When Democritus had said this, Cynulcus said;;—Why do you remind me of those cyclic poems, to use the words of your friend Philo, when you never ought to say anything serious or important in the presence of this glutton Ulpian? For he prefers lascivious songs to dignified ones; such, for instance, as those which are called Locrian songs, which are of a debauched sort of character, such as—
Do you not feel some pleasure now?And all Phœnicia is full of songs of this kind; and he him- self, when there, used to go about playing on the flute with the men who sing colabri.1 And there is good authority, Ulpian, for this word κόλαβροι. For Demetrius the Scepsian, in the tenth book of his Trojan Array, speaks thus:— "Ctesiphon the Athenian, who was a composer of the songs called κόλαβροι, was made by Attalus, who succeeded Philetærus as king of Pergamus, judge of all his subjects in the [p. 1115] Aeolian district." And the same writer, in the nineteenth book of the same work, says that Seleucus the composer of merry songs was the son of Mnesiptolemus, who was an historian, and who had great interest with that Antiochus who was surnamed the Great. And it was very much the fashion to sing this song of his—
Do not betray me, I entreat you.
Rise up before the man comes back,
Lest he should ill-treat you and me.
'Tis morning now, dost thou not see
The daylight through the windows?
I will choose a single life,
That is better than a wife;
Friends in war a man stand by,
While the wife stays at home to cry.
