ALCAEUS
64

Athenaeus Morfors uf Tinaer [on the greedy tish called
labrax or bass]: The lvrie poet Alcaeus says that the bass
swims near the surface.}

65

Aristides fon rhetoric]: If any others vo about dceelaiming
against rhetoric, or rather muttering and shouting at it from
the dark, as Aleaeus says... . , let so much be my answer :
—even as they do it, rhetoric is taking its revenge.

e.g... . who muttered and kept shooting at us
from the dark.

66

Plutarch Gn he Coessution of Grarles: On ἃ vecent visit: to
Ammon it was clear he had been particularly struck with
the ever-burning lamp, about which he told us an interesting
circumstance related to him by the priests. It seems that
they use less oil for it every vear, and sinve it is only
reasonable to suppose that the less the oil consumed the
shorter the time of burning, they believe this to he an
indication that the length of the year is not constant, but
that each is shorter than its predecessor, At this there was
veneral astonishment, and Demetrius exclaimed that it was
really absurd to persue so great a quest with such tiny
equipment, not, in Alcaeus’ phrase,

painting a lion from the claw,

but changing the position of the entire heavens and throwing
mathematics out of the window by means of a lamp and a
lamp-wick.*

The prob. compared the tyrant Pittacus to this fish, perl.
in the poem to which 162 belongs “cf. Puroem, 2. 165

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