Athenaeus, Deipnosophists

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§ 7.92 Sprats. — These, as Hicesius says, are juicier than gobies, but inferior to them in flavour and in assisting elimination from the digestive tract. Speusippus, in the second book of Similars, says that boces and smarides, mentioned by Epicharmus in Earth and Sea, resemble the sprat. Thus Epicharmus: “as oft as thou behold est many bogues and picarels.” And Epaenetus in The Art of Cookery says: “Smaris, which some call dog -kennels.” Antiphanes, in The Farmer, or Butalion, calls sprats Hecate's food, on account of its scantiness. He says: “A. Yes, I hold that all these large fishes are man-eaters. B. How's that, dear friend? Man-eaters! What do you mean? CC. He means, of course, what a man would eat. But these are Hecate's food that he speaks of, sprats and minnows.” A certain kind are also called white sprats, and these are named boaces by some. Poliochus, in The Corinthiast: “In the name of the gods, let nobody who shall come, no matter who he is, persuade you to call boaces white sprats.”
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§ 7.93 The Black-tail. — Of this fish Numenius says, in The Art of Angling: “A sculpin or a black-tail, guide to the perches.” Hicesius says that it is similar to the sarg, but inferior in juiciness and flavour; that it is slightly astringent, and is filling. It is mentioned by Epicharmus in The Marriage of Hebe: “There were garfish and black-tails too.” Aristotle, in the work Pertaining to Animals, writes: “Fishes with spotted tail-fins are the black-tail and the sarg, marked with many stirpes, that is, many black stripes.” The fish called psyrus is like the black-tail, according to Speusippus in the second book of Similars. Numenius calls it psorus, thus: “Or a psorus or some saupes or a weever of the shore.”
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§ 7.94 The Sea-bream. — Very nourishing, according to Hicesius. Epicharmus, in The Marriage of Hebe, calls them myrms, unless these are different in character. He writes thus: “Flying-fish also, and myrms, which are larger than tunnies.” Dorion, in his work On Fishes, calls them mormyli. Lynceus of Samos says in his Treatise on Marketing, addressed to one of his friends who had difficulties when going to market: “You will find it useful, when standing at the fish-booths and facing the market-men, who with stony glare refuse to come down in their price, to abuse their fish roundly, quoting Archestratus, the author of High Living or one of the other poets, and reciting his verse:'The mormyre of the shore is a poor fish, and never good for anything.' Or again: [314a]'Buy bonito in the autumn' — it is spring now! And again:'The mullet, wonderful when winter comes' — but now it is summer. And many remarks like that. For you will scare away many customers and bystanders, and by doing that will compel the dealer to accept your own terms.”
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§ 7.95 The Electric Ray. — Plato or Cantharus in The Alliance: “For a stew made of electric ray is a nice dish.” And the philosopher Plato has a phrase in Meno: “To the electric ray out of the sea; for this creature causes a numbness in anyone who touches her.” And so its name is implied also in Homer's phrase: “And his hand grew numb at the wrist.” Menander used the form narca, with an a, in Phanium: “And a numbness has crept all over my skin” — though none of the old writers so employed it. Hicesius says that the electric ray is rather lacking in nourishment and juiciness, having a gristly texture throughout its system, and yet it is very wholesome. Theophrastus, in Animals Which Live in Holes, says that the electric ray creeps under the earth to avoid the cold. And in his book on Biting and Venomous Animals, he declares that the electric ray can send its shock even through clubs and spearing-irons, numbing those who hold them in their hands. Clearchus of Soli states the cause in his book On the Electric Ray, but since what he says is rather long, I have forgotten it, and refer you to the treatise. The electric ray, as Aristotle says, belongs to the class of cartilaginous and viviparous fishes. It catches the little fishes for its food by touching them, causing them to grow numb and motionless. But Diphilus of Laodicaea, in his commentary on Nicander's Theriaca, says that not all of the creature can infect one with numbness, but only a certain part of it. He alleges that he has often experimented with it. Archestratus says: “And an electric ray stewed in oil, wine, fragrant herbs, with a little grated cheese.” Alexis in Galateia: “The electric ray, then, so they say, is to be stuffed and baked whole.” And in Demetrius: “Then I took an electric ray, being mindful that when a lady lays tender fingers upon it she must not suffer any hurt in them from its thorny touch.”
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§ 7.96 The Sword-Fish. — Aristotle says that this fish has a snout the lower part of which is small, but the upper part is bony and large, equal to the entire length of its body; this part is called a sword. The fish has no teeth. Archestratus says: “But when thou comest to Byzantium, get a slice of sword-fish, the joint cut right from the tail. This fish is also good in the strait hard by the edge of Pelorum's jutting foreland.” Who is such a careful tactician or critic of a menu as this poet from Gela, or rather Catagela? So diligently, to satisfy his dainty appetite, did he even sail through the strait, and put to the test the qualities and flavours of the parts of every fish because of that appetite, with the idea of laying the foundation of a work which should be useful in men's lives.
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§ 7.97 [315a] The sea-perch. — It is called both orphos and orphos, according to Pamphilus. Aristotle, in the fifth book of The Parts of Animals, says that the growth of all fish is rapid, but the sea-perch in particular, he says, from a small fish quickly becomes large. It is both carnivorous and jagged-toothed, besides being solitary. A peculiarity of the fish is that no seminal ducts are found in it, and it stays alive a long time after dissection. It belongs to the class which live in holes during the most wintry days, and likes grounds closer to shore rather than in deep seas. It does not live more than two years. Mentioning it, Numenius says: “With this bait you can easily take from its lair the long sculpin or the prickly perch; for at the top of their...” And again: “Grey-fishes, or the race of sea-perch in the waters, or dark-skinned wasse.” Dorion says that the young sea-perch is by some called orphacine. Archippus has orphos in The Fishes: “For a priest of one of the gods came to them — a sea-perch he was.” Cratinus in The Odysseis: “A hot slice of sea-perch.” Plato in Cleophon: “He has brought you down here to live, you old hag, and be rotten food for sea-perches and sharks and breams to devour.” Aristophanes in The Wasps: “If he tries to buy sea-perches and refuses to take sardines.” The nominative singular is pronounced as an oxytone in Attic Greek. Thus Archippus in The Fishes, cited above. Cratinus has the genitive, also oxytone, in The Odysseis: “A hot slice of sea-perch (orpho).”
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§ 7.98 The Horse-mackerel. — Dorion, in his work On Fishes, says that the horse-mackerels made their way from the ocean at the Pillars of Heracles clear through to our own sea; hence a great many are caught in the Spanish and Etruscan seas; from there they disperse to other parts. Hicesius says that those which are caught at Gadeira are fatter, and next to them in merit are those caught in Sicily. But those which are found a great distance from the Pillars of Heracles are wanting in fat because they have swum over a wider space. Now in Gadeira the shoulder-bones are preserved separately, just as in the case of sturgeons the jaws and the roofs of the mouth and the so called'heart-of oak' are cut from them and preserved. But Hicesius declares that the belly-pieces taken from them are fatty and far superior in taste to the other parts; but the shoulder-bones have a better taste than these.
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§ 7.99 The Onus and the Oniscus. — The cod, says Aristotle in his work Pertaining to Animals, like the Dogfishes, has a widely gaping mouth, and is not gregarious. This is the only fish in which the heart is contained in the belly, and in its brain it has stones resembling millstones. Also it is the only fish that lives in holes during the hottest dog -days, whereas all the others seek holes during the most wintry days. Epicharmus mentions them in The Marriage of Hebe: “Wide-gaping perches and hakes with extraordinary paunches.” But the onus according to Dorion in his work On Fishes, differs from the oniscus. He writes: “Onus, which some call gadus; gallerias, which some call oniscus and maxeinus.” Euthydemus, in his work ON Salt meats, says: “Some call it bacchus, some gelaries, and some, oniscus.” Archestratus says: [316a] “As for the hake, which they call Callarias, Anthedon nurtures it to a goodly size, but it has, after all, a rather spongy meat, and is in general not pleasant, at least to me; yet others praise it very highly. for one man likes this, another likes that.”
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§ 7.100 The Polyp (octopus), genitive poulypodos. — The Attic Greeks say poulypous (sic) by analogy. So also does Homer: “As when a polyp (poulypous) is drawn out of its lair.” For it comes from pous (foot). For the accusative they say poulypoun, like Alcinoun and Oidipoun. So also it is said that Aeschylus has tripoun, meaning cauldron, in Athamas, from the simple form pous, like nous (mind). But to say polypon for the accusative is Aeolic, since Attic writers say poulypoun. Aristophanes in Daedalus: “And that though he had poulypous and cuttle-fishes.” Again: He laid the polypoun before me." And again: “Twice seven poundings of the beaten poulypous, as the proverb goes.” Alcaeus in Sisters Seduced: “To be a simpleton and have the sense of a poulyp.” Ameipsias in The Devourer: “We need a lot of poulyps, that is plain.” Plato, in The Baby: “like the poulyps, you first of all.” Alcaeus: “I, like a poulyp, eat myself.” But others decline the words poulypous like pous (foot), podos, podi, poda. Eupolis in The Demes: “A citizen who is a very polyp in his ways.”
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§ 7.101 Diocles, in the first book of his Hygiene, says: “The molluscs incite to pleasure and desire, especially polyps.” Aristotle records that the polyp has eight feet, of which the two upper and lower are smallest, while those in the middle are largest; it also has two suckers by which its food is drawn in; two eyes above the two front feet; the mouth and teeth in the centre, between the feet. Dissection discloses that it has a bipartite brain. It also has the well-known dark juice, not black like that of the sepia, but reddish, contained in what is known as the poppy. This ink-bag, resembling a bladder, is situated above the stomach. It has no corresponding gut. As food it sometimes uses the tiny flesh-parts of shell-fish, throwing the shells outside its lairs; from this habit the fishermen detect its presence. Generation takes place by embrace, and coition lasts a long time because the creature has no blood. It spawns through the so called blow-pipe, which is a tube in its body. The eggs thus spawned are in clusters.
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§ 7.102 They say that whenever it lacks food it eats itself. One of these authorities is the comic poet, Pherecrates. He, namely, in the play entitled Savages, says: “What! Live on chervil, wild herbs, and shriveled olives, and when their hunger becomes so very extreme, then, like the polyps, gnaw at neither their own fingers?” And Diphilus in The Merchant: “A. He's a polyp, that has all its feelers whole. B. You mean, dear friend, that he hasn't gnawed himself off.” But this notion is false. For it is hunted by conger-eels and has its feet injured by them. It is also said that if you drop salt on its lurk-hole, it will immediately come out. Further, it is recorded that when it runs away in fear it changes colour, taking on the same hues as the places in which it hides. [317a] Hence the Megarian Theognis says in his elegiac verses: “Hold fast to the ways of the polyp, which appears to the eye like the rock to which it clings.” Clearchus records the like in the second book of his work On Proverbs, citing the following verses without disclosing their author: “With the cunning of the polyp, my son, mighty Amphilochus, adapt thyself to the people into whatsoever country thou come.”
