Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 3).djvu/74

 men were! But Hermippus uses the following language, addressing Bacchus on the present occasion—

For poor men now to sacrifice to you But maim'd and crippled oxen; thinner far Than e'en Thoumantis or Leotrophides.

And Aristophanes, in his Gerytades, gives a list of the following people as very thin, who, he says, were sent as ambassadors by the poets on earth down to hell to the poets there, and his words are—

A. And who is this who dares to pierce the gates Of lurid darkness, and the realms o' the dead?

B. We're by unanimous agreement chosen, (Making the choice in solemn convocation,) One man from each department of our art, Who were well known to be frequenters of the Shades, As often voluntarily going thither.

A. Are there among you any men who thus Frequent the realms of Pluto?

B. Aye, by Jove, And plenty; just as there are men who go    To Thrace and then come back again. You know The whole case now.

A. And what may be their names? First, there's Sannyrion, the comic poet; Then, of the tragic chori, Melitus, And of the Cyclic bards, Cinesias.

And presently afterwards he says—

On what slight hopes did you then all rely! For if a fit of diarrhœa came Upon these men, they'd all be carried off.

And Strattis also mentions Sannyrion, in his Men fond of Cold, saying—

The leathern aid of wise Sannyrion.

And Sannyrion himself speaks of Melitus, in his play called Laughter, speaking as follows—

Melitus, that carcase from Lenæum rising.

76. And Cinesias was in reality an exceedingly tall and exceedingly thin man; on whom Strattis wrote an entire play, calling him the Phthian Achilles, because in his own poetry he was constantly using the word [Greek: phthiôta]. And accordingly, he, playing on his appearance, continually addresses him—

[Greek: Phthiôt' Achilleu].—

But others, as, for instance, Aristophanes, often call him [Greek: philyrinos Kinêsias], because he took a plank of linden wood