510 PEOSB HAXIETTTICS. 



mirers send after her; then you shall see me fawning as a 

 spaniel, supple as a belt, soft as a wash-leather, deep as a 

 well; yet pliant and yielding as I appear in the service 

 of a friend, or friend's friend, I can also, when their inter- 

 ests demand it, assume a very different character : sweep 

 away foes like a whirlwind; scathe them as a flash of 

 lightning ; or, like an earthquake, bring down their house 

 about their ears. I stick at nothing to serve an ally, 

 but am, as occasion may require, a buUy, a perjurer, a 

 truce-breaker, or an assassin : a friend commands every 

 one of my members and senses, and I place tongue, 

 teeth, hands, and feet, as weU as my head, entirely at 

 his disposal.' Such rascally disclosures as the above we 

 might certainly have expected from any esurient Greek ; 

 but that all Athens should turn parasite, and as one 

 man debase itself by the worship, not of an ' unknown 

 God,' but of a well-known licentious man of blood, and 

 honour him in the sublime language of the prophets and 

 psalms, is startling, and not what we should have pre- 

 dicted. Yet Demochares informs us, that the Athenians 

 received Demetrius, when he came from Leucadia and 

 Corcyra to Athens, not only with frankincense, crowns, 

 and libations, but even went out to meet him with ithy- 

 phallic hymns, choruses, and chanted as they moved in 

 slow procession, that he was the only true God, and that 

 all the others were either asleep or on a journey, or 

 peradventure were not ; they invoked him as the son of 

 Neptune and Venus, and then falling down on their 

 faces worshiped him.* One of these ithyphallic hymns 

 is yet extant, and from it we make the following extract. 



How noble doth, he look ! his friends around, 

 Himself the centre : 



* 'Qs e'ir) ii,6vos Qeos aKri6iv6s, oi 8' oXXot Kadev8ov<nv, 7J diroSri- 

 [iovaiv Tj ovK elaiv ysyovas 6' etrj CK Jloa-ctdavos Kai 'A^jOoStrj^s, Sed- 

 fievoi 8' avTov (Kcreuov, i^i;o-«, KoX 'iTpo<rr]V)(ovTo. — Demochares, 