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§ 7.103 Clearchus also says that “in Troezen, in the old times, it was not lawful to catch either the sacred polyp, as it was called, or the nautilus-polyp, but they forbade touching them, and the sea tortoise as well. The polyp is easily liquefied, also very stupid; for it goes up to the hand of its pursuers and sometimes, when pursued, it does not retreat. The females liquefy after spawning and grow weak, hence they are easily caught. They have even been seen at times to come out on the shore, especially in rocky places; for they avoid smooth ground. They even like plants, such as olives, and are found with their tentacles grasping the stalk.” (They have also been caught closely entwined with fig-trees which grow near the water, and eating figs, as Clearchus says in his book On Water Animals.) “A proof of their liking for the olive is also this: if you let down a branch of this tree into the water where there are polyps, and wait a little, you will easily pull up as many as you want clinging to the branch. Though the other parts are very strong, the neck is weak.”
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§ 7.104 It is said that the male trails along a kind of genital organ in one of the tentacles in which are the two larger suckers. It is a sinewy substance adhering throughout its entire length to the tentacles as far as its middle. In the fifth book of The Parts of Animals Aristotle says: “The polyp copulates in winter and spawns in the spring. It lives in holes for about two months. The creature is very prolific. The male differs from the female in having a head which is more extended in length, and in having what fishermen call its male organ in one tentacle. It broods upon its eggs after it spawns them, hence it is poorest at that season. The polyp drops its spawn into holes or a jar or anything else like it which is hollow. After fifty days the young polyps issue from the eggs like spiders, in great numbers. The female polyp sometimes sits over the eggs, sometimes over the mouth of its lair, with tentacles outstretched.” Theophrastus, in the book On Animals that change Colour, says that the polyp blends its colour only with that of rocky places, doing this through fear and in self-protection. In his book On Animals living on Land he says that polyps do not take in sea-water. In the book On Local Differences he says that they are not found in the Hellespont. For the water here is cold and less salty, and both these conditions are inimical to a polyp.
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§ 7.105 “The so called nautilus,” says Aristotle, “is really not a polyp, though having a resemblance in the tentacles. But its back is that of a testacean. [318a] It rises out of the bottom holding its shell over it that it may not take in water. It turns itself over and sails along with two of its tentacles upraised. These have a thin membrane growing between them, just as the feet of birds are seen to have a skinny membrane between the toes. It drops two other tentacles into the water, which it uses like rudders. But when it sees anything approaching, it contracts its feet, fills itself with water, and retires to the bottom with all speed.” But in the work Pertaining to Animals and Fishes he says: “One kind of polyp is the turn-colour, another the nautilus.”
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§ 7.106 There is an epigram to this nautilus circulating under the name of Callimachus of Cyrene, of the following tenor: “A cockle am I, Zephyritis, a portent of old. Thou, Cypris, holdest me, the nautilus, as the prime offering of Selene; for I sailed over the seas, what time the wind blew, letting out my canvas from my own stays. But if the shining god of the calm prevailed, then I rowed my vessel with close-set strokes, so that my name suits my action, until I was cast on the shores of Iulis to become thy admired toy, Arsinoe, and no longer, as aforetime (for my breath is spent) shall the watery halcyon's egg be laid in thy chambers. Nay, give grace to the daughter of Celinias; for she knows how to do the right, and comes from Aeolian Smyrna.” Poseidippus, also, wrote the following epigram in honour of this Aphrodite worshipped at Zephyrium:'On sea and land alike do honour to this shrine of the Cypris of Philadelphius, who is Arsinoe. She it was, ruling over the Zephyrian shore, whom the admiral Callicrates was the first to consecrate. She, moreover, will grant a fair voyage, and when the storm rages will make smooth as oil the broad sea for them that entreat her." The polyp is mentioned also by the tragedian Ion, who says in The Phoenician: “I loathe, too, the polyp, that with bloodless tentacles cleaves to the rock and changes its colour.”
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§ 7.107 The kinds of polyp existing are: heledone, polypodine, bolbitine, and osmylus, according to the account in Aristotle and in Speusippus. In the book Pertaining to Animals Aristotle says that molluscs are the polyps, the osmyle, the heledone, the cuttle-fish, and the squid. Epicharmus, in The Marriage of Hebe: “Polyps and cuttle-fish and scudding squids, the ill-smelling bolbitis, too, and sputtering sea-crabs.” Archestratus says: “Polyps are best in Thasos and in Caria; Corcyra, too, nourishes large ones, many in number.” The Dorians pronounce the word with a long o, polypos, as in the example from Epicharmus. And so Simonides gave it: “Looking for a polyp.” But the Attic dialect has poulypos (it belongs to the class of selachian fishes, those which are cartilaginous being so called): “Poulyps, and Dogfishes too.” But squid-like creatures are called molluscs. Selachians also are the tribes of monk-fishes.
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§ 7.108 [319a] Common Crabs. — These are mentioned by Timocles or Xenarchus in The Purple-shell, thus: “And so then I, a fisherman of consummate skill in my craft, have discovered all kinds of tricks for catching common crabs (which are detestable to the gods) and little fishes, but I am not to grab with all speed this old ox -tongue? That would indeed be a pretty deal!”
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§ 7.109 Pelamyd Tunny. — Mentioned by Phrynichus in The Muses. Aristotle, in the fifth book of Parts of Animals, says that the pelamyds and the tunnies spawn in the Black Sea, but not elsewhere. Sophocles, also, mentions them in The Shepherds; “There the neighbouring pelamys lives in winter, a Hellespontian dwelling near, a delight in summer to the Bosporite; for the fish comes often thither.”
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§ 7.110 Perches. — These are mentioned by Diocles, also by Speusippus in the second book of Similars, asserting that the perch, canna, and forked hake are alike. And Epicharmus says: “Comarides and Dogfishes, too, and spet-fishes and speckled perch.” Numenius, in The Art of Angling:'Again, at another time perch, at another, swirling beside a rock, forked hake, and wasse too, and sculpin with red skin." [319c] The Perch. — This also is mentioned by Epicharmus in The Marriage of Hebe, by Speusippus in the second book of Similars, and by Numenius, all of whose testimony has been cited. Aristotle, in the work Pertaining to Animals, says that the forked hake is stickle-backed and has a speckled skin. So the perch is classed among those fishes marked with lines and having cross-wise stripes. There is also a proverb: “The perch follows the blacktail.”
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§ 7.111 Needle-fishes. — These also are mentioned by Epicharmus in the line: “And needle-fishes with sharp snouts, and horse-tails too.” Dorion, also, in his work On Fishes, has: “The needle, which they call the needle-fish.” Aristotle, in the fifth book of Parts of Animals, calls it needle (belone). But in Pertaining to Animals or Fishes he calls it needle-fish (raphis) and says that it has no teeth. Speusippus also gives it the name belone.
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§ 7.112 The File-shark. — Dorion, in his work On Fishes, says that the file-sharks (monk-fish) of Smyrna are especially good, and, in fact, that all the selachians contained in the Bay of Smyrna are superior. But Archestratus says: “Selachians, too, glorious Miletus nurtures obest quality; and yet, what boots it to take account of the file-shark, or the broad-backed ray? I should as soon eat an oven-baked lizard, the delight of Ionia's children.”
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§ 7.113 The Parrot-fish. — Of this Aristotle says that it has jagged teeth, is solitary and carnivorous, and has a small mouth and a tongue not very solidly attached; heart triangular, liver white, with three lobes; gall-bladder and spleen black, one set of gills double, the other single. Of all fishes it is the only one that chews its cud. It likes to feed on seaweed, and therefore can be caught with it. It is at its best in summer. Epicharmus says in The Marriage of Hebe: “Of the sailorfolk, sea-breams and parrot-fish, whose dung, even, the gods may not lawfully throw aside.” [320a] Seleucus of Tarsus, in The Art of Angling, says that the parrot-fish is the only one of all the fishes the does not go to sleep" hence it cannot be caught even at night. Perhaps fear affects it in this way. Archestratus, in his Gastronomy: “ask for a parrot-fish from Ephesus; but in winter eat mullets which have been caught in sandy Telchioessa, a village of Miletus near the crook-limbed Carians.” And in another place he says: “At Calchedon by the sea bake the mighty parrot-fish, after washing it well. But in Byzantium, too, thou wilt find it good, and as to its size, it bears a back equal to the circling shield. Dress it whole as I shall describe. After it has been thoroughly covered with cheese and oil, take it and hang it in a hot oven and bake it to a turn. Sprinkle it with salt mixed with caraway-seed, and with the yellow oil, pouring its divine fountain from thy hand.” Nicander of Thyateira says that there are two kinds of parrot-fish, the one called onias (grey), the other Aeolus (speckled).
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§ 7.114 The Sea-bream. — Hicesius says that this is better flavoured than the sprat, and is more nourishing than many other kinds of fish. Epicharmus, in The Marriage of Hebe “ Poseidon, that leader of the fisherfolk, came in person, bringing, in Phoenician barques, the fairest sea-breams and parrot-fishes that heart could desire; whose dung, even, the gods may not lawfully throw aside.” And Numenius, in The Art of Angling: “Or a sea-bream, or hycae swimming in schools.” The sea-bream is mentioned also by Dorion in his work On Fishes.
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§ 7.115 The Sculpin. — Diocles, in the first book of his Hygiene, addressed to Pleistarchus, says that of the deep-water fishes those which have harder flesh are the sculpins, pipers, sole, sarg, and scad, while the red mullets are less hard-fleshed than these. For the rock fishes are soft-fleshed. And Hicesius says: “Of the sculpins, one kind is found in deep water, the other in lagoons. The deep-water sculpin is yellowish-red, the other inclined to black. The deep-water kind is superior in taste and nourishment. Sculpins are purgative, easily eliminated, full of juice, and very nourishing; for they are cartilaginous.” The sculpins spawns twice a year, according to Aristotle in the fifth book of Parts of Animals. Numenius in The Art of Angling: “Forked hake, and labrus too, and sculpin with red skin, or a black-tail, guide to the perches.” That the sculpin can sting is also attested by Aristotle in the book On Fishes or Pertaining to Animals. Epicharmus in The Muses says that the sculpin is speckled: “Sculpins speckled, and grey-fish, and fat horse-mackerel.” It is solitary, and lives on seaweed. In the fifth book of Parts of Aias, Aristotle calls the sculpin scorpios and scorpis in different passages. But it is uncertain whether he means that they are the same; that we have often eaten both a scorpaena and a scorpios, and that their flavour and colour differ, everyone knows. The fancy cook Archestratus says in his golden verses: “But in Thasos buy the sculpin, if it be not bigger than thine arm's length; from one too large keep thy hands away!”
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§ 7.116 The Mackerel. — Mentioned by Aristophanes in Gerytades. Hicesius says that though mackerel are very small in size, they are more nourishing and better flavoured than tunny, but not so easily eliminated. They are mentioned thus by Epicharmus in The Marriage of Hebe: “Flying-fish also, and breams, which are larger than tunnies and mackerel, but smaller, indeed, than female tunnies.”
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§ 7.117 Sargs. — “These,” says Hicesius, “are more costive and filling than black-tails.” Numenius, in The Art of Angling, calls the sarg a mischievous fish to catch: “Blackbird or thrushes with hues of the sea; at different times and places, a sarg on the point of being landed, that fish most harmful to the line.” Aristotle, in the fifth book of Parts of Animals, says that it spawns twice, once in spring, again in autumn. Epicharmus, in The Marriage of Hebe: “And if thou desire, sargs there be, and sardines, and those deep-sea creatures...” But the Sargini he lists in the following lines as something different: “There were gar-fish and black-tails too, and the beloved ribbon-fish, thin but sweet.” A similar statement is found in Dorion's work On Fishes; hence he calls them chalcides (sardines) as well as sargini. The wise Archestratus says: “Whensoe'er Orion is setting in the heavens, and the mother of the wine-bearing cluster begins to cast away her tresses, then have a baked sarg, overspread with cheese, large, hot, and rent with pungent vinegar. For its flesh is by nature tough. And so be mindful and dress every tough fish in the same way. But the good fish, with naturally tender, fat flesh, sprinkle with a little salt only, and baste with oil. For it contains within itself alone the reward of joy.
