Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 3).djvu/310

 and urging that Neanthes used this word in the first book of his History of Attalus. Others, again, of the party made use of whatever other words they fancied; so that there was no ordinary noise; while all were vying with one another in adducing every sort of argument which bore upon the question. For one man said that Silenus, the dictionary-maker, mentioned that the Athenians call lamps [Greek: phanoi]. But Timachidas of Rhodes asserts that for [Greek: phanos], the word more properly used is [Greek: deletron], being a sort of lantern which young men use when out at night, and which they themselves call [Greek: helanai]. But Amerias for [Greek: phanos] uses the word [Greek: grabion]. And this word is thus explained by Seleucus:—"[Greek: Grabion] is a stick of ilex or common oak, which, being pounded and split, is set on fire, and used to give light to travellers. Accordingly Theodoridas of Syracuse, in his Centaurs, which is a dithyrambic poem, says—

The pitch dropp'd down beneath the [Greek: grabia], As if from torches.

Strattis also, mentions the [Greek: grabia] in his Phœnician Women."

58. But that what are now called [Greek: phanoi] used to be called [Greek: lychnouchoi], we learn from Aristophanes, in his Æolosicon—

I see the light shining all o'er his cloak, As from a new [Greek: lychnouchos].

And, in the second edition of the Niobus, having already used the word [Greek: lychnouchos], he writes—

Alas, unhappy man! my [Greek: lychnion]'s lost;

after which, he adds—

And, in his play called The Dramas, he calls the same thing [Greek: lychnidion], in the following lines—

But you all lie Fast as a candle in a candlestick ([Greek: lychnidion]).

Plato also, in his Long Night, says—

The undertakers sure will have [Greek: lychnouchoi].

And Pherecrates, in his Slave Teacher, writes—

Make haste and go, for now the night descends, And bring a lantern ([Greek: lychnouchon]) with a candle furnish'd.

Alexis too, in his Forbidden Thing, says—

So taking out the candle from the lantern ([Greek: lychnion]), He very nearly set himself on fire, Carrying the light beneath his arm much nearer His clothes than any need at all required.