A Cabinet Of Greek Curiosities

by J. C. McKeown

  A scholar, a bald man, and a barber were traveling together. When they stopped for the night in a lonely spot, they agreed to keep watch over their belongings for four hours each. The barber took the first watch and, to amuse himself, he shaved the scholar’s head as he slept. When his watch was over, he woke the scholar. The scholar scratched his head sleepily, and finding that he was hairless, said, “That barber is such a fool! He woke the bald man instead of me” (Philogelos Joke Book 56).

  If you burn a hedgehog and then mix the ashes with pitch and smear the concoction over hairless patches, the runaways (to make a little joke) will sprout again (Aelian On Animals 14.4).

  Why do eunuchs not become bald? Is it because they have large brains? This happens because they have nothing to do with women, for semen comes down the spine from the brain (Ps.-Aristotle Problems 897b).

  Indians dye their beards a variety of colors; some make their white beards as white as possible, others prefer dark blue, or crimson, or purple, or green (Arrian History of India 16.4).

  Whenever something unfortunate is going to happen to the Pedasians, who live upcountry from Halicarnassus, the priestess of Athena grows a bushy beard. This has happened three times (Herodotus Histories 1.175).

  MYTH BUSTERS

  Pandora, who famously unleashed evils on the world from a jar she should not have opened, was usually said to have been fashioned from mud by Hephaestus and given to mankind bearing gifts (dora) from all (pantes) the gods. Palaephatus (On Incredible Tales 34) suggests that she was actually a very rich Greek woman who invented the mud pack to improve her complexion.

  The birth of Athena, fully armed, from the head of Zeus.

  They say that a monster used to come out of the sea to attack the Trojans. If they gave it young girls to eat, it would go away, but otherwise it would ravage their land. Who could fail to see that it is silly to suppose that people could strike a bargain with a fish? (Palaephatus On Incredible Tales 37).

  Conventional mythology tells how Medea killed Pelias, who had deprived Jason of the kingship in Thessaly, by inducing his daughters to chop him up and throw him into a cauldron of boiling water, under the illusion that this would rejuvenate him. But here is what actually happened. Medea discovered black and red dyes and was therefore able to make gray-haired old men appear to have dark or red hair. She also invented steam baths, which were a great benefit to mankind, but she made those whom she bathed swear to tell no one about the technique, in case any of the doctors found out about it. Anyone who underwent the steam treatment became lighter and healthier, but those who saw her cauldrons and the fire were convinced that she was boiling people. Pelias died while in the steam bath, but only because he was old and weak (Palaephatus On Incredible Tales 43).

  They say that when Narcissus looked into the water, he did not realize he was gazing at his own reflection, so he fell in love with himself and died of love at the spring. This is absolutely simpleminded: how could a person old enough to fall in love be incapable of distinguishing a real person from a reflection? (Pausanias Guide to Greece 9.31.7).

  A writer was reading some long passages from his book; when he was approaching the end, Diogenes the Cynic saw that there was a blank column and shouted out, “Cheer up, everyone! Land ahoy!”

  (Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Philosophers 6.38).

  GLOSSARY

  IN EXPLAINING why he considers performances of old comedy, written six hundred years earlier, to be unsuitable entertainment at dinner parties, Plutarch observes that just as every guest at an important person’s dinner party has his own personal wine-waiter, so each of us would need his own scholar to explain the allusions, and our symposium would turn into a classroom or else the jokes would be flat and pointless (Tabletalk 712a). Such problems are obviously greater for us nowadays; no professional classicist would claim to be familiar even with the names of all the thousands of authors whose works have come down to us, whether in their entirety or, as is far more often the case, in tantalizing fragments. In lieu of explanatory footnotes accompanying the text, this glossary defines briefly some of the people, places, events, and institutions referred to most often and most prominently in the book. It is not comprehensive; further information is readily available in reference sources such as the Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 4th ed., 2012).

  Abdera: Greek city on the coast of Thrace.

  Acragas: Greek city on the southwest coast of Sicily.

  Actium: city in western Greece, where Octavian defeated Antony and Cleopatra in 31 B.C.

  Aegina: island fifteen miles off the Attic coast.