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§ 7.118 The Salpa. — Epicharmus, in The Marriage of Hebe: ” Aones and sea-breams, bass also, and the fat and loathsome scavenger saupes, yet sweet in the summertime." Aristotle, in the fifth book of Parts of Animals, says that it spawns once a year, in autumn. It is heavily marked with red lines, has, moreover, jagged teeth, and is solitary. Fishermen declare, so he says, that it can be caught with a gourd, since it likes that food. Archestratus says: “As for the saupe, I shall for ever judge it to be a poor fish. It is most palatable when the grain is being harvested. Buy it in Mytilene.” Pancrates in Occupations at Sea: “And saupes too, fishes of equal length, which the masters of the net, who live by the sea, call cows, because for their belly's sake they ever grind seaweed with their teeth.” This fish is also speckled. Hence Mnaseas, who was either a Locrian or a Colophonian, and who composed the work entitled Bagatelles, was nicknamed Salpa by his acquaintances because of the varied contents of his compilation. But Nymphodorus of Syracuse, in his Asiatic Voyage, says that Salpa, the author of the Bagatelles, was a Lesbian woman. Alcimus, again, says in his Sicilian History that the inventor of bagatelles similar to those going under the name of Salpa was born in Messene, which lies opposite the island of Botrys. Archippus in The Fishes has a masculine form salpes: “Loudly bawled the boax and trumpeted the salpes, for his pay was seven pence.” A similar fish called “patchwork” occurs in the Red Sea, having stripes of a golden tinge extending across his whole body, as Philon narrates in his work On metals.
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§ 7.119 [321a] The Synodons and Synagris. — These are also mentioned by Epicharmus: “Synagrides and codfishes and synodons speckled round.” Numenius in The Art of Angling spells it with a y when he says: “Or a white synodon, boaces too, and Tricci.” And again:'With this bait, if you desire to eat fish, you can catch either a large synodon or an acrobat horse-tail." But Dorion spells the name with an i, and so does Archestratus in this lines: “But as for the sinodon, look only for one that is fat. Try also, my comrade, to take it from the strait. This same advice, as it happens, I give also to thee, Cleaenus.” And Antiphanes in Archestrata: “Who can eat a bit of eel, or the head of sinodon?”
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§ 7.120 The Lizard-fish. — This is mentioned by Alexis in Leuce; a cook is the speaker: “A. Do you understand how you should prepare the lizard-fish? B. Why, I shall if you will proceed to tell me. A. First take out the gills, wash it well, cut off the spiny fins and all about it, split it nicely, then spread out the whole in two halves, then whip it well and thoroughly with silphium and cover it with cheese, salt, and marjoram.” And Ephippus, who composes a catalogue of many other fishes in Cydon, includes mention of the lizard-fish in these lines: “Slices of tunny, sheat-fish, Dogfish, monk-fish, conger-eel, cephalus, perch, a lizard-fish, wasse, brincus, red mullet, piper, bream, mullet, lebias, sea-bream, speckled-beauty, Thracian wife, pilchard?, flying-fish, shrimp, squid, sole, weever, polyp, cuttle-fish, sea-perch, goby, anchovies, needle-fishes, grey mullets.” And Mnesimachus in The Horse-Breeder: "... of the sharks, electric ray, fishing- frog, perch, lizard-fish, anchovy, wasse, brincus, red mullet, piper."
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§ 7.121 [322a] The Shade-fish. — Dorion, who mentions this in his work On Fishes, says that it is called attageinus. The Maigre. — Epicharmus, in The Marriage of Hebe: “Speckled-beauties and floaters, and dog -tongues, and maigres too, were in it.” Numenius calls it sciadeus in these lines: “With this bait, if you desire to take fish, you can catch either a large synodon or an acrobat horse-tail, or a crested bream, or whiles a herded maigre.” Syagrides. — Epicharmus mentions these in The Marriage of Hebe and in Earth and Sea.
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§ 7.122 Hammer-fishes. — Hicesius says that these are more nourishing than conger-eels, but uninviting and unpalatable to the taste; they are moderately juicy. Dorion has: “The hammer-fish (spet-fish), which they call cestra.” And Epicharmus, mentioning the cestra in The Muses, omits the mention of sphyraenas, evidently because they are the same: “Sardines and Dogfishes too, hammer-fishes (spets), and speckled perch.” Sophron, too, in Mimes of Men: “Hammer-fish gulping down a botis.” Speusippus, in the second book of Similars, explains hammer-fish, needle-fish, and lizard-fish as being alike. Attic writers also as a rule, call the hammer-fish (sphyraena) a cestra, and have seldom used the word sphyraena. Strattis, for example, in The Macedonians; a native of Attica asks about the word as if he did not know it, and says: “A. The sphyraena, what's that? B. It's what ye in Attica dub cestra.” Antiphanes, in Euthydicus: “A. A very large sphyraena. B. Cestra you must say in Attic Greek.” Nicophon, in Pandora: “Cestras and sea-bass.” Epicharmus, in The Marriage of Hebe:'Cestras and speckled perch."
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§ 7.123 [322b] The Cuttle-fish. — Aristophanes in The Daughters of Danaus: “although he had these, cuttle-fishes and polyps.” The penultimate syllable in sepia is accented with the acute, like aitia (cause), so Philemon explains, and similarly the following: telia (board), tainia (ribbon), oikia (house). Aristotle says that the cuttle-fish has eight feet, of which the two hindmost are largest; also two feelers, between which are the eyes and the mouth. It also has two teeth, one upper and one lower, and what is called the shell is on its back. The inky fluid is in the sac; this lies close beside the mouth, presenting the character of a bladder. The stomach is flat and smooth, resembling the rennet-bag of cattle. Small cuttle-fish feed on the minute sorts of fishes, extending their feelers like fishing-lines and catching the fish with them. It is said that when a storm arises they grasp small stones with their feelers and ride, as it were, at anchor. When the cuttle-fish is pursued, it emits its inky fluid and conceals itself in it, giving the appearance of flying forward. It is also said that when the female is caught on a trident the males go to her aid and pull her away; but if the males are caught, the females run away. The cuttle-fish, like the polyp also, does not live more than a year. In the fifth book of The Parts of Animals, Aristotle says that cuttle-fishes and squids swim together and interlocked, fitting their mouths and feelers closely against each other. They also fit proboscis to proboscis. Among the molluscs the cuttle-fishes spawn the earliest, in spring, and continue spawning in every season; gestation last fifteen days. When the eggs are cast, the male follows closely and discharges (the inky fluid) over them and so hardens them. They move in ranks. The male is more speckled and has a darker back than the female.
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§ 7.124 Epicharmus in The Marriage of Hebe says: “polyps and cuttle-fish, and scudding squids.” This line should be noted in controverting Speusippus, who says that cuttle-fish and squid are alike. The expression used by Hipponax in his iambic verse, “a cuttle-fish's suffusion,” is explained by the commentators as the inky fluid of the cuttle-fish. This suffusion, as Erasistratus declares in The Art of Cookery, is a sauce-like mixture. He writes: “A suffusion consists of cooked meat, stewed in blood which has been thoroughly beaten up, honey, cheese, salt, caraway-seed, silphium, and vinegar.” And Glaucus of Locris, in his Art of Cookery, writes thus: “A suffusion — blood stewed with silphium and boiled wine, or honey, vinegar, milk, cheese, and chopped leaves of fragrant herbs.” And the learned Archestratus says: “Cuttle-fishes in Abdera, and in mid Maroneia as well.” Aristophanes in Thesmophoriazusae: “Hasn't anybody bought a fish? a cuttle-fish maybe? ” And in The Daughters of Danaus: “Little polyps and spratlets and squidlets.” Theopompus in Aphrodite: “Nay, my girl, take this cuttle-fish and this bit of polyp here and have a feast.” Alexis, in The Lovelorn Lass, introduces a cook who speaks these lines on the method of cooking cuttle-fish: “Three times as many cuttle-fish for only a shilling. Of all these I cut up the feelers and the fins and stew them. The rest of the creature I chop into many cubes, and rubbing them with ground salt, while the diners are beginning their dinner, my next act is to carry it sizzling to the frying-pan.”
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§ 7.125 [323a] The Red Mullet (trigle). — This word, like chichle (thrush) is spelled with an E. For all feminines ending in la require a second L: Scylla, Telesilla. But all words in which G is inserted end in E, like trogle (hole), aigle (brilliance), zeugle (yoke-strap). “The red mullet,” Aristotle says in the fifth book of Parts of Animals, “spawns thrice a year.” He says that fishermen infer this from the roe, which is seen three times a year in certain localities. Perhaps, therefore, the name trigle is derived from this circumstance, just as the amias are so called because they do not go solitarily, but in schools, scarus (parrot-fish) and caris (shrimp) from scairo (leap), aphyae (anchovies) because they are aphyes, that is, of poor size; from thyo, dart, the darting thynnys ( tunny ), because at the time when the Dog-star rises it is driven forth by the bot-fly on its head. The trigle (red mullet) is jagged-toothed, gregarious, spotted all over, and also carnivorous. The third spawning is infertile; for certain worms develop in the womb, which devour the roe that is to be spawned. From this circumstance Epicharmus calls them the “squirming” in these lines from The Marriage of Hebe: “So he brought some squirming mullets and disgusting baiones.” Sophron, again, mentions trigolae, whatever they may be, in Mimes of Men, thus: “With a trigolas that cuts the navel-cord;” and “the trigolas that brings fair weather.” On the other hand, in the mime entitled Puffing Passion, he has: “The jaw of a Trigle, but the hind parts of a trigolas.” And in Mimes of Women:'The barbelled Trigle." Diocles, in his work addressed to Pleistarchus, mentions the Trigle among fish with hard flesh. Speusippus says that the piper, flying-fish, and Trigle are similar. Hence Tryphon declares in his work On Animals that some persons identify the trigolas with the piper because of the hardness of their hind parts, which Sophron has indicated when he says, “the jaw of a Trigle, but the hind parts of a tirgolas.”
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§ 7.126 Plato says in Phaon: “But the red mullet will give no strength to the glands. For she is a daughter of the virgin Artemis and loathes the rising passion.” The Trigle, on account of the syllable in its name which is common to the epithets of Hecate, is dedicated to her. For she is the goddess Trioditis (of the three ways) and looks three ways, and they offer her meals on the thirtieth days. By like analogies they associate the turbot (citharus) with Apollo, the boax [fish] with Hermes, the ivy with Dionysus, the coot (phalaris) with Aphrodite, by way of insinuating phallus, like Aristophanes's pun in The Birds. (So some persons associate the duck, called netta, with Poseidon.) The sea product which we call aphye, others aphritis, others still, aphros (foam) — this, I say, is most dear to Aphrodite, because she also sprang from foam. Apollodorus also, in his treatise On the Gods, says that the Trigle is sacrificed to Hecate because of the associations in the name; for the goddess is tri-form. But Melanthius, in his work On the Eleusinian Mysteries, includes the sprat with the Trigle because Hecate is a sea-goddess also. Hegesander of Delphi declares that a Trigle is carried in the procession at the festival of Artemis, because it is reputed to hunt sea-hares relentlessly and devour them; for they are deadly. Hence, inasmuch as the Trigle does this to benefit mankind, this huntress fish is dedicated to the huntress goddess. Further, Sophron called the Trigle barbelled, because those mullets which have barbels are better to eat than other kinds. At Athens there is also a place called Trigla, and there is a shrine there dedicated to Hecate Triglanthine. Hence Charicleides says in The Chain: “Mistress Hecate Trioditis (of the three ways), with three forms and three faces, beguiled with triglas.”
