One of these was put up at Athens in the Theater of
Bacchus, alongside of that of the great writer of tragedy, AEschylus, and
the other at the Theater of the Istiaians, holding in the hand a small
ball. The grammarian Athenaeus, who reports these facts in his "Banquet
of the Sages," profits by the occasion to deplore the taste of the
Athenians, who preferred the inventions of mechanics to the culture of
mind and histrions to philosophers. He adds with vexation that Diophites
of Locris passed down to posterity simply because he came one day to
Thebes wearing around his body bladders filled with wine and milk,
and so arranged that he could spurt at will one of these liquids in
apparently drawing it from his mouth. What would Athenaeus say if he knew
that it was through him alone that the name of this histrion had come
down to us?
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--THE MARVELOUS STATUE OF CYBELE.]
Philo, of Byzantium, and Heron, of Alexandria, to whom we always have
to have recourse when we desire accurate information as to the mechanic
arts of antiquity, both composed treatises on puppet shows. That of
Philo is lost, but Heron's treatise has been preserved to us, and has
recently been translated in part by Mr.
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