Athenaeus of Naucratis, Deipnosophistae 13.564b: beauty contest (?)

Athenaeus of Naucratis, Deipnosophistae 13.564b: beauty contest (?)

ca. 4th/3rd century BCE

Anecdote collection

Literary source

Athenaeus is citing Clearchus of Soloi (FGH2.314). Scanlon, Eros and Greek Athletics, Oxford 2002, 21) argues that this passage refers to a beauty contest for maidens because of the attribute χρυσοφόρος ("wearing gold") with which the maiden is described in verse 2. This term appears in another Athenaeus passage (Deipnosophistae 13.609e–610a) as the epithet granted to the victress in a beauty contest for women in Arcadia.
In the present context, however, it might just have a more general meaning and express the particular appeal of the maiden. The boy and the woman likewise have such general attributes in the Clearchus poem (respectively masculinity, missing in Yonge’s translation, and an ample robe), and the context in Athenaeus concerns the role of physical attraction in love, so there is no reason to think of a contest here.

No boy, no maid with golden ornaments,
No woman with a deep and ample robe,
Is so much beautiful as modest; for
'Tis modesty that gives the bloom to beauty.

Charles D. Yonge, The Deipnosophists, or, Banquet of the learned of Athenaeus, London 1854.

οὔτε παιδὸς ἄρρενος οὔτε παρθένων
τῶν χρυσοφόρων οὐδὲ γυναικῶν βαθυκόλπων
καλὸν τὸ πρόσωπον, ἂν μὴ κόσμιον πεφύκῃ
ἡ γὰρ αἰδὼς ἄνθος ἐπισπείρει.

Charles Burton Gulick (ed.), Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, vol. 6 ( = Loeb Classical Library; 327), London 1937.