  Aelian (Claudius Aelianus ca. A.D. 165–ca. 235): author of On Animals and Miscellaneous History, rich sources of curious lore.

  Aelius Aristides (A.D. 117–ca. 185): sophist and man of letters, author of a wide range of prose works, much admired in antiquity, but often rather boring.

  Aeneas: Trojan prince and son of the goddess Venus; legendary founder of the Roman people.

  Aeschylus: with Sophocles and Euripides, the greatest of the 5th-century Athenian tragedians.

  Aesop: the semilegendary composer of fables.

  Agora: the central focus of public life in a Greek community.

  Alcibiades (451/450–404/403 B.C.): aristocratic Athenian politician and general.

  Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C.): king of Macedon and conqueror of the Persian empire.

  Alexandria: city founded by Alexander at the western edge of the Nile delta in 331 B.C., a great cosmopolitan center of learning and culture.

  Ammianus Marcellinus (ca. A.D. 325–after 391): the last great Roman historian.

  Anacharsis: semilegendary wise barbarian, said to have traveled in Greece in the 6th century B.C.

  Anaximander of Miletus: 6th-century B.C. natural philosopher.

  Anaximenes of Lampsacus: 4th-century B.C. historian and rhetorician.

  Anaximenes of Miletus: follower of Anaximander.

  Apelles of Colophon: 4th-century B.C. painter.

  Apollonius of Rhodes: 3rd-century B.C. head of the Library at Alexandria, author of the epic Argonautica.

  Appian (ca. A.D. 95–ca. 165): author of a history of Rome in Greek.

  Archimedes of Syracuse (ca. 287–212/211 B.C.): mathematician and inventor.

  Archytas: 4th-century B.C. Pythagorean philosopher, ruler of the Greek city of Tarentum in southern Italy.

  Argos: city in the northeastern Peloponnese.

  Aristides: 5th-century B.C. Athenian politician and general.

  Aristophanes (ca. 455–ca. 388 B.C.): Athenian writer of comedies.

  Aristotle of Stagira (384–322 B.C.): incalculably influential scientist and philosopher.

  Arrian (Lucius Flavius Arrianus ca. A.D. 86–160): philosopher and historian.

  Artemidorus of Daldis: 2nd-century A.D. author of The Interpretation of Dreams.

  Aspasia: mistress of Pericles.

  Athenaeus of Naucratis: late 2nd-century A.D. author of Wise Men at Dinner, a ragbag of discussions on literature, philosophy, law, medicine, and other topics.

  Athos: headland on the coast of Macedonia.

  Attica: the hinterland of Athens.

  Aulus Gellius (ca. A.D. 125–after 180): author of the Attic Nights, a collection of quotations and discussions on wide-ranging and miscellaneous topics.

  Bion of Borysthenes (ca. 335–ca. 245 B.C): popular philosopher, rather in the manner of Diogenes the Cynic.

  Boeotia: region in central Greece, north of Attica.

  Callimachus of Cyrene: 3rd-century B.C. scholar and poet in the Library at Alexandria and at the Ptolemaic court.

  Caria: region in southwest Asia Minor (Turkey).

  Carthage: located on the outskirts of modern Tunis, destroyed by Rome in 146 B.C.

  Cassius Dio (ca. A.D. 160–ca. 230): author of a history of Rome in Greek.

  Ceramicus: the potters’ quarter in Athens, including the agora.

  Charon: the ferryman who transport
ed the dead across the River Styx to the Underworld.

  Chios: Greek island off the coast of Asia Minor (Turkey).

  Chrysippus of Soli (ca. 280–ca. 207 B.C.): philosopher, head of the Stoa.

  Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero 106–43 B.C.): the greatest Roman orator.

  Circe: beautiful witch who transformed Odysseus’s men into pigs.

  Claudius Ptolemy: 2nd-century A.D. author of works on geography, mathematics, astronomy, and astrology.

  Cleon (?–422 B.C.): Athenian popularist politician.

  Corinth: city on the isthmus joining the Peloponnese to central Greece.

  Croton: Greek city in southern Italy.

  Cyme: Greek city on the west coast of Asia Minor (Turkey).

  Cyranides: a treatise on medical magic lore, probably first collected in the 4th century A.D.

