The Parasite Tychiades (45)

TYCHIADES Of course I myself know all this, but I do not think that I yet see how the two men were parasites to Agamemnon.

SIMON Remember, my friend, those lines that Agamemnon himself addresses to Idomeneus.

TYCHIADES What lines?

SIMON

Your beaker has always

Stood full, even as mine, to be drunk when the spirit should move you.

Iliad4, 262-263. For in saying there that the beaker “always stood full,’ he did not mean that Idomeneus’ cup stood full under all circumstances, even when he fought or when he slept, but that he alone was privileged to eat with the king all the days of his life, unlike the rest of the soldiers, who were invited only on certain days. As for Ajax, when he had fought gloriously in single combat with Hector,

they brought him to great Agamemnon,

Iliad7, 312. Homer says, and by way of special honour, he was at last counted worthy of sharing the king’s table. But Idomeneus and Nestor dined with the king daily, as he himself says. Nestor, indeed, in my opinion was the most workmanlike and efficient parasite among the kings; he began the art, not in the time of Agamemnon, but away back in the time of Caeneus and Exadius,[*] and by all appearances would never have stopped practising it if Agamemnon had not been killed.

TYCHIADES He was a doughty parasite, I grant you. Try to name some more, if you know of any.