The Carousal, or the Lapiths (31-35)

LYCINUS

“Yes,” said Hermon, from his place above Cleodemus, “I suppose he had heard that Aristaenetus had a boar ready for the dinner, so that he thought it not inopportune to mention the boar of Calydon. Come, Aristaenetus, in the name of Hospitality send him a portion with all speed, for fear you may be too late and the old man may waste away like Meleager from hunger! Yet it would be no hardship to him, for Chrysippus held that all such things are of no import.” [*]

LYCINUS

“What, do you dare to mention the name of Chrysippus?” said Zenothemis, rousing himself and shouting at the top of his voice."Dare you judge Cleanthes and Zeno, who were learned men, by a single individual who is not a regular philosopher, by Hetoemocles the charlatan? Whoare you two, pray, to say all that? Hermon, didn’t you cut off the hair of the Twin Brethren because it was gold?[*] You'll suffer for it, too, when the executioner gets you! And as for you, Cleodemus, you had an affair with the wife of your pupil Sostratus, and were found out and grossly mishandled. Have the grace to hold your tongues, then, with such sins on your consciences!”’ “But I don’t sell the favours of my own wife as you do,” said Cleodemus, “nor did I take my foreign pupil’s allowance in trust and then swear by Athena Polias that I never had it, nor do I lend money at four per cent. a month, nor throttle my pupils if they fail to pay their fees in time.” “But you can’t deny,” said Zenothemis, “that you sold Crito a dose of poison for his father!”

LYCINUS

And with that, being in the act of drinking, he flung on the pair all that was left in the cup, and it was about half full! Ion also got the benefit of his nearness to them, and he quite deserved it. Well, Hermon, bending forward, began wiping the wine from his head and calling the guests to witness what had been done to him. But Cleodemus, not having a cup, whirled about and spat on Zenothemis; then, taking him by the beard with his left hand, he was about to hit him in the face, and would

have’ killed the old man if Aristaenetus had not stayed his hand, stepped over Zenothemis and lain down between them, to separate them and make them keep the peace with him for a dividing-wall.

LYCINUS

While all this was going -on, Philo, various thoughts were in my mind; for example, the very obvious one that it is no good knowing the liberal arts if one doesn’t improve his way of living, too. At any rate, the men I have mentioned, though clever in words, were getting laughed at, I saw, for their deeds. And then I could not help wondering whether what everyone says might not after all be true, that education leads men away from right thinking, since they persist in having no regard for anything but books and the thoughts in them. At any rate, though so many philosophers were present, there really was not a single one to be seen who was devoid of fault, but some acted disgracefully and some talked still more disgracefully; and I could not lay what was going on to the wine, considering what Hetoemocles had written without having had either food or drink.

LYCINUS

The tables were turned, then, and the unlettered folk were manifestly dining i in great decorum, without either getting maudlin or behaving disreputably; they simply laughed and passed judgement, perhaps, on the others, whom they used to admire, thinking them men of importance because of the garb they wore. The learned men, on the contrary, were playing the rake and abusing each other and gorging themselves and bawling and coming to blows; and “marvellous” Alcidamas even made water right there in the room, without showing

any respect for the women. It seemed to me that, to use the best possible simile, the events of the dinner were very like what the poets tell of Discord. They say, you know, that, not having been asked to the wedding of Peleus, she threw the apple into the company, and that from it arose the great war at Troy. [*] Well, to my thinking ‘Hetoemocles by throwing his. letter into the midst of us like an Apple of Discord had brought on woes quite as great as those of the Iliad.