Book 8
43
Stratonicus said once to the father of Chrysogonus, when he was saying that he had everything at home in great abundance, for that he himself had undertaken the works, and that of his sons, one could teachThere is meant here to be a pun on διδάσκω, which means to teach, and also to exhibit a play. and another play the flute; You still, said Stratonicus, want one thing. And when the other asked him what that was, You want, said he, a theatre in your house. And when some one asked him why he kept travelling over the whole of Greece, and did not remain in one city, he said—That he had received from the Muses all the Greeks as his wages, from whom he was to levy a tax to atone for their ignorance. And he said that Phaon did not play harmony,There is an allusion here to Harmonia the wife of Cadmus. but Cadmus. And when Phaon pretended to great skill on the flute, and said that he had a chorus at Megara, You are joking, said he; for you do not possess anything there, but you are possessed yourself. And he said—That he marvelled above all things at the mother of Satyrus the Sophist, because she had borne for nine months a man whom no city in all Greece could bear for nine days. And once, hearing that he had arrived in Ilium at the time of the Ilian games, There are, said he, always troubles in Ilium. And when Minnacus was disputing with him about music, he said—That he was not attending to what he said, because he had got in above his ankles. At another time he said of a bad physician—That he made those who were attended by him go to the shades below the very day they came to him. And having met one of his acquaintances, when he saw his sandals carefully sponged, he pitied him as being badly off, pretending to think that he would never have had his sandals so well sponged if he had not sponged them himself. And as it was a very mixed race of people who lived at Teichius, a town in the Milesian territory, when he saw that all the tombs about were those of foreigners, Let us begone, O boy, said he; or all the strangers, as it seems, die here, and none of the citizens. And when Zethus the harper was giving a lecture upon music, he said that he was the only person who was utterly unfit to discuss the subject of music, inasmuch as he had chosen the most unmusical of all names, and called himself; ZethusZethus was the name of the brother of Amphion. instead of Amphion. And once, when he was teaching some Macedonian to play on the harp, being angry that he did nothing as he ought, he said, Go to Macedonia.