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§ 7.127 If a Trigle be smothered alive in wine and a man drinks this, he will not be able to have sexual intercourse, as Terpsicles narrates in his book On Sexual Pleasure. If a woman, also, drink of the same wine, she cannot conceive. The same is true even of a bird. The encyclopaedic Archestratus, after praising the triglas of Teichious, in the Milesian territory, goes on to say: “Also in Thasos buy a red mullet, and you will get one that is not bad. In Teos it is inferior, yet even it is good. In Erythrae, too, it is good, when caught by the shore.” And Cratinus says in Trophonius: “No longer may we eat a red mullet from Aexone, nor taste sting-ray or black-tail of huge growth.” The comic poet Nausicrates commends the red mullets of Aexone in these lines from The Skippers: “A. With them, excellent in quality, come the tawny-skins, which Aexone's wave fosters as its own children, the best of all. With these, sailorfolk pay honour to the goddess, light-bringing virgin, whenever they offer her gifts of dinners. B. You are talking about mullets.”
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§ 7.128 [324a] Ribbon-fish. — These also are mentioned by Epicharmus: “And the beloved ribbon-fish, thin but sweet, and requiring little fire.” Mithaecus, in The Art of Cookery, says: “Clean the insides of a ribbon-fish after cutting off the head, wash and cut into slices, and pour cheese and oil over them.” They occur in greatest number and finest quality off Canopus, near Alexandria, and in Seleuceia near Antioch. But when Eupolis says, in The Prospaltians: “His mother was a Thracian ribbon-pedlar,” he means the cloth and belt ribbon which women tie round themselves.
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§ 7.129 Rough-tails. — Diocles mentions these among the fish of harder flesh. Numenius says in The Art of Angling: “Halcyons and wagtails... a rough-tail even in a season when no boats may sail.” Taulopias. — Archestratus gives an account of this: “Of the large, deep-sea aulopias buy heads in the summer, what time Phaethon drives his chariot over his outermost orbit. And serve it hot quickly and a sauce to go with it. Take a belly-piece of it and roast it on a spit.”
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§ 7.130 [324b] The Squid. — Aristotle says that this also belongs to the gregarious kinds of sea animals, and that it has most of the attributes of the cuttle-fish — the same number of feet and the feelers. But in the case of the squid the hind feet are small, the front feet larger; and of the feelers, that on the right is thicker; the whole of its small body is plump and rather more extended. It also has an inky fluid in the sac, but it is yellow, not black. Its shell is very small and cartilaginous. The Teuthus. — The Teuthus (totaro) differs from the squid solely in point of size, which reaches as much as three spans. It is of a reddish colour; the lower tooth is smaller, the upper is larger; both are black and resemble a hawk's beak. Dissection discloses inner organs like swine's tripe. In the fifth book of Parts of Animals it is said that squids and cuttle-fishes are short-lived. Archestratus, who circled all lands and seas to gratify his appetite, says: “Squids there are in Pierian Dium beside Baphyras' flood; and in Ambracia thou wilt see very many” Alexis, in The Eretrian, makes a cook say: “Squids, spinnas, rays, clams, anchovies, steaks, entrails. As for the squids, I chopped up their fins, mixed in a little lard, sprinkled them with seasoning and stuffed them with finely-chopped greens.” Again there is a kind of cake called squid, according to Pamphilus, who quotes Iatrocles' Bread-making.
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§ 7.131 Pig-fish (hyes). — Epicharmus, in The Marriage of Hebe: “There were pig-fishes (hyaenides) and soles and a turbot among them.” But he also speaks of certain fish called hyes in this line: “Sardines and hyes too, flying gurnards and the fat Dogfish.” These may, to be sure, be the same as boar-fish. Numenius, in The Art of Angling, expressly includes in his list a fish called hyaena in this line: “A black bream which had appeared, a hyaena, and a red mullet.” Dionysius, in The Art of Cookery, also mentions the hyaena. Archestratus, the master-chef, says: “In Aenus and in Pontus buy the pig-fish, which some mortals call sand-digger. Boil its head without adding any seasoning; simply place it in water, stirring frequently; place beside it a pounded caper-plant, and if thou crave aught else, drop on it pungent vinegar; soak it well in this, then make thousand to eat it, even to the point of choking thyself with thy zeal. But back-fin and most of the other parts it were better to bake.” Perhaps, therefore, Numenius, in The Art of Angling, means the pig-fish when he uses the word sand-fish and says: “At one time a hark, at another a guttling sand-fish.”
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§ 7.132 Hycae. — The hyces is still another fish which Callimachus in his epigrams calls sacred, in these words: “His god is the sacred hyces.” Numenius, in The Art of Angling: “Or a gilt-head, or hycae swimming in shoals, or a sea-bream wandering booty a rock.” Timaeus, in the thirteenth book of the Histories, discusses the Sicilian castle (by which I mean Hycara ), and says that the castle was so called because the first men who came to that place found the fish which are called hycae, and what is more, found them teeming. Taking them as an omen, they named the place Hycara. Zenodotus says that the people of Cyrene call the hyces Erythrinus. But Hermippus of Smyrna, in his book On Hipponax, understands the rainbow-wrasse by the word hyces; he says that it is hard to catch. Hence Philitas also writes: “Not even the last hyces-fish escaped.”
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§ 7.133 [325a] The Sea-bream. — Speusippus, in the second book of Similars, says that the sea-bream, redsnapper, and liver-fish are alike. It is mentioned in the quotation from Numenius given above. Aristotle says that it is carnivorous and solitary, that it has a triangular heart, and that it is at its best in springtime. And Epicharmus says in The Marriage of Hebe: “ Aones, too, and sea-breams, bass all.” They are mentioned by Metagenes also in Thurio-Persians. And Ameipsias in Connus: “Food for sea-perches and sharks and breams to devour.” Hicesius says: “Sea-breams, chromis, beauty-fish, bass, sea-perch, synodons, and synagrides are similar in character; for they are sweet, rather astringent, and nourishing; but they are also, as might be expected, hard to eliminate. More nourishing than they are fish which are full-fleshed and earthy, having less fat.” Archestratus says that the bream should be eaten “at the rising of Sirius ”: “In Delos, or in Eretria, by the fair-harboured dwellings of the sea. But buy only the head of it, and with it the tail-slice; as for the other parts, my friend, carry them not even into the house.” The bream is mentioned by Strattis, also, in Lemnomeda: “He has swallowed many a large bream.” And in Philoctetes: “And then they walk into the market-place and buy large, fat breams, and slices of tender, round-ribbed Copaic s.” There is also a kind of stone called bream. For the whet-stone in Cretan speech is bream, according to Simias.
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§ 7.134 Cannas. — Epicharmus, in The Marriage of Hebe: “Wide-gaping cannas and hake with extraordinary paunches.” Numenius in The Art of Angling: “Cannas and eels, and darkling bottle-fish.” It is mentioned also by Dorion in his book On Fishes. Aristotle, in the work Pertaining to Animals, names it “spotted-red-black” or “spotted-line,” because it is spotted with black lines.
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§ 7.135 Chromis. — This is also mentioned by Epicharmus, who says: “And the sword-fish and the chromis, which Ananius says is the best of all fishes in the springtime.” And Numenius in The Art of Angling: “A hyces or a beauty-fish, or at times a chromis or a sea-perch.” And Archestratus: “The chromis thou gettest in Pella will be large (it is fat if it be summer), as also in Ambracia.”
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§ 7.136 [326a] The Gilt-head. — Archippus in The Fishes: “Gilt-heads, sacred attributes of Aphrodite of Cythera.” These fishes, according to Hicesius, are superior to all other sin sweetness and flavour generally. They are also very nourishing. They spawn, as Aristotle says, wherever rivers flow, like the grey mullets. They are mentioned by Epicharmus in The Muses and by Dorion in his book On Fishes. And Eupolis says in The Flatterers: “For only a hundred shillings I have bought fish — eight sea-bass and twelve gilt-heads.” And the learned Archestratus in his Counsels says: “Omit not the fat gilt-head from Ephesus, which people there call Ioniscus. Buy it, that nursling of the holy Selinus. Wash it with care, then bake and serve it whole even though it measure ten cubits.”
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§ 7.137 Chalcides and similar fish, thrissae, trichides, and eritimi. — Hicesius says: “The Chalcides, as they are called, the bucks, the needle-fishes, and the thrissae are chaffy, fatless, and juiceless.” Epicharmus in The Marriage of Hebe: “Sardines and pig-fish, flying gurnard too, and the fat Dogfish.” Dorion gives them the name chalcidicae. And Numenius says: “But in vain would you try in the same way to spear the tiny herring or sprat with that.” The Chalcis, moreover, is different from the chalceus, mentioned by Heracleides in his Art of Cookery and by Euthydemus in his book On Salt Meats. The latter says that they are found in the territory of Cyzicus, and that they are round and circular in shape. As for thrissae, Aristotle mentions them in the book On Animals and Fishes in this list: “Non-migratory are the thrissa, encrasicholus, anchovy, crow-fish, redsnapper, and trichis.” These last are mentioned by Eupolis in The Flatterers: “He used to be close-fisted, for in the old days before the war he bought trichides; but when the Samian affair was on, he bought slices of meat worth ha'-penny.” Aristophanes in The Knights: “If trichides should come to a penny the hundred.” Dorion, in the book On Fishes, mentions also the river-thrissa, and gives to the trichis the name trichias. So Nicochares in the Lemnian Women: “Trichiae and premnad tunnies have come to the table in abounding plenty.” Premnad is a name they give to female tunnies. Plato in Europa: “Once I went a fishing, and caught him, along with some premnad tunnies, most a sprig of andrachna; and then I let him go, for he turned out to be a boax.” Aristotle uses the same term, trichias, in the fifth book of Parts of Animals. [327a] But in the work entitled Pertaining to Animals, he has trichis. It is one of the fishes of which it is said that they delight in dancing and music, and when it hears the sound of music it jumps out of the water. The eritimi are mentioned by Dorion in his book ON Fishes; he says they behave in the same way as the Chalcides, and that they are good to eat when served with a sauce. And Epaenetus says; “The marten-fish, the picarel (which some call dog -kennels), Chalcides (which they also call sardines), eritimi, flying gurnard, and flying-fish.” Aristotle, in the fifth book of The History of Animals, calls them sardines. And Callimachus, in National Designations, writes as follows: “encrasicholus, the eritimus at Chalcedon. Trichidia, Chalcis, ictar, or Atherine at Athens.” And, when giving in another passage a list of terms for fish, he says: “ozaena, the osmylium at Thurii. Iopes, the eritimi at Athens.” These iopes are mentioned by Nicander in the second book of his poem, Oitaea: “As when, amid the freshly spawned school of iopes, sea-breams or owl-fishes or the sea-perch show their might.” And Aristophanes in The Merchantmen: “Alas for the poor devil who was first plunge dio a pickle of trichides.” For it was the custom to plunge fishes which were adapted for broiling into a pickle which they called Thasian pickle. So the same poet says in The Wasps: “For twice before, when I had swilled a pickle of broiled fish.”
