Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 2).djvu/313

 *

[Greek: gynaikomania], a fondness for quails [Greek: ortygomania]; and some also call those who are very anxious for fame [Greek: doxomaneis]; just as they call those who are fond of women [Greek: gynaikomaneis], and those who are fond of birds [Greek: ornithomaneis]: all these nouns having the same notion of a propensity to the degree of madness. So that there is nothing inconsistent in other feelings and circumstances having this name applied to them; as a person who is very fond of delicacies, and who is properly called [Greek: philopsos] and [Greek: opsophagos], may be called [Greek: opsomanês]; and a man very fond of wine may be called [Greek: oinomanês]; and so in similar instances. And there is nothing unreasonable in attributing madness to such people, since they carry their errors to a very mad pitch, and wander a great distance from the real truth.

13. Let us, then, as was the custom among the Athenians, drink our wine while listening to these jesters and buffoons, and to other artists of the same kind. And Philochorus speaks of this kind of people in these terms—"The Athenians, in the festivals of Bacchus, originally used to go to the spectacle after they had dined and drunk their wine; and they used to witness the games with garlands on their heads. But during the whole time that the games were going on, wine was continually being offered to them, and sweetmeats were constantly being brought round; and when the choruses entered, they were offered wine; and also when the exhibition was over, and they were departing, wine was offered to them again. And Pherecrates the comic poet bears witness to all these things, and to the fact that down to his own time the spectators were never left without refreshment." And Phanodemus says—"At the temple of Bacchus, which is in the Marshes ([Greek: en Limnais]), the Athenians bring wine, and mix it out of the cask for the god, and then drink of it themselves; on which account Bacchus is also called [Greek: Limnaios], because the wine was first drunk at that festival mixed with water. On which account the fountains were called Nymphs and the Nurses of Bacchus, because the water being mingled with the wine increases the quantity of the wine.

Accordingly, men being delighted with this mixture, celebrated Bacchus in their songs, dancing and invoking him under the names of Euanthes, and Dithyrambus, and Baccheutes, and Bromius." And Theophrastus, in his treatise on Drunkenness, says—"The nymphs are really the nurses of