e of literary skill, the 'Feast of the
Learned' is an immense storehouse of _Ana_, or table-talk. Into its
receptacles the author gathers fruitage from nearly every branch of
contemporary learning. He seemed to anticipate Macaulay's "vice of
omniscience," though he lacked Macaulay's incomparable literary virtues.
Personal anecdote, criticism of the fine arts, the drama, history,
poetry, philosophy, politics, medicine, and natural history enter into
his pages, illustrated with an aptness and variety of quotation which
seem to have no limit. He preserves old songs, folk-lore, and popular
gossip, and relates whatever he may have heard, without sifting it. He
gives, for example, a vivid account of the procession which greeted
Demetrius Poliorketes:--

"When Demetrius returned from Leucadia and Corcyra to Athens,
the Athenians received him not only with incense and garlands
and libations, but they even sent out processional choruses,
and greeted him with Ithyphallic hymns and dances. Stationed
by his chariot-wheels, they sang and danced and chanted that
he alone was a real god; the rest were sleeping or were on a
journey, or did not exist: they called him son of Poseidon
and Aphrodite, eminent for beauty, universal in his goodness
to mankind; then they prayed and besought and supplicated him
like a god."

The hymn of worship which Athenaeus evidently disapproved has been
preserved, and turned into English by the accomplished J.A. Symonds on
account of its rare and interesting versification. It belongs to the
class of Prosodia, or processional hymns, which the greatest poets
delighted to produce, and which were sung at religious festivals by
young men and maidens, marching to the shrines in time with the music,
their locks crowned with wreaths of olive, myrtle, or oleander; their
white robes shining in the sun.

"See how the mightiest gods, and best beloved,
Towards our town are winging!
For lo! Demeter and Demetrius
This glad day is bringing!
She to perform her Daughter's solemn rites;
Mystic pomps attend her;
He joyous as a god should be, and blithe,
Comes with laughing splendor.
Show forth your triumph! Friends all, troop around,
Let him shine above you!
Be you the stars to circle him with love;
He's the sun to love you.
Hail, offspring of Poseidon, powerful god,
Child of Aphrodite!