Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists
C. D. Yonge, B.A., Ed.

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And Philoxenus the parasite, who was surnamed Pternocopis, once was dining with Python, and olives (ἐλάαι） were put on the table, and after a little while a dish of fish was brought; and he, striking the dish, said—

μάστιξεν δ᾽ ἐλαᾷν.

And once, at supper, when the man who had invited him had set loaves of black bread before him, he said, “Do not give me too many, lest you should darken the room.” And Pausimachus said of a certain parasite who was maintained by an old woman, “That the man who lived with the old woman fared in exactly the contrary manner to the old woman her- [p. 387] self; for that he was always large.” And he is the man of whom Machon writes in this manner:–

They say that Moschion the water drinker
Once, when he was with friends in the Lyceum,
Seeing a parasite who was used to live
Upon a rich old woman, said to him,
"My friend, your fate is truly marvellous;
For your old dame does give you a big belly."

And the same man, hearing of a parasite who was maintained by an old woman, and who lived in habits of daily intimacy with her, said—

Nothing is strange henceforth, she brings forth nothing,
But the man daily doth become big-bellied.

And Ptolemy, the son of Agesarchus, a native of Megalopolis, in the second book of his history of Philopator, says that men to dine with the king were collected from every city, and that they were called jesters.