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§ 7.138 [328a] Thracian Wives. — Now that we are at this point in the discussion, and have prefaced an account of thrissae, let us ask what the “Thracian wives” are in Archippus's play, The Fishes. For in the agreements made between the fishes and the Athenians he has introduced the following: “To restore mutually whatever property of the other party we now hold, to wit: We shall give up the Thracian wives and Sardella the flute-girl, Cuttle-fish, daughter of Tursio, and the Mullet family; also Eucleides, former archon, the Crow-fish tribe from Anagyrus, the son of Gobio of Salamis, and the assessor Fishing- frog from Oreus.” In case someone should ask what these Thracian wives in the custody of the fishes happened to be, which they agree to restore to men, since I have composed a personal treatise on this play, I will now set forth the chief points of importance. As a matter of fact, the Thracian wife is a small sea fish. Mnesimachus mentions it in The Horse-Breeder. He is a poet of the Middle Comedy, and he says: “Mullet, lebias, sea-bream, speckled-beauty, Thracian wife, flying-fish, shrimp, squid.” Dorotheus of Ascalon, however, in the one hundred and eighth book of his Lexicon, writes thetta for thratta, either because he had before him a corrupt edition of the play, or else because the name thratta displeased him and he expunged it by an emendation of his own. But the word thetta does not so much as occur anywhere in Attic writers. On the other hand, Anaxandrides in Lycurgus shows that they called the small sea fish thrattam when he says: “He sports with the shrimplets among the perchlets and the whitebait.” And Antiphanes in The Etruscan: “A. As to his deme, he is from Halae. B. Well, that's about the last straw. I shall be constantly abused. A. What do you man by that? B. He will give me a Thracian wife or a plaice or a lamprey, or some damned big thing from the sea.”
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§ 7.139 [329a] The Plaice. — Diocles includes these in the list of harder-fleshed fishes. Speusippus, in the second book of Similars, says the flounder, sole, and ribbon-fish are alike. Aristotle, in the fifth book of Parts of Animals, writes: “In similar fashion the majority of fishes spawn only once a year, as for example all ”dumped" fish (that is, those taken in nets), the chromis, plaice, tunny, palamyd, grey mullet, sardine, and the like." [330a] Again he says, in Pertaining to Animals: “Cartilaginous are horned ray, sting-ray, electric ray, ray, fishing- frog, sole, flounder, and mouse-fish.” Dorion writes in his book On Fishes: “Among the flat fish are the ox-tongue, plaice, and sole, which is also called coris.” Epicharmus mentions ox -tongues also in The Marriage of Hebe: “There were pig-fishes and soles and a turbot among them.” Lynceus of Samos in his letters says that the best plaice are found off Eleusis, in Attica. But Archestratus says: “Then buy a large flounder, and the rather rough sole; but the plaice only in summer, for it is good at Chalcis.” Romans call the flounder rhombus, which is a Greek word. Nausicrates, in The Skippers; having first spoken of the grey-fish he adds: “A. The tawny-skins, which Aexone's wave fosters as its own children, the best of all. With these, sailorfolk pay honour to the goddess, light-bringing virgin, whenever they offer her gifts of dinners. B. You are talking about the milk-coloured mullet, which the stodgy Sicilian mob calls rhombus.”
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§ 7.140 [330b] We have at last, Timocrates, reproduced to repletion the prating about fish which occurred at the Deipnosophists' table. Here I will end the discourse, unless you require a bit of other food, quoting for your benefit what Eubulus says in The Laconians, or Leda: “Besides this you shall be served with a slice of tunny, pork-chops, kids' entrails, boar's liver, lamb -fries, beef guts, lambs' heads, a kid's appendix, breast of hare, a sausage, black-pudding, lung, and salami.” And so, stuffed with all these, let us bestow some attention on our bodies, that you may be able to feed on what comes after. Isn't that reasonable?
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§ 8.1 BOOK VIII [331a] My good friend Timocrates: Discussing the wealth of Lusitania, which is a country in Iberia, now called by the Romans Spain, Polybius of Megalopolis, in the thirty-fourth book of his Histories, 331says says that in that region, because of the temperate quality of the air, animals and human beings alike are very prolific, and the fruits of the country never fail. “For the roses in that country, the wall-flowers, the asparagus shoots, and similar plants leave off bearing not more than three months, while sea-food, in point of abundance, excellence, and beauty, far exceeds that found in our sea. The Sicilian medimnos (measure) of barley costs only a shilling, of wheat, eighteen-pence, Alexandrian currency. Wine costs a shilling for ten gallons, a kid of moderate size, twopence, as also a hare. The price of lambs is six or eight pence, a fat pig weighing a hundred pounds is five shillings, a sheep two; sixty pounds of figs may be bought for sixpence, a calf for five shillings, a yoke ox for ten. The meat of wild animals was hardly deemed to be worth any price; on the contrary, they trade it off as a bonus for goodwill.” Likewise to us the noble Larensis turns Rome into Lusitania on every occasion, filling us daily with all kinds of good things, and exerting himself pleasurably and generously for our benefit, though we bring nothing from home except dissertations.
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§ 8.2 The long discussion on the subject of fish was evidently irksome to Cynulcus. But the good Democritus anticipated his mood and said: “Nay then, Gentlemen Fish (to quote Archippus ), since we to must needs add something to the menu, you have omitted to mention the so called'dug out' fish which occur in Heracleia and near Tium in Pontus, the castle of Miletus. Theophrastus gives an account of them. This same scholar has also told of the fish frozen in the winter's ice, which have no feeling and cannot move until they are put into the saucepans and cooked. But as compared with these, a very singular thing occurs in connexion with the so called'dug out' fish of Paphlagonia; for when places there which receive no water from rivers or visible springs are excavated to a considerable depth, live fishes are found in them.
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§ 8.3 ” Mnaseas of Patrae, in Periplous asserts that the fish in the Cleitor river can utter sounds, although Aristotle declares that the parrot-fish and the river-pig are the only fish which can make a sound. And Philostephanus, a native of Cyrene and disciple of Callimachus, says, in his book On Strange Rivers, that in the Aornus [ Aroanios or Olbios ] river, which flows through Pheneus, there are fishes which make sounds like the note of the thrush; they are called speckle-fish. Nymphodorus of Syracuse, in his Voyages, says that in the Helorus river there are bass and large eels so tame that you will take bread from the hands of persons who offer it to them. For myself I have seen in Arethusa, near Chalcis — and perhaps most of you have also — mullets which were quite tame, and eels wearing silver and gold ear-rings, receiving food from those who offered it, bits of entrails from sacrificial victims, and pieces of green cheese. Semus, in the sixth book of his History of Delos, says:'When the Athenians were sacrificing at Delos, the attendant dipped up the lustral water and brought it to them; but in the vessel which he emptied over their hands were fish as well as water. The diviners at Delos, therefore, told the Athenians that they would have dominion over the sea.'
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§ 8.4 [332] Polybius, in the thirty-fourth book of the Histories, says that a plain extends from the Pyrenees as far as the Narbo river, through which run rivers, the Illeberis and the Rhoscynus, flowing past like-named cities inhabited by the Celts. In this plain, then, are the fish called “dug out.” The plain has a thin soil and considerable grass grows there. Under the sandy soil beneath the grass, at a depth of two or three cubits, flows water which strays from these rivers. With the water fish follow its outlets and swim under the soil to get food, since they like the roots of grass, and so have filled the entire plain with underground fish which the inhabitants catch by digging them up. In India, Theophrastus says fish come out on land from the rivers and leap back again exactly like frogs, being similar in appearance to the fish called maxeini.
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§ 8.5 And I have not forgotten, either, what the Peripatetic Clearchus has to say about the fish called'out-lying,' in the book entitled Water Animals. He says (I think I can remember his statement, which is as follows):'The out-lying fish (called by some adonis) has this name because it often takes its siestas out of water. It is rather reddish, and extending from the gills, on each side of the body as far as the tail, it has a single white stripe. It is round, but since it is not broad, it has the same size as the smaller mullets found near the shore, which are eight inches, at most, in length. In general appearance it is most like the so called buck fish, except for the black spot under the gullet, which they call the buck's beard. The out-lying belongs to the hand of rock fishes, living as it does near rocky shoals. When it is calm, the fish leaps out with the surf and lies a long time on the pebbles, sleeping on dry land and turned toward the sun. When it has had all the sleep it wants, it rolls close to the water, until once more the surf catches it up and carries it with the reflux back into the sea. When it happens to be awake on land, it guards itself against the birds called fair-weather-fowl, such as the halcyon, sandpiper, and that heron which resembles the landrail. These birds, feeding in calm weather along the shore, often encounter the fish, but when it sees them in time it jumps and struggles until finally it escapes by diving back into the water.'
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§ 8.6 Moreover, Clearchus has this also to say, more plainly than Philostephanus of Cyrene, whom I cited before:'For some fishes, although they have no windpipe, utter sounds. Such are the fishes near Cleitor, in Arcadia, in the river called the Ladon. For they can utter sounds, and in fact they make considerable noise.' Nicolaus of Damascus, in the one hundred and fourth book of his Histories, says that'near the Phrygian Apameia, during the Mithridatic wars, earthquakes occurred which brought to light in the Apameian country lakes never existent before; rivers also and springs besides were opened by the upheaval, while many, again, disappeared; and such a quantity of other water, of a brackish and blue sort, gushed forth in their land, that in spite of its being a great distance from the sea, the neighbouring region was filled with shellfish and all the other fishes which the sea nurtures.' I know, too, that it has rained fishes in many places. Phaenias, for example, says in the second book of The Rulers of Eresus that in Chersonesus it rained fishes for three whole days. And Phylarchus in his fourth book says that certain persons have in many places seen it rain fishes, and the same thing often happens with tadpoles. Heracleides Lembus, for example, says in the twenty-first book of his Histories:'In Paeonia and Dardania it rained frogs, and so great was their number that they filled the houses and streets. Well, during the first days the people killed them and shut up their houses and made the best of it. But soon they could do nothing to stop it; their vessels were filled with frogs, which were found boiled or baked with their food. Besides, they could not use the water, nor could they set foot on the ground amidst the heaps of frogs piled up, and being overcome also with disgust at the smell of the dead creatures, they fled the country.'
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§ 8.7 I know also that Poseidonius the Stoic speaks of a great quantity of fishes in these words:'When Tryphon of Apameia, who had seized the kingdom of Syria, was attacked near the city of Ptolemais by Sarpedon, Demetrius's general, the latter was defeated and forced to retreat into the interior with his troops. Tryphon's army were marching along the coast after their victory in the battle, when suddenly a wave from the ocean lifted itself to an extraordinary height and dashed upon the shore, engulfing all the men and drowning them beneath the waters. And when the wave receded it left behind a huge pile of fishes among the dead bodies. The followers of Sarpedon, hearing of this disaster, came up and gloated over the bodies of their enemies, while they also carried away an abundance of fish and offered sacrifice to Poseidon Tropaios, near the suburbs of the city.'
