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.

    449/468 (page 429)
    Sr-AVES UNDER THE ROMANS. 420 c. 105.] they revolted and put to death the guards of the mines; and that they seized on the Acropolis on Snnium, and that for a very long time they ravaged Attica. And this was the time wlien the second revolt of the slaves took place in Sicily. And there were many revolts of the slaves, and more than a million of slaves were destroyed in tlieni. And Ca;cilius, the orator from Cide Acte, wrote a treatise on the Servile AVars. And Spartacns the gladiator, having escaped from Capua, a city of Italj', .about the time of the Mithridatic war, prevailed on a great body of slaves to join him in the revolt, (and he him- self was a slave, being a Thracian by birth,) and overran the whole of Italy for a considerable time, gi’eat numbers of slaves thronging daily to his standard. And if he had not died in a battle fouglit against Licinius Crassus, he would have caused no ordinary trouble to om- countrymen, as Eunus did in Sicily. 105. But the ancient Rom.ans were prudent citizeius, and eminent for all kinds of good qualities. Accordingly Scipio, surnamed Africanus, being sent out by the Senate to arrange all the kingtloms of the world, in order that they might bo put into the hands of those to whom they properly belonged, took with him only five slaves, as we are informed by Polybius and Posidonius. And when one of them died on the journey, he sent to his agents at homo to bring him another instead of him, and to send him to him. And Julius Ciesar, the first man who ever cimsed over to the British isles with a thousand ves.sels, had with him only three servants altogether, as Cotta, who at that time acted .as his lieuteiuant-gcncral, relates m his treatise on the History and Constitution of the Homans, which is written in our national language. But Smindyrides the Sybarite w;xs a very different sort of man, iny Greek friends, who, when ho went forth to many Agarosto, the daughter of Cleisthenes, c.arried his luxury and ostentation to such a height, that he took with him a thousand slaves, fishci'- men, bird-catchers, and cooks. But this man, wishing to dis- play how magnificently he was used to live, according to the account given to ns by Chamaleon of Pontus, in his book on Pleasure, (but the same book is also httributed to Theo- phrastus,) said that for twenty years he had never seen the snn rise or set; and tliis he considered a great and marvellous proof of his wealth and h.appiness. For he, as it seems, used