ULYSSES. But Ion borrowed all this from Pindar, who said[1]—
And they say that he was a man of such excessive voracity, that they gave him the cormorant, amongst birds which should be sacred to him, which is called the ox-eater, on account of its voracity.
2. And Hercules is represented as having entered into a contest with Lepreus in respect of their mutual powers of eating, Lepreus having been the challenger: however, Hercules gained the victory. But Zenodotus, in the second book of his Epitomes, says that Lepreus was the son of Caucon, who was the son of Neptune and Astydamia; and that he ordered Hercules to be thrown into prison, when he demanded of Augeas the reward which was due to him for his labours. But Hercules, when he had completed his labours, came to the house of Caucon, and at the entreaty of Astydamia, he became reconciled to Lepreus. And after this Lepreus contended with Hercules in throwing the quoit, and in drawing water, and also as to which would eat a bull with the greatest rapidity; and in all these things he was defeated. And after that he armed himself, and challenged Hercules to single combat, and was slain in the battle. But Matris, in his panegyric on Hercules, says, that Hercules was also challenged by Lepreus to a contest as to who could drink most, and that Lepreus was again defeated. And the Chian orator, Caucalus, the brother of Theopompus the historian, relates the same story in his panegyric on Hercules.
3. Homer, too, represents Ulysses as a great eater, and a very voracious man, when he says—
What histories of toil I could declare,
But still long-wearied nature wants repair.
Spent with fatigue and shrunk with pining fast,
My craving bowels still require repast;
Howe'er the noble suffering mind may grieve
Its load of anguish, and disdain to live,
Necessity demands our daily bread;
Hunger is insolent and will be fed.
For in these lines his gluttony appears prodigious, when it induces him on so unseasonable an occasion to utter apophthegms about his stomach. For he ought, if he had been ever so hungry, to have endured it, or at all events to have
- ↑ The passage from Pindar is hopelessly corrupt.
