Page 17

Notes

---

[1] Such excursions were so usual that the literal expression "Let us banquet at the shore" ([Note from Brett: The Greek letters are written out here as there is no way to portray them properly] sigma eta mu epsilon rho omicron nu [next word] alpha kappa tau alpha sigma omega mu epsilon nu [here is a rough transliteration into English letters "sêmeron aktasômen"]) came often to mean simply "Let us have a good time."

[2] "Odyssey," IX. 5-10.

[3] There was extremely little cow's butter in Greece. Herodotus (iv. 2) found it necessary to explain the process of "cow-cheese-making" among the Scythians.

[4] Translation from Von Falke's "Greece and Rome."

[5] There was a wide difference of opinion as to the proper amount of dilution. Odysseus ("Odyssey," IX. 209) mixed his fabulously strong wine from Maron in Thrace with twenty times its bulk of water. Hesiod abstemiously commended three parts of water to one of wine. Zaleucus, the lawgiver of Italian Locri, established the death penalty for drinking unmixed wine save by physicians' orders ("Athenæus," X. 33).

[6] Naturally certain foreign vintages had a demand, just because they were foreign. Wine was imported from Egypt and from various parts of Italy. It was sometimes mixed with sea water for export, or was made aromatic with various herbs and berries. It was ordinarily preserved in great earthen jars sealed with pitch.

[7] The Greeks seem to have cooked over a rather simple open fireplace with a wood or charcoal fire. They had an array of cooking utensils, however, according to all our evidence, elaborate enough to gladden a very exacting modern chef.

[8] In marriage parties and other strictly family affairs women were allowed to take part; and we have an amusing fragment of Menander as to how, on such rare occasions, they monopolized the conversation.

[9] Socrates, by way of exception to his custom, put on some fine sandals when he was invited to a banquet.

[10] It is with such a white fib that the host Agathon salutes Aristodemus, Socrates's companion in Plato's "Symposium."

[11] Of these "Parasites" or "Flies" (as owing to their migratory habits they were sometimes called), countless stories were told, whereof the following is a sample: there was once a law in Athens that not over thirty guests were to be admitted to a marriage feast, and an officer was obliged to count all the guests and exclude the superfluous. A "fly" thrust in on one occasion, and the officer said: "Friend, you must retire. I find one more here than the law allows." "Dear fellow," quoth the "fly," "you are utterly mistaken, as you will find, if you kindly count again—only beginning with me."

[12] Napkins were not used in Greece before Roman days.

[13] Plato again says ("Politicus," 277 b), "To intelligent persons, a living being is more truly delineated by language and discourse than by any painting or work of art."

[14] In his "Symposium"—which is far less perfect as literature than Plato's, but probably corresponds more to the average instance.

[15] "Wasps," 1174-1564.

[16] Given in "Readings in Ancient History," Vol. I, p. 117, and in many other volumes.

[17] This was the simplest form of the cottabus game; there were numerous elaborations, but our accounts of them are by no means clear.

A Day in Old Athens

Previous / First Page of this chapter