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§ 8.8 “And I will not pass over in silence, either, the fish-diviners of Lycia, an account of whom is given by Polycharmus in the second book of his History of Lycia. He writes as follows:'Near the shore of the sea is the sacred grove of Apollo, in which there is a pool on the borders of the sand. Whenever they pass through to it, those who would consult the oracle come with two wooden rods, on each of which are pieces of roasted meat, ten in number. The priest seats himself in silence near the grove, while the man in quest of a sign puts the rods into the pool and watches the result. After the rods are put in, the pool is filled with sea-water, and there coms a quantity of fishes, so great and so extraordinary, that one is astounded by the unheard-of spectacle, while he is also rendered cautious by the size of such creatures. And when the spokesman reports the kinds of fish, the oracle-seeker gets from the priest the prophecy of those things which concern his prayer. There appear sea-perch, grey-fish, sometimes even whales or pristes, and also fishes never before seen, and strange to the eye.' Artemidorus, in the tenth book of his Geography, says:'The inhabitants assert that a spring of fresh water bubbles up which produces eddies, and that large fish appear in the whirling space. To them the sacrificers let down first-fruits of offerings on wooden rods, on which are fixed boiled and roasted meats, barley-cakes, and pieces of bread. The name of this harbour and place is Dinus [ Soura in Plutarch].'
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§ 8.9 I know that Phylarchus also speaks somewhere of large fish, and green figs sent with them, by Patroclus, Ptolemy's general, to King Antigonus by way of hinting what would happen to him, just as the Scythians did to Darius when he was invading their country. For the Scythians, Herodotus tells us, sent a bird, an arrow, and a frog; Patroclus, however, as Phylarchus says in the third book of his Histories, sent the aforesaid figs and fishes. Now it happened that the king was then drinking deeply, and when all the company were puzzled at these gifts, Antigonus burst out laughing and declared to his friends that he understood what the friendly offerings meant:'Either,' says Patroclus,'we must be masters of the sea, or else we must eat figs.'
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§ 8.10 ”And I do not forget that all fish are given the generic name camasenes by Empedocles, the physical philosopher, in this line:'How also the tall trees and the camasenes (fishes) in the sea came into being.' And I know that the author of the epic Cypria, whether it is some Cypriot, or Stasinus, or however he likes to be called, represents Nemesis pursued by Zeus and changed into a fish in these lines:' Helen then she bore, the third after these, the wonder of mortals; whom fair-haired Nemesis, wrapped in the arms of love, once bore to Zeus king of the gods, under harsh constraint. For she sought to fly, and consented not to join in love with Father Zeus, son of Cronus. For her heart was torn with shame and wrath. Beneath the earth, beneath the unharvested black waters she fled, while Zeus pursued. Eagerly he yearned in his heart to grasp her as she appeared at one time like a fish in the surge of the loud-sounding sea, which excites the vasty deep, at another time along Ocean's stream and the ends or earth, at another still, along the rich-loamed mainland, ever she became all the dread creatures which the mainland nurtures, that she might escape him.'
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§ 8.11 "I know, too, of the'broiler,' as it is called, in Lake Bolbe, concerning which Hegesander says in his Commentaries:'Round Apollonia, in the Chalcidic peninsula, flow two rivers, the Sandy and the Olynthiac. Both empty into Lake Bolbe. On the Olynthiac is a monument to Olynthus, the son of Heracles and Bolbe. In the months Anthesterion and Elaphebolion, so say the inhabitants, Bolbe sends the broiler to Olynthus, and at this time a limitless quantity of fish go up from the lake into the Olynthiac river. Now it is a stream so shallow that it hardly covers the ankle, nevertheless such a quantity of fish comes that all the inhabitants round about can put up preserved fish sufficient for their needs. The strange part of it is that the fish do not pass beyond the monument of Olynthus. They say, to be sure, that in earlier times the people of Apollonia brought the customary offerings to the dead in the month of Elaphebolion; but today they bring them in Anthesterion. For this reason, therefore, the fish make the ascent only in these months, being those in which people are in the habit of honouring the dead.'
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§ 8.12 [333] “So much, then, for that, my Fish Masters. For you have got together all manner of lore, and thrown us as food to the fishes, not the fishes to us, talking at such length as not even Ichthyas, the Megarian philosopher, and not even Ichtyon, ever indulged in. This also is a proper name, which Telecleides mentions in The Amphictyons. Because of what you have done, I shall command the slave in the words of Pherecrates's Ant-Men:'Never serve me with a fish, Deucalion, never, not even if I ask for it.' And I have a further reason. For in Delos, says Semus of Delos in the second book of his History of Delos,'when they sacrifice to Brizo (who is the interpreter of dreams, and by brizein the ancients meant ”to go to sleep,' as in “there, in sound sleep, we waited for the divine dawn”), — as I was saying, when the women of Delos offer sacrifices to Brizo, they bring her bowls filled with all good things excepting fish, because they pray to her for everything, and especially for the safety of their ships.'
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§ 8.13 [335] “And now, my friends, I admit Chrysippus, the leader of the Stoa, for many reasons, but I commend him still more for putting Archestratus, so famous for his Discourse on Cookery, on the same level always with Philaenis. To her is ascribed the authorship of the scandalous treaty on love which Aeschrion of Samos, the iambic poet, says the Sophist Polycrates forged to defame the woman, though she was most chaste. Aeschrion's iambics go as follows:'I, Philaenis, decried of all men, lie here in long-abiding old age. Do not, vain sailor, as you round the headland, make of me a mockery and laughter and insult. For, I swear it by Zeus and by his Sons in the world below, never was I lewd or common toward men. Polycrates it was, by birth Athenian, sly in words, an evil tongue, who wrote what he wrote. I know naught of it.' But however that may be, the admirable Chrysippus says, in the fifth book of the treatise On Pleasure and the Good:'Then there are the books by Philaenis, and the Gastronomy by Archestratus, and powerful stimulants to love and sexual intercourse; similarly slave-girls, skilled in such motions and postures, and ever intent on the practice of the se things.' And again:'That is the kind of thing they learn by heart, and they buy what has been written by Philaenis and Archestratus and the authors of similar trash.' And in the seventh book he says:'Just as one may not learn by heart the writings of Philaenis or the Gastronomy of Archestratus with the idea that they can contribute anything to better living.'
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§ 8.14 Now you, in quoting so often this Archestratus, have filled our symposium with scandal. What, I ask, has this noble epic poet omitted, that is calculated to ruin one's morals? He is the only man who has emulated the life of Sardanapalus, the son of Anacyndaraxes, who, as Aristotle said, was sillier even than you would expect from his father's name. On his tomb, says Chrysippus, are inscribed these words: [336]'Though knowing full well that thou art but mortal, indulge thy desire, find joy in thy feasts. Dead, though shalt have no delight. Yes, I am dust, though I was king of mighty Nineveh. I have only what I have eaten, what wantonness I have committed, what joys I received through passion; but my many rich possessions are now utterly dissolved. This is a wise counsel for living, and I shall forget it never. Let him who wants it, acquire gold without end.' Of the Phaeacians, also, the Poet has said:'And ever to us is the feast dear, and the harp, and dancers, and changes of raiment, warm baths, and sleep.' Another writer's words we have, who was like Sardanapalus, and who also gave this advice to the foolish:'All mortals I fain would counsel to live this fleeting life in pleasure. For he that has died is nothingness, only a shade in the world below. Life is short, and while you live it behooves you to enjoy it.' And the comic poet Amphis says in The Wail from Asia:'Whosoever is mortal-born and seeks not to add any pleasure to his life, letting all else go, is a fool before the bar of my judgement and that of all wise men; the gods have damned him.' Also, in Government by Women, as its title runs, he has similar advice:'Drink! play! Life is mortal, short is our time on earth. Death is deathless, once one is dead.' And a man named Bacchidas, who also lived a life like Sardanapalus, has inscribed on his tomb, now that he is dead:'Drink, eat, indulge in all things the heart's desire. For lo! I stand here, a stone to represent Bacchidas.'
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§ 8.15 Alexis wrote a play called The Teacher of Profligacy, says Sotion of Alexandria in his book On Timon's Satires. I myself have not come across the play. Although I have read more than eight hundred plays of the so called Middle Comedy and have made excerpts from them, I have not found The Teacher of Profligacy, and I do not even know of anyone who thought it worth cataloguing. Certainly neither Callimachus nor Aristophanes has catalogued it, nor have even those who compiled the catalogues in Pergamum. Well, Sotion says that in this play a slave named Xanthias is represented as inciting his fellow-slaves to high living, and saying:'What's this nonsense you are talking, for ever babbling, this way and that, of the Lyceum, the Academy, and the Odeum gates — mere sophists' rubbish? There's no good in them. Let's drink, and drink our fill, my Sicon, Sicon! Let's have a good time while we may still keep the life in our bodies. Whoop it up, Manes! There's nothing nicer than the belly. That is your father, and again, your only mother. Ethics, embassies, army tactics — fine pretences that sound hollow, like dreams. You will have only what you eat and drink. All the rest is dust — Pericles, Codrus, Cimon.
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§ 8.16 It would have been better, says Chrysippus, if the inscription over Sardanapalus had been changed thus:'Though knowing full well that thou art but mortal, indulge thy desire, find joy in discourse. Eating, though shalt have no delight. Yes, I am but a ragged remnant, although I have eaten and had pleasure to the utmost. I have only what I have learned, what I have pondered, what noble things I have experienced with their aid, and what is left is a legacy altogether sweet.' Timon, also, has said very rightly:'Foremost among all evils is desire.'
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§ 8.17 [337] B ” Clearchus, in his book On Proverbs, says that the teacher of Archestratus was Terpsion, who was the first to write a Gastrology and to direct his disciples in what they should avoid. And so Terpsion improvised the following about the tortoise:''Tis meet to eat or not to eat the tortoise meat.' Others put it in this way:'One should either eat tortoise flesh or not touch it at all.'
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§ 8.18 But how, most learned commentators, did that fish-authority, Dorion, occur to you? As if there [338] ever were such a writer! I know of a music-master of that name who was fond of fish, but no writer. As a music-teacher he is mentioned by the comic poet Machon thus:'The music-master Dorion once came to Mylai, but could find nowhere a lodging to hire. So he sate him down in a sacred precinct, by chance established without the gates, and seeing the warder sacrificing there, he said: “Tell me, good sir, in the name of Athena and all the gods, whose temple is this here?' And he replied, ”It is Zeus - Poseidon's, stranger." To which Dorion said, “Well, to be sure! how can a man find lodging here, where even the gods, they tell me, must live two in a room!”' Lynceus of Samos, the disciple of Theophrastus and brother of the historian Duris, who also became dictator of his country, says in his Apophthegms:'A man once told Dorion, the piper, that the ray is a good fish to eat. “Yes,” he replied, “about as good as eating a boiled shirt.” And when another recommended the belly-slices from tunnies, he said, “Yes indeed. However, one should eat them as I eat them.” “And how is that?” he asked. “With pleasure.” He said that crayfish have three properties — leisure, sweet taste, and contemplation. When dining at the house of Nicocreon in Cyprus he praised a cup. Nicocreon said, “If you like, the same artisan will make you another.” “Ay, he will make it for you,” he replied' “give me this one.” This was no foolish saying of the piper, in spite of the fact that there is an old saying, “In a piper the gods implanted no sense; no, for with his blowing his sense takes wing and flies from him”'
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§ 8.19 And Hegesander has this to say of Dorion in his Commentaries:'When his slave failed to buy fish in the market, this epicure Dorion flogged him and told him to recite the names of the best fishes. And when the slave enumerated sea-perch, sea-lizard, conger-eel and others of that sort, he said, “I told you to recite the names of fish, not gods.”' The same Dorion once made fun of the storm described by Timotheus in The Sailor, asserting that he had seen a bigger storm in a seething kettle. Aristodemus, in the second book of Humorous Memoirs, says:' Dorion the music-master, who was club-footed, once lost the shoe of his lame foot at a dinner-party. He said: “I shall utter no heavier curse upon the thief than the wish that that sandal may fit him.”' And that this Dorion was notorious for his gourmandism is clear from what the comic poet Mnesimachus says in his play, Philip:'No; but even at night Dorion is at our house — the cockle-blower.'
