TYCHIADES My excellent friend, I have already heard this from others, who certainly did not wish to ridicule or libel them; so I do not in the least think that you are belying them out of partiality to your own art.
But if you are now willing, tell what the parasite is like in war, and whether anybody at all among the ancient heroes is said to have been a parasite.The first orators were found in Homer; notably Odysseus, Nestor, Menelaus. Alsothe beginnings of philosophy (Philod. 2, frg. xxi). So the first parasites should be found there. SIMON Why, my dear friend, no one is so unfamiliar with Homer, even if he is completely unlettered, as not to know that in him the noblest of the heroes are parasites! The famous Nestor, from whose tongue speech flowed like honey, was parasite to the king’ himself; and neither Achilles, who seemed and was the finest in physique, nor Diomed nor Ajax was so lauded and admired by Agamemnon as Nestor. He does not pray to have ten of Ajax or ten of Achilles, but says that he would long ago have taken Troy if he had had ten soldiers like that parasite, old as he was.Iliad 2, 371-374. Idomeneus, too, the son of Zeus, is similarly spoken of as parasite to Agamemnon.Iliad 4, 257-263.
