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95 chapter 4 King, Friend, and Flatterer: Odysseus in Epicureanism and Beyond For, I say, no attainment is more delightful Than when joy possesses all the people And banqueters in the halls listen to a bard, Seated in order, and the tables beside them are laden, With bread and meats, and the wine-bearer, drawing wine from the mixing bowl, Brings it around and pours it into the cups (Od. 9.5–10) the epicurean odysseus: an epicure? Is, then, Seneca correct to say that the Epicureans applauded Odysseus for “praising the condition of a state at peace where life is spent in feasting and song?” Other sources maintain that they unfairly exploited Odysseus’ eulogy of feasting in Odyssey 9 to uphold their theory of the supremacy of pleasure. For instance , the allegorist Heraclitus (Hom. Probl. 79.2–3) argues that Epicurus stole (κέκλοφεν) those lines to bear out his shameful doctrine: “What Odysseus said falsely, unwisely, and hypocritically at the court of Alcinous, Epicurus pronounces as the goal (τέλη) of life, and claims to be speaking the truth” (the quotation follows). Athenaeus joins in: by celebrating feasting, Odysseus “seems to have been the first in showing Epicurus his much-spoken-of pleasure” (12.513a). The scholia on the passage provide additional evidence: “they [the Epicureans?] charge Odysseus with love for pleasure (φιληδονίαν), claiming that he makes enjoyment (ἀπόλαυσιν) the end of life.” This alleged Epicurean “theft”of Odysseus’praise of feasting did not escape Lucian’s wit. One Simon, the advocate of the parasitic profession in Lucian’s essay on the subject, claims Odysseus “back”from the philosophers who have mistreated him, including the Epicureans. Against them Simon appeals to 96 from villain to hero Odysseus’celebration of feasting to prove the point that “happiness and the parasitic art have the same end”(The Parasite 10). The association of Odysseus with the figure of the parasite was traditional. Instances of parasites modeled after Odysseus are numerous, possibly starting with the buffoon Philip in Xenophon’s Symposium (1.16), who parodies Odysseus’ reprimand to his heart in Odyssey 20; on to a parasite of Ptolemy the Third, one Callicrates, so proud of his intelligence that he wore a ring with a picture of Odysseus and named his children after Odysseus’ family members (Athenaeus 6.251d–e); to Peniculus in Plautus’ Menaechmi, nicknamed “meus Ulixes” (902); to one of Alciphron’s parasites, who contrives “an Odyssean plan”(3.40.2).1 Odysseus encouraged this unflattering association in the first place because of his eloquence, inventiveness, and adaptability. The example of Callicrates is particularly amusing in this respect: his choice of Odysseus as patron might have aimed to please his own patron, since Ptolemy the Third apparently was an admirer of the Homeric hero.2 By appealing to Odysseus’ intelligence to dress up his own, this parasite proves indeed to possess Odysseus-like intelligence, for he publicly endorses his patron’s liking for the Homeric character. Second, Odysseus became the prototypical parasite because of his alleged love for food and drink. This weakness imputed to him had long inspired comic treatments.3 For instance, the playwrights Epicharmus and Theopompus wrote Sirens, in both of which Odysseus was tempted not by song but by the promise of gourmet food.4 In Epicharmus’ play the Sirens whetted Odysseus’ appetite by detailing all the dainties they were preparing. But Odysseus could not reach to them: tied as he was to the mast, he suffered the torture of Tantalus. In Theopompus’ comedy the Sirens seem to have lured Odysseus and his crew to come to a banquet and eat Sicilian tuna. Odysseus, however, this time resisted the temptation and held his companions back. Another comic playwright, Cratinus , went so far in his irreverence as to interpret Odysseus’ wretched wanderings as a “gastronomic tour,” and one in which Odysseus behaved more like a gourmand than a gourmet.5 He and his men traveled the world in search for every kind of delicacy, and paid dearly for their gluttony when they fell in with the Cyclops. E. D. Phillips comments: “the comedy had a moral of a sort: that gluttony led Odysseus and his men into a situation where they found that they themselves were the banquet.”6 Evidence for Odysseus’ appetite could be detected in several Homeric passages in which he admits to the tyranny of the belly.7 The most extensive is Od. 7.215–21: “But allow me to eat despite my grief, for nothing is more shameful than...

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