But Archestratus of Gela, in his treatise on Gastronomy, (which is the only poetical composition which you wise men admire; following Pythagoras in this doctrine alone, namely silence, and doing this only because of your want of words; and besides that, you profess to think well of the Art of Love of Sphodrias the Cynic, and the Amatory Conversation of Protagorides, and the Convivial Dialogues of that beautiful [p. 261] philosopher Persæus, compiled out of the Commentaries of Stilpon and Zeno, in which he inquires, How one may guard against guests at a banquet going to sleep; and, How one ought to use drinking of healths; and, When one ought to introduce beautiful boys and girls into a banquet; and when one ought to treat them well as if they were admired, and when one ought to send them away as disregarding them; and also, concerning various kinds of cookery, and concerning loaves, and other things; and all the over-subtle discussions in which the son of Sophroniscus has indulged concerning kissing. A philosopher who was continually exercising his intellect on such investigations as these, being entrusted, as Hermippus relates, with the citadel of Corinth by Antigonus, got drunk and lost even Corinth itself, being outwitted and defeated by Aratus the Sicyonian; who formerly had argued in his Dialogues against Zeno the philosopher, contending that a wise man would in every respect be a good general; and this excellent pupil of Zeno proved this especial point admirably by his own achievements. For it was a witty saying of Bion the Borysthenite, when he saw a brazen statue of his, on which was the inscription, PERSEUS OF CITIUM, THE PUPIL OF ZENO, that the man who engraved the inscription had made a blunder, for that it ought to have been, Persæus the servant (οἰκιτίεα not κιτίεα) of Zeno; for he had been born a slave of Zeno, as Nicias of Nicæa relates, in his History of Philosophers; and this is confirmed by Sotion the Alexandrian, in his Successions. And I have met with two books of that admirable work of Persæus, which have this title, “Convivial Dialogues.”
Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists. Or Banquet Of The Learned Of Athenaeus. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1854.
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