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

---

And Timocles has spoken in general terms of parasites in his Boxer, when he calls them ἐπισίτιοι, in these words—

You will find here some of the parasites (ἐπισίτιοι）
Who eat at other men's tables till they burst,
That you might say they give themselves to athletes
To act as quintain sacks.

[p. 388] And Pherecrates, in his Old Women, says—

A. But you, my friend Smicythion, will not
Get your food (ἐπισιτίζομαι) quicker.
B. Who, I pray, is this?
A. I bring this greedy stranger everywhere,
As if he were my hired slave or soldier.

For those men are properly called ἐπισίτιοι who do any service for their keep. Plato says, in the fourth book of his treatise on Politics, “And the ἐπισίτιοι do these things, who do not, as others do, receive any wages in addition to their food.” And Aristophanes says, in his Storks—

For if you prosecute one wicked man,
Twelve ἐπισίτιοι will come against you,
And so defeat you by their evidence.

And Eubulus says, in his Dædalus—

He wishes to remain an ἐπισίτιος
Among them, and will never ask for wages.