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§ 8.20 [339] "I know also the jokes that Lasus of Hermione made about fish, which Chamaeleon of Heracleia has recorded in his book on this very Lasus. He says:' Lasus alleges that the raw fish can be called cooked. When many expressed surprise at this, he argued the point, saying that whatever may be heard is hearable, and whatever may be known is knowable. By the same reasoning, therefore, whatever may be seen is seeable; hence, since it was possible to see the fish, it can be looked at (cooked). And on another occasion he purloined in jest a fish from one of the fishermen, and having taken it he handed it over to one of the bystanders. When the fisherman exacted an oath from him, he swore that he did not have it himself nor did he know of anybody else who had taken it; because he had taken it himself, but somebody else had it, and this person he had instructed to swear on oath, in turn, that he had not taken it himself, nor did he know of anyone else who had it. For Lasus had taken it, but he himself had it.' Similar puns are found in Epicharmus, as for instance in Lord and Lady Logos:' A. Zeus has sent me an invitation to a jam in honour of Pelops. B. That's a very poor dish, my friend, jam! A. But I didn't say jam: I said a jam!'
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§ 8.21 [340] “ Alexis in Demetrius ridicules a man named Phayllus as being a fish-lover in these lines:'In earlier days, if the wind blew keen on the ocean from the north or the south, no one could get a fish to eat. But today, besides these winds, Phayllus has added himself as a third gale. Whenever he happens into the market-place, he's a hurricane that swoops upon us, for he buys the fish and is gone, taking with him the whole catch. The result is that we then have to fight at the booths where the greens are sold.' And Antiphanes makes a list of persons who loved fish in She goes a fishing:'Give me first the cuttle-fishes. Lord defend us! They've squirted and messed everything. Throw them back into the sea, won't you, and clean up. Never let them say that they got dirty cuttle-fishes from you, Dorias. Set aside this crayfish where the sprats are. It's a fat one, Zeus is my witness! Mighty Zeus, who among your friends, Callimedon, will presently eat you up? Nobody who doesn't put up the price. As for you, blonde mullets, I post you here on the right; you're the dish that the noble Callisthenes likes. At any rate, he is consuming his whole estate for the sake of one Blonde. Who will be the first to come forward and buy this conger-eel, with spiny barbels thicker than Sinope's? For Misgolas isn't exactly an eater of them. But there is this turbot here, and if Misgolas sees him, he won't keep his hands off. For really, I want to tell you, when it comes to all the harpers, eagerly he manages a clandestine liaison with them. As for Gobio, who is a very good man, I must send him while he is still jumping to the fair Pythionica. For he is a lusty one. But still, she won't touch him; for she is now keen for Old Smoked Fish. These tiny fry and this spiketail I have placed apart here for Theano, for they weigh as much as she does.'
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§ 8.22 In these lines Antiphanes has set up Misgolas for ridicule, with very good reason, as a man much interested in handsome harp-singers. For the orator Aeschines, in the speech Against Timarchus, has these comments on him:' Misgolas, men of Athens, the son of Naucrates, of the deme Collytus, is a man in all other respects a gentleman, and one could find no fault with him in any way, excepting in this one matter: he is extraordinarily interested in, and always has in his company, certain men who are harp-singers or harp-players. This I tell you, not for the sake of vulgar calumny, but that you may know him for what he is.' And Timocles says in Sappho:' Misgolas is never seen to approach you, although he is inflamed by the sight of young men in their bloom.' And Alexis in Agonis, or The Scarf:'Mother, I entreat you, don't threaten me with Misgolas; for I am no harp-singer.'
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§ 8.23 And when Antiphanes says that Pythionica loved salted fish (taricho), he meant that she had as her lovers the sons of the salt-fish seller Chaerephilus. So Timocles says in The Icarians:'Whenever that bloated Anytus goes to join Pythionica and eats something. For she always invites him, so they say, when she entertains the sons of Chaerephilus, those two mighty mackerels whom she likes.' And again:' Pythionica will be glad to welcome you, and probably she will consume all the gifts which you have taken from us. For she is insatiable. Nevertheless, tell her to give you some baskets of food; for she happens to be rich in salted fish, and she's keeping company with two sea-crows, although they are unsalted and have broad snouts.' Before these men appeared she had a lover whose name was Gobio.
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§ 8.24 [341] ” Timocles says of Callimedon the Crayfish, in The Busybody, that he was a fish-lover and cross-eyed:'Then, suddenly, Callimedon the Crayfish came up. Looking at me, as I thought, at least, he began to talk to another fellow. And I, though I understood nothing that he said, naturally nodded assent to him inanely. But it turns out that his eyes look in a different direction from what they seem.' Again, Alexis, in Crateias or The Apothecary:'A. Yes, I have been treating Callimedon's pupils now for three days. B. Were the pupils his daughters? A. No, I mean the pupils of his eyes, which even Melampus, the only man who could cure the daughters of Proteus of their madness, couldn't fix straight.' In similar fashion he ridicules Callimedon also in the play entitle Running-Mates. But on his luxurious eating habits he has the following in Phaedo or Phaedrias:'A. You, if the gods will it, shall be market-commissioner, to do me a favour and stop Callimedon from storming the fish-market twice a day. B. That's a job for tyrants, not market-commissioners. For he is a man who can put up a fight, and besides, he's useful to the State.' The same verses are found also in the comedy entitled In the Well. And in The Woman who drank Belladonna:'If I love any other foreigners better than you, may I turn into an eel and be bought by Callimedon the Crayfish.' And in Crateias:'And Callimedon the Crayfish came along with Orpheus Sea-Perch.' Antiphanes in Gorgythus:'I'd as soon desist from my purpose as Callimedon would give up the head of a grey-fish.' Eubulus in Safe Home:'Other gluttons who have grappled with gods... come together in company with Crayfish. He's the only mortal who can gulp down at once salted fish steaks from hot dishes, so that nothing whatever is left in them.' And Theophilus, in The Physician, ridicules at the same time his frigid oratory:'Everyone of the lads is eager to serve him. If one buys an eel-slice, he serves it to his father. “Look, Daddy, here's a nice squid.” Or, “How about crayfish?” “No,” says he; “he's too frigid; away with him! I won't touch politician-meat.”' And Philemon says in The Pursuer:'A crayfish was served to Agyrrhius. As soon as he saw it he cried out, “Hail, dearest papa,” and — what did he do? — he a temple up his father!' From this passage Herodicus, the disciple of Crates, proved in his Miscellaneous Notes that Gyrrhius was the son of Callimedon.
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§ 8.25 [342] “The following persons, also, were given to fish-eating. The poet Antagoras would not allow his slave to put oil on the fish, but only to wash it, as Hegesander says:'Once, with loins girded, he was cooking a dish of conger-eels in the camp. King Antigonus, who stood by, asked him, ”Do you think, Antagoras, that Homer could have written up the deeds of Agamemnon if he had cooked conger-eels?" To which Antagoras round rather neatly, “Do you think that Agamemnon could have done those deeds if he had been such a meddler, wanting to know who in his army cooked conger-eels?” And once when Antagoras was boiling a fowl, he declined to go to the bath, for fear that the slaves might guzzle all the broth. At this Philocydes suggested that his mother would keep an eye on it. “What!” said he. “Am I going to trust chicken broth to my mother”' Again, Androcydes of Cyzicus, the painter, was a fish-lover, as Polemon records, and he went so far in his passion for luxury that he even painted sedulously pictures of the fishes in the waters about Scylla.
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§ 8.26 [343] “Concerning Philoxenus of Cythera, author of dithyrambs, the comic poet Machon writes:'People say that Philoxenus, the dithyrambic poet, was excessively fond of fish. As a consequence, he once bought in Syracuse a polyp measuring a yard, and after preparing it he ate it nearly whole, except the head. Dyspepsia gripped him, and he was in a very bad way. A doctor was summoned to his bedside who, seeing him tossing about in great misery, said: ”If you have any matters not yet arranged, make your own will quickly, Philoxenus. For you are going to die before the seventh hour." And Philoxenus said: “All my affairs are settled, doctor, and have long since been put in order. By the blessing of the gods I leave behind my dithyrambs in full maturity, and all of them honoured with crowns. These I dedicate to my foster sisters, the Muses.... And Aphrodite and Dionysus shall be their guardians. All this my will makes clear. But now, Timotheus's Charon (the one in his Niobe ) won't allow me to dally, but loudly orders me to board his barque; gloomy Fate calls me, and I cannot choose but hear. And so, to make sure that I have all my possessions when I speed below, give me back — the rest of that polyp!”' And in another passage Machon says:' Philoxenus of Cythera, as the saying goes, once prayed that he might get a throat three cubits long. “I want,” said he, “to take the longest possible time in swallowing, and have all kinds of food to delight me at one and the same time.”' Diogenes the Cynic also died when his belly swelled up after he had eaten a raw polyp. Speaking of Philoxenus, the parodist Sopater also says:'For he sits in the midst of two helpings of fish, gazing at the midmost look-out on Aetna.'
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§ 8.27 [344] “The orator Hypereides was another epicure, according to the comic poet Timocles in Delos. Relating the story of the men who took bribes from Harpalus, he writes: A.' Demosthenes has got fifty talents. B. Happy man, provided he doesn't give anybody a share! A. And Moerocles has received a lot of gold. B. Whoever gave it was a simpleton, but he who got it is in luck. A. Demon and Callisthenes also have something. B. They were poor men, so that I pardon them. A. Yes, and Hypereides of the glib tongue has something. B. Well, he will make our fish-mongers rich. For he's a fish-eater, and will make Syrians of all the sea-gulls.' And in The Icarians the same poet says:'And so you will cross the Hypereides river, which teems with fish, and in tender tones, or spluttering noisy bombast of reasoned logic, with retraced arguments frequently repeated, is prepared to meet anything when he has loosed the bolts; and ready for hire, he waters the fields of the briber.' And Philetaerus, in Asclepius, says that Hypereides, besides being an epicure, was also a gamester, exactly as Axionicus in Lover of Euripides says of the orator Callias:'Another fish, confident in his size, hath a certain Glaucus (grey-fish) caught in the sea, brought to these parts to be food for epicures, bearing on his shoulders a dear delight for greedy men. What manner of dressing shall I say it must have? Whether to souse it in yellow sauce, or to oil its body with sprinklings of biting pickle and render it over to flaming fire? One hath spoken; and saith that Moschion, that man devoted to the pipes, will eat it stewed in hot pickle. But he clamours a reproach meant only for thee, O Callias. Thou, verily, hast joy only in figs and salt fish-slices, but wilt not taste the gracious dish served in pickle.' The figs are mentioned because the poet is reviling an informer; the salt fish-slices, doubtless, because Callias did lewd things. And Hermippus, in the third book of his work On the Disciples of Isocrates, says that Hypereides always took walks in the fish-market at early dawn.
