Metreas of Pitane, the man who wrote parodies; and Hegemon of Thasos, surnamed PhacS, whom some men reckon among the writera of the Old Comedy. And Artemidoms, the false Aristophanes, collected a number of sayings relating to cookery. And Plato, the comic writer, mentions in his Phaon the banquet of Philoxcnus the Lcucadian. A. But I have sought this tranquil solitude. To ponder deeply on this wondrous book. B. 1 pray you, what’s the nature of its treasures 1 A. “ Sauce for the million, by Philoxenus. B. Oh, let me taste this wisdom. A. Listen then ; “ 1 start with onions, and with tunnies end.’’ ’ Epieharmus.