  Cyrene: Greek city in Libya.

  Delos: island in the central Aegean, birthplace of Apollo and Artemis.

  Democritus of Abdera (ca. 460–? B.C.): atomist philosopher.

  Demosthenes (384–322 B.C.): the greatest Athenian orator.

  Dio Chrysostom (ca. A.D. 45–after 110): orator and popular philosopher.

  Diodorus Siculus (ca. 90–ca. 27 B.C.): author of a universal history in Greek.

  Diogenes Laertius: 3rd-century A.D. compiler of biographies of early philosophers.

  Diogenes the Cynic (ca. 410–ca. 324 B.C.): philosopher who questioned the conventions of life through his outrageous behavior and wit.

  Dionysius of Halicarnassus (ca. 60–after 7 B.C.): Greek author of a history of Rome and of various treatises on rhetoric.

  Dionysius I (ca. 430–367 B.C.): tyrant of Syracuse.

  Dioscorides of Anazarbus: 1st-century A.D. author of Medical Material, a five-book study of the plants used in medicine.

  Dodona: sanctuary and oracle of Zeus in the western mountains of Greece.

  Drachma: basic unit of Greek coinage, of varying value in different poleis.

  Elis: region in the northwest Peloponnese.

  Elysium: home of the happy dead.

  Empedocles of Acragas (ca. 492–432 B.C.): natural philosopher.

  Ephesus: Greek city on the west coast of Asia Minor (Turkey).

  Ephors: Spartan civil magistrates.

  Epictetus: 1st/2nd-century A.D. Stoic philosopher, a slave in his early life.

  Epicurus of Samos (341–270 B.C.): moral and natural philosopher.

  Etymologicum Magnum: 12th-century lexical encyclopedia.

  Eubulus: 4th-century B.C. Athenian writer of comedies.

  Eupolis: 5th-century B.C. Athenian writer of comedies.

  Euripides: with Aeschylus and Sophocles, the greatest of the 5th-century Athenian tragedians.

  Eustathius: 12th-century Byzantine scholar and priest, compiler of commentaries on Homer and other authors.

  Farm Work: 10th-century Byzantine compilation on agriculture.

  Florentine Paradoxographer: one of several collections of strange stories, of uncertain date.

  Galen of Pergamum (Claudius Galenus ca. A.D. 129–ca. 212): the most influential of ancient doctors, magnificently opinionated.

  Gauls: the people of modern France and surrounding regions.

  Gnomologium Vaticanum: 14th-century compilation of wise sayings, drawn mostly from classical sources.

  Halicarnassus: Greek city in southwest Asia Minor (Turkey).

  Hecuba: wife of Priam, the last king of Troy.

  Helots: slave population exploited by Sparta.

  Heraclitus: 6th/5th-century B.C. philosopher.

  Herodotus of Halicarnassus (?–ca. 425 B.C.): author of the Histories, an account of the Persian Wars and the peoples involved.

  Herophilus of Chalcedon (ca. 330–260 B.C.): physician at Alexandria.

  Hesiod: 8th/7th-century B.C. author of the Works and Days and the Theogony, as well as much other poetry, now mostly lost.

  Hippocrates of Cos (ca. 470–ca. 400 B.C.): father of Western medicine, but a shadowy figure.

  Iamblichus of Chalcis (ca. A.D. 245–ca. 325): Neoplatonist philosopher.

  Iphigenia: daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra.

  Isocrates (438–336 B.C.): Athenian orator.

  Johannes Malalas (ca. A.D. 480–ca. 570): author of a chronicle of world history.

  Josephus (Titus Flavius Josephus, A.D. 37–after 100): author of the Jewish Wars and Jewish Antiquities.

  Julius Africanus: 2nd-century A.D. author of a chronicle of world history and of the Cestoi, a wide-ranging collection of miscellaneous information.

  Lampsacus: Greek city in northwest Asia Minor (Turkey).

  Leucadia: island off the west coast of Greece.

  Lucian of Samosata: 2nd-century A.D. author of essays, dialogues, and narratives commenting wittily and satirically on literature and contemporary culture.

  Lycurgus: semilegendary Spartan legislator.