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§ 8.28 Timaeus of Tauromenium says that the philosopher Aristotle was also a fish-eater. So, too, was the sophist Maton, as is made clear by Antiphanes in that edition of The Harp Singer which began,'No untruth utters he at all':'Someone came up and began to gouge an eye, as Maton does the eye of a fish.' And Anaxilas, in The Recluse:' Maton has snatched away and eaten up the mullet's head, and I am undone.' It is an excess of gluttony to snatch when one is eating, especially a mullet's head, unless, to be sure, the experts in these matters know of something useful lurking in a mullet's head; but it would take Archestratus's greediness to make that clear to us.
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§ 8.29 [345] ” Antiphanes, in Rich Men, draws up a list of epicures in these lines:' Euthynus, wearing sandals and signet-ring, and drenched in perfume, was reckoning up the price of a little matter of fish — I know not what; while Phoenicides and dearest Taureas, gentlemen who have long been in the epicure business, and the kind that greedily gulp down the best cuts in the market, were like to die when they saw the sight, and were furious at the scarcity of fish. Gathering circles around them they said that life wasn't worth living; that it was not to be endured that certain men among you should claim ownership of the sea and spend so much money, while not so much as a bit of fish was being imported. What, then, is thing of having island-prefects? Surely it is possible to compel this by law, that fish should have a special convoy. But today Maton has monopolized all the fishermen, and what is more, Diogeiton — of all people! — has persuaded them all to bring their catch to him. It's not democratic, what he's doing, greedily grabbing so much. They had wedding-parties and gay drinking-bouts...' And Euphron in The Muses:'When Phoenicides, in a company of young men, saw a seething casserole full of Nereus's offspring, he restrained his hands, excited though they were with fury, and called out, “Who says that he knows how to eat at public expense? Who says that he has skill to snatch hot stuff from the pile? Where now is Lark, or Phyromachus, or mighty Nilus? Let him grapple with us, and perhaps he may get a share of — nothing.”'
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§ 8.30 [346] “Of the same type also was the tragic poet Melanthius, who wrote elegiac verses as well. His luxurious habits in eating are held up to ridicule by Leucon in Clansmen, Aristophanes in The Peace, Pherecrates in The Broad. And in his play The Fishes, Archippus ties him up and hands him over, as being a fish-eater, to the fishes for them to eat up in revenge. Why, even Aristippus the Socratic was a fish-eater, and when reproached on one occasion by Plato for his love of dainties, as Sotion and Hegesander say — but here is what the Delphian writes:'When Plato criticized Aristippus for buying so many fish, he replied that he had bought them for only fourpence. To this Plato said that he would have bought them himself at that price, whereupon Aristippus said: ”You see, Plato! It isn't I who am a fish-lover, but you who are a money-lover."' And Antiphanes, ridiculing a man named phoenicides for his fish-eating in The Flute-girl, or Twin Sisters, says:' Menelaus, to be sure, warred ten years against the Trojans for the sake of a woman of lovely countenance, but Phoenicides fights with Taureas for the sake of an eel.'
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§ 8.31 The orator Demosthenes reviled Philocrates for licentiousness and luxury in eating, because he spent the money derived from his treason on harlots and fish. Hegesander says that when somebody asked the fish-lover Diocles which fish was better, a conger or a sea-bass, he replied,'The first when stewed, the second when baked.' Another fish-lover was Leonteus, the tragedian of Argos, a pupil of Athenion. He had formerly been a slave of Juba, king of the Mauretanians, according to Amarantus in his work On the Theatre. He says that Juba wrote the following epigram on the occasion of Leonteus's poor performance of Hypsipyle:'Seek not, when gazing on me, Leonteus, echo of an artichoke-eating tragedian, to look into the poor heart of Hypsipyle. For I was once a friend of Dionysos, nor did he ever admire any voice so much as mine, as he listened with golden-lobed ears. But today trivets and jars and dry frying-pans have bereft me of voice, because I indulged the belly.'
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§ 8.32 Hegesander also says that the fish-eater Phoryscus, being unable to cut off the portion of fish that he wanted, since too much of it clung to the piece, recited:'Those that resist are carried away root and branch,' and thereupon consumed the fish entire. And Bion, when somebody snatched away from him the upper parts of the fish, with a sudden twist snatched it away again himself, and having eaten of it liberally he concluded with the quotation:'But Innocent, for her part, finished the work on the other side.' When the wife of the gourmand Diocles died, he took to gourmandizing again during the funeral feast in her honour, weeping the while. Theocritus of Chios said to him:'Stop your weeping, poor fellow, for it won't do you any good, no matter how much you gourmandize.' Diocles wasted his entire farm in gluttony. Once he swallowed a fish so hot that he said it burnt the roof of his mouth. Theocritus remarked:'The only thing left to you to swallow is the sea, and then you will have consumed the three most important elements — earth, sea, and sky.' Clearchus, recording in his Lives a certain fish-lover, says:' Technon, the piper of old times, who was a fish-lover, when Charmus the piper died, sacrificed to his departed spirit some small fry over the tomb.' The poet Alexis was another fish-eater, according to lynceus of Samos. Some gossips poked fun at him for his gourmandizing, and asked him what he would most like to eat. Alexis answered,'Some roasted francolins.'
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§ 8.33 There was the tragic poet Nothippus, of whom Hermippus speaks in The Fates:'If it were a question of that class of men, such as we are nowadays, going to war, and they were led by one large roasted ray and a rib of pork, all the others might stay at home after all, and send Nothippus, who would be glad to go. For, single-handed, he could swallow the whole Peloponnesus.' That the poet is meant here is clearly shown by Telecleides in The Hesiods. The tragic actor Mynniscus is thus derided as a gourmand by Plato in Scum of the Earth:'A. Here you have Mr. Perch, from Anagyrus. B. I know, the man whose friend is Mynniscus of Chalcis. A. Right!' And Lampon the soothsayer is derided for similar reasons by Callias in Shackled and by Lysippus in The Bacchae. Cratinus speaks of him in Runaway Girls:' Lampon, whom no flaming decree of mortals has power to debar from his friends' table.' And he then adds:'Once more he's belching now; for he gobbles anything that is set before him, and he would even fight for the price of a red mullet.'
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§ 8.34 Hedylus, in his epigrams, gives a list of gourmands and mentions one named Phaedon in these terms:'May Phaedon the harper carry off the sausages and black puddings; for he is a gourmand.' He mentions Agis in these lines:'The beauty-fish is done; now put the key in the lock, for fear that Agis, that Proteus of the casseroles, may get in. He can turn into water, or fire, or anything he likes, so lock him out!... For he will change himself perhaps into these forms and come, even as Zeus in a shower of gold, to attack this casserole of Acrisius.' Again, deriding a woman named Cleio for similar habits he says:' Cleio, play the gourmand; we shut our eyes. But if you please, eat by yourself. The whole conger cost a shilling. Just put up a girdle or an ear-ring or some pledge like that; but to look at you, we say, would be the act of a madman. For you are our Medusa; we all, poor devils, are turned to stone, not by the dreadful Gorgon, but by a dish of conger.'
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§ 8.35 Aristodemus says in his Humorous Memoirs that the gourmand Euphranor, hearing that another fish-eater had died from swallowing a hot slice of fish, exclaimed,' Death is a sacrilegious robber.' Cindon the gourmand and Demylus (who was another) were once served with a grey-fish, but nothing else. Cindon seized the fish's eye, whereupon Demylus violently attacked Cindon's eye, exclaiming,'You let go and I'll let go. Once, at a dinner-party, a fine dish of fish was served. Demylus, not knowing how else he could have it all to himself, spat into it. Antigonus of Carystus, in his Life of Zeno, records a remark made by Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, to the gourmand with whom he lived for a long time. It happened that a large fish was served to them without any other course. Zeno took the entire fish from the platter and made as if he were going to eat it. When the other looked at him reproachfully he said,'What then, think you, must those who live with you suffer, if you can't endure my gluttony for a single day?' Istros says that the poet Choerilus received four minas a day from Archelaus and spent them on luxury food, becoming a gourmand. I am not ignorant, either, of the'fish-eating slaves' whom Clearchus mentions in his work On Sandy Deserts. He alleges that Psammetichus, the king of Egypt, kept fish-eating slaves because he wished to discover the sources of the Nile; he also kept others trained to go thirsty in order to explore the sands of Libya; of the se only a few came through alive. I know also of the oxen in the neighbourhood of Mossynum, in Thrace, who eat tossed to them in their mangers. And phoenicides, when he served fish to those only who had paid their contributions, used to remark that the sea was free to all, but the fish in it belonged only to those who had paid the price.
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§ 8.36 [347] “Besides the noun'gourmand,' my comrades, we have also the verb'gourmandize.' Thus Aristophanes in the second edition of The Clouds:'Not to gourmandize, either, and not to giggle.' Cephisodorus in The Pig:'Not a gourmand and not a gossip either.' Machon in The Letter:'I'm a gourmand; that is the corner-stone of our art. He who would not spoil the materials entrusted to him must have a passionate love of them. The cook who is mindful of his own taste will never be a poor one. Further, you can't go wrong when your organs of sense are clear. Cook, and taste often. Not enough salt; add some. Something else is required; keep tasting it again until the flavour is right; tighten it, as you would a harp, until it is in tune. Then, when you think that everything is by this time in harmony, bring on your chorus of dishes, singing in unison... Nicolaidas of Myconos...' In addition to these gourmands, my comrades, I know also of the Apollo Opsophagos (Gourmand) worshipped in Elis. He is mentioned by Polemon in his Letter to Attalus. I know also of the painting in the Pisatan territory, set up as an offering in the sanctuary of Alpheiosian Artemis, and the work of Cleanthes of Corinth. In it Poseidon is depicted offering a tunny to Zeus, who is in labour, as Demetrius records in the eighth book of The Trojan Battle Order.
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§ 8.37 [347B] ”All this, indeed," said Democritus, "I have myself dished up for you as an additional food-offering, although I have not come forward to pose as a fish-eater because of our most excellent Ulpian. He, following the customs of his native Syria, has deprived us of our fish, while introducing other customs from Syria. And yet the Stoic Antipater of Tarsus, at least, says in the fourth book of his work On Superstition that it is asserted on the part of some authorities that Queen Gatis of Syria was such a fish-lover that she published an edict forbidding anyone to eat fish'apart from Gatis' (ater Gatis). Not understanding this phrase, the masses call her Atargatis, and abstain from fish. But Mnaseas, in the second book of his work On Asia says:'In my opinion Atargatis was a cruel queen, and ruled the peoples harshly, even to the extent of forbidding them by law to eat fish; on the contrary, they must bring them to her because of her fondness for that food. For this reason the custom still holds that whenever they pray to the goddess, they bring her offerings of fish made of silver or gold; but the priests bring to the goddess, every day, real fish which they have fancily dