Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database

7520

Lucian, The Sky-Man, 27

nan His work was now pretty well completed, and as it was just dinner time, we went to the banquet hall. Hermes received me, and gave me my place next to a group of Gods whose alien origin left them in a rather doubtful position — Pan, the Corybants, Attis, and Sabazius. I was supplied with bread by Demeter, wine by Dionysus, meat by Heracles, myrtle blossoms by Aphrodite, and sprats by Posidon. But I also got a sly taste of ambrosia and nectar; good natured Ganymede, as often as he saw that Zeus’s attention was engaged elsewhere, brought round the nectar and indulged me with a half pint or so. The Gods, as Homer (who I think must have had the same opportunities of observation as myself) somewhere says, neither eat bread nor drink the ruddy wine; they heap their plates with ambrosia, and are nectar bibbers; but their choicest dainties are the smoke of sacrifice ascending with rich fumes, and the blood of victims poured by their worshippers round the altars. During dinner, Apollo harped, Silenus danced his wild measures, the Muses uprose and sang to us from Hesiod’s Birth of Gods, and the first of Pindar’s odes. When we had our fill and had well drunken, we slumbered, each where he was.

Intertexts (texts cited often on the same page as the searched text):

None available Subjects of this text:

subject	book bibliographic info
aeschylus	Naiden (2013) 113
agetor	Naiden (2013) 113
antioch	König (2012) 200
aristophanes	Naiden (2013) 113
burkert,w.	Naiden (2013) 113
christianity,early,and paganism,relationship in the fourth century ce	König (2012) 200
julian,symposium or caesars	König (2012) 200
julian	König (2012) 200
neoplatonism'	König (2012) 200
peace (goddess)	Naiden (2013) 113
sacred fish	Naiden (2013) 113
sparta	Naiden (2013) 113
trygaeus	Naiden (2013) 113