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text:euenus_poems

Elegy and Iambus. with an English Translation by. J. M. Edmonds. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1931. 1.

Euenus: Poems

“1I chanced one day to meet a man who has paid more to the sophists than all the others put together, Callias son of Hipponicus; and I asked him —it seems he has two sons —the following question. ‘.. Into whose care do you intend to give them? Who has the expert knowledge of virtue [or excellence] of the kind I have mentioned, the human and political? .. Is there anyone possessed of this virtue or not?’ ‘Certainly,’ he replied. ‘Who is he?’ asked I, ‘and of what country? and what does he charge for his teaching?’ ‘Euenus, Socrates,’ he replied, ‘of Paros, and his fee is twenty pounds.’”

Plato Defence of Socrates


“Hereupon Cebes exclaimed ‘Ah, Socrates! you did well to remind me. I have been repeatedly asked —only the other day by Euenus —about the poems you have composed by versifying the tales of Aesop and about your Hymn to Apollo; they all want to know how it is that you composed them as soon as you came here though you had never before done the like. Now if you would like me to have some answer to give Euenus when he repeats his question, as I know he will, tell me what reply to make.’ ‘Very well, Cebes,’ he replied: ‘tell him the truth, that I composed these poems with no desire to compete with him or his works —for I knew how difficult that would be —but because I wanted to test the meaning of certain dreams I had, and acquit my conscience of any obligation they might lay upon me to make this literary venture. . Thus it was that I first composed a poem to the God whose festival was being held; and then,2 believing that the poet, if he is to be worth the name, should compose myth or fable and not history —and I had no expert knowledge of fiction myself, —I took the fables I had at hand and knew, namely Aesop's, and put the first I happened on into verse. Here then is your reply to Euenus, and pray bid him farewell for me, and say that if he is wise he will lose no time in coming after me. I am going, it seems, to-morrow; such are the orders of my countrymen.’”

Plato Phaedo


“Phaedrus and Socrates:— S. But we must say what the thing remaining to make oratory really is. —P. There 's plenty about it surely, Socrates, in the books on the art of words .. —S. We don't adduce the excellent Euenus of Paros, who discovered subordinate explanation and incidental eulogy —and some people say that he recites incidental invective in verse to aid his memory —for he 's an accomplished fellow.”

Plato Phaedrus:


“Euenus:— Hypereides in the speech Against Autocles . The list contains two elegiac poets of this name, according to Eratosthenes' work On the Annals , who makes them both Parians, but states that the younger alone was famous. One of them is mentioned by Plato.”

Harpocration Lexicon to the Attic Orators


“And not even she (Aspasia) gives you (Socrates) teaching enough, but you must needs lay Diotima under contribution in learning the art of love, and Connus in music, and Euenus in poetry, and Ischomachus in agriculture, and Theodorus in geometry.”

Maximus of Tyre Dissertations


Eusebius Chronicle (gives Euenus' floruit as 460 B.C.).


“Philistus: —Of Naucratis or Syracuse .. He was a pupil of the elegiac poet Euenus, and wrote the first history written according to the art of rhetoric.”

Suidas Lexicon


“Let us pass over another point, that grammar and music were once combined —though indeed Archytas, and Euenus too, considered grammar subordinate; and that the same taught both is proved not only by Sophron .. but by Eupolis.”

Quintilian Elements of Oratory


The animal known as the camel bends its thighs in the middle and thus reduces the length of its legs, being quite properly called κάμηλος , that is to say κάμμηρος or bend-thigh , as we are told by Euenus in his Erotica to Eunomus .

Artemidorus Interpretation of Dreams


“Instead of Chrysippus and Zeno you read Aristeides and Euenus. Have you lost nothing thereby?”

Arrian Dissertations of Epictetus


“ Why mention the Fescennines of Annianus, or the Love-Jests of that ancient poet Laevius? or Euenus, who was called wise by Menander himself? or all the comedy-writers, whose life is austere and their subject frivolous?”

Ausonius Cento Nuptialis [on the naughtiness of his writings]


Elegiac Poems

3Ulpian making no reply, Leonides exclaimed ‘My long silence entitles me to speak, and, to quote Euenus of Paros:

Many a man will contradict on all and every matter, and care not whether his contradiction be just. For such the old answer is enough, Be that your opinion and this mine. But a good argument will quickly persuade men of sense, for these are easy pupils.4

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner


Euenus5: —

The best measure of Bacchus is neither much nor very little, for he is the cause either of inspiration or of pain. He rejoiceth when he maketh four with three Nymphs;6 then too is he most apt for the bedchamber. But if he blow too strong, then doth he turn aside from our loves and plungeth us in a sleep that is neighbour unto death.

Palatine Anthology


[Eu]enus: —

Methinks it is by no means the least part of wisdom to read aright the nature of every man.

Stobaeus Anthology [on seeming and being]


Euenus: —

Daring with wisdom is of great advantage, but daring alone is harmful and bringeth badness.

Stobaeus Anthology [on courage]


Euenus: —

Often the anger of men unveils a hidden mind much worse than madness.

Stobaeus Anthology [on anger]


Neocles never saw Themistocles' Salamis, nor Miltiades Cimon's Eurymedon, nor did Xanthippus hear Pericles' orations, nor Ariston Plato's disquisitions, nor did their fathers know of the victories of Euripides and Sophocles. They heard them lisping and learning their syllables, and they saw them indulging themselves in the revels, carousals and wenchings natural to youth, so that the only line of Euenus that is praised or quoted is:

Son to father is ever either a fear or a pain.

But for all that, fathers do not cease to rear children, and those least of all, who least require them.7

Plutarch Love of Offspring


Of Injustice or Unrighteousness there are three kinds, impiety, covetousness, and hubris the spirit of wanton outrage .., the last being that whereby men make pleasure for themselves by bringing dishonour upon others, or in the words of Euenus:

… [Hubris], which doeth wrong albeit she profit nothing.

Aristotle Virtues and Vices


For what is forced is called necessary, and therefore is painful, as Euenus says:

All that is forced giveth pain.8

Aristotle Metaphysics

Epic Poems

It is just this that makes habit so troublesome, namely that it resembles nature; as Euenus says:

I say that practice is long, friend, aye, and in the end is nature.9

Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics


Iambic Poems

Simonides makes time the wisest of things; .. Euenus combines the two in this:

Time is the wisest and the foolishest of things.10

Simplicius on Aristotle


“Why then, it may be asked, are not these things reckoned as part of a statement? My answer is that they partake of it merely as salt partakes of a dish of meat, or water of a cake of bread. Euenus indeed declared that fire is the finest of sauces; yet we do not call water a part of any particular cake or loaf, or fire or salt part of any particular dish we may order.”

Plutarch Questions on Plato [on conjunctions, the article, and prepositions]


1 or more properly Evenus

2 lit. after the God, i.e. following the ancient custom, first sacred and then secular; cf. L.G. iii. 591

3 cf. Stob. Fl. 82. 3 (1-4); Ath. 10. 429f (4)

4 lit. are matter of easy teaching, cf. Plat. Gorg. 461a οὐκ ὀλίγης συνουσίας ἐστὶν ὥστε ἱκανῶς διασκέψασθαι

5 in the Planudean Anthology called ‘Anonymous’

6 i.e. wine is best mixed with three parts of water

7 cf. Artemid. On. i. 15, Hermias on Plat. Phaedr. 266d p. 238 ( φόβος for δέος )

8 cf. Eth. Eud. 1223a 31, Rhet. 1370a 10; Plut. Suav. Viv. 21, Alex. Aphr. in Met. 4. 5. 1015a 20; for the whole poem of 30 ll. see THEOGNIS 467 ff.

9 lit. and in the end nature is this for men: cf. Heliod. ad. loc.

10 the ascription is doubted because there is no other evidence that E. wrote iambics

text/euenus_poems.txt · Last modified: 2014/01/15 11:57 by 127.0.0.1