Dionysius Chalcus
“The man who more than anyone else played up to him in this pat and helped him on with his cloak of dignity and self-importance, was one named Hieron, who had been brough up in his house and given by him a thorough education in letters and music, but claimed to be a son of Dionysius called Chalcus or the Brazen, whose poems are extant and who, as leader of the colony that went out to Italy, founded Thurii.1” Plutarch Life of Nicias
“. . . the citizens sent out fo found the city of Thurium in Sicily, ten in number, including the prophet Lampon whom they called the expounder (which also means leader-out).2” Scholiast on Aristophanes Clouds [‘Thurii-prophets’]
“Pleased by this, Apollo gave Phalaris respite from death, declaring this to be his will to any who came to consult the Pythian priestess how thye might best attack him, and giving them an oracle concerning Chariton in which the pentameter preceeded the hexameter in the manner afterwards affected in his Elegiac Poems by the Athenian Dionysius, named Chalcus.” Heracleides of Pontus in Athenaeus [on Chariton and Melanippus]
Elegiac Poems
“‘But if I too,’ said Democritus, ‘may quote the Brazen poet and orator Dionysius —called the Brazen or bronze, by the way, because he advised the Athenians to adopt a bronze coinage, and the speech in which he did so is included by Callimachus in his List of Orations —I in my turn will recite something from his Elegiac Poems :
” Athenaeus Doctors at DinnerReceive, O Theodorus,3 this toast I drink you of my poetry; to you first of the guests about the board I hand the Graces I have mingled with leaves of paper,4 and do you take this gift, and pledge me songs back, to the adornment of our feast and the enhancing of your own happiness.
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“Hereupon Cynulcus, always up in arms against the Syrian and never content to let their quarrel rest, cried amid the tumult which had arisen round the table, ‘What is this troop of rowdies: I too will recall and recite you some of these lines (of Dionysius), or Ulpian will be giving himself airs for having been the only one to draw on his secret store of poems, like the Homeridae, for cottabus-lore:
and that is, something relevant to our present enquiry.’”Come hither and hear good news; cease the strife of cups, win sense of me, and learn what I have to say;
CURFRAG.tlg-0246.2Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner
“Mention is made both of the cottabus and the λάταγες or wine-drops thrown in that game by Dionysius called the Brazen, in his Elegiac Poems, thus:
Hereupon Ulpian asked for a drink in a great cup, adding to his request the following lines from the same Elegiacs:7Here we love-lorn swains add for you to the school of Bromius, to take its place as a third kind of cottabus,5 the bag; and all you guests must twist your fingers into the handles of your cups;6 and before you throw at it you should pace the air over the couch with your eye, to reckon how far the drops are to extend.
CURFRAG.tlg-0246.3”... to pour out the wine of hymns in turn about the board to Thee8 and to us; and Thy ancient and far-come friend we will dispatch with oarage of the tongue unto great praise at this our feast;9 Wit sendeth Phaeacian10 oarsmen to the benches of the Muses' ship.11
CURFRAG.tlg-0246.4Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner
“Pontianus here remarked that all these terrors were colonists of one city, Wine, the originator of Intoxication, Frenzy, and Drunken Outrage, whose devotees Dionysius, surnamed the Brazen, not ineptly calls in his Elegiacs ‘oarsmen of cups’:
” Athenaeus Doctors at Dinnerand certain sailors of the feast and oarsmen of cups, bringing wine in the rowing of Dionysus12 ... about this13; for that which is dear is not lost.
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“These things, dear Timocrates, are not, in the words of Plato,14 the mere games or jests of a Socrates still young and handsome, but the serious disputations of the Doctors at Dinner; for, to quote Dionysius the Brazen,
” Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner :[ (end of the book)Whether you are at the beginning or the ending, what is better than what you most desire?
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“A fault may be also made in syllables, namely if they do not represent a pleasant sound, as for instance Dionysius the Brazen in his Elegiacs calls poetry
because both poetry and that screech are sounds;15 but the metaphor is a poor one because of the unpleasant sounds.16”the screech of Calliope
CURFRAG.tlg-0246.7Aristotle Rhetoric