Therefore Ammonius commanded Erato to sing to his harp, and he sang some part of Hesiod's Works beginning thus,
Contention to one sort is not confined;1and I commended him for choosing so apposite a song. Then he began to discourse about the seasonable use of verse, that it was not only pleasant but profitable. And straight every one's mouth was full of that poet who began [p. 437] Ptolemy's epithalamium (when he married his sister, a wicked and abominable match) thus,
Jove Juno called his sister and his wife;2and another, who was unwilling to sing after supper to Demetrius the king, but when he sent him his young son Philip to be educated sang thus,
Breed thou the boy as doth becomeand Anaxarchus who, being pelted with apples by Alexander at supper, rose up and said,
Both Hercules's race and us;
Some God shall wounded be by mortal hand.3But that Corinthian captive boy excelled all, who, when the city was destroyed, and Mummius, taking a survey of all the free-born children that understood letters, commanded each to write a verse, wrote thus:
Thrice, four times blest, the happy Greeks that fell.4For they say that Mummius was affected with it, wept, and gave all the free-born children that were allied to the boy their liberty. And some mentioned the wife of Theodorus the tragedian, who refused his embraces a little before he contended for the prize; but, when he was conqueror and came in unto her, clasped him and said,
Now, Agamemnon's son, you freely may.5