  Lysias (ca. 459–ca. 380 B.C.): resident alien in Athens, writer of speeches.

  Machon: 3rd-century B.C. writer of comedies in Alexandria.

  Marathon: region in Attica, site of the unexpected victory of the Athenians and Plataeans over the Persians in 490 B.C.

  Marcus Aurelius (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus A.D. 121–180): Stoic philosopher and Roman emperor (ruled A.D. 161–180).

  Medusa: mythical monster, celebrated mainly for her decapitation by Perseus.

  Megara: city near the Isthmus of Corinth.

  Menander (ca. 344–292/291 B.C.): Athenian writer of comedies.

  Michael Psellus (A.D. 1018–after 1081): prolific author of works on history, philosophy, rhetoric, science, and literature.

  Miletus: Greek city on the west coast of Asia Minor (Turkey).

  Musonius Rufus: 1st-century A.D. Stoic philosopher.

  Mytilene: the largest city on the island of Lesbos.

  Obol: one-sixth of a drachma.

  Orestes: son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra.

  Origen of Alexandria (ca. A.D. 185–ca. 255): Christian scholar and apologist.

  Oxyrhynchus: city near the Upper Nile, source of almost three-quarters of all Greek literary papyri.

  Palaephatus: author of a collection of rationalized versions of myths, originally written perhaps in the 4th century B.C., but surviving only in abbreviated form.

  Parasite: literally “feeder beside,” a companion to a social superior.

  Patras: city on the north coast of the Peloponnese.

  Pausanias of Magnesia: 2nd-century A.D. author of Description of Greece, a detailed account of most of the regions in the Roman province of Achaea.

  Peloponnesian War: fought in 431–404 B.C. by Sparta and its allies against Athens and its allies.

  Pentheus: legendary king of Thebes.

  Perdiccas (?–321 B.C.): one of Alexander the Great’s generals.

  Pergamum: Greek city near the west coast of Asia Minor (Turkey).

  Pericles (ca. 495–429 B.C.): Athenian political and military leader.

  Phidias: 5th-century Athenian sculptor.

  Philip II (382–336 B.C.): king of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great.

  Philitas of Cos (ca. 340–? B.C.): poet and scholar at Alexandria.

  Philo of Alexandria: 1st-century A.D. biblical scholar and philosopher.

  Philodemus of Gadara (ca. 110–ca. 38 B.C.): philosopher and poet.

  Philogelos: late antique collection of jokes mocking characters and professions, rather than individuals.

  Philostratus: the name of three or possibly four authors from the same family who wrote on a wide spectrum of themes, including Homeric heroes, gymnastics, art collections, and biographies.

  Photius (ca. A.D 810–ca. 893): patriarch of Constantinople and author of The Library, 280 chapters providing accounts of books he had read.

  Phryne (literally “Toad”): the name or nom de guerre of several famous prostitutes.

  Pindar (ca. 518–ca. 438 B.C.): Boeotian lyric poet.

  Piraeus: port of
Athens.

  Pisa: district around Olympia in the northwest Peloponnese.

  Plataea: town in southeast Boeotia.

  Plato (ca. 429–347 B.C.): the philosopher to whom the European philosophical tradition is a series of footnotes.

  Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus A.D. 23–79): author of the Natural History, an endlessly fascinating encyclopedia, conveying (by Pliny’s computation) twenty thousand facts. Modern scholars would boost that total to approximately thirty-seven thousand.

  Plutarch (ca. A.D. 45–127): as well as biographies of prominent Greeks and Romans, he also wrote the Moralia, essays on a wide range of philosophical, religious, and literary topics.

  Polis: the Greek city-state.

  Pollux: 2nd-century A.D. lexicographer.

  Polybius (ca. 203–120 B.C.): author of the Histories, an account in Greek of Rome’s expansion in 220–146 B.C.

  Porphyry of Tyre: 3rd-century A.D. Neoplatonist philosopher.

  Posidonius of Apamea (ca. 135–ca. 50 B.C): Stoic philosopher, scientist, and historian.

  Praxiteles: 3rd-century B.C. Athenian sculptor.

  Priam: the last king of Troy.

  Procopius of Caesarea: 6th-century A.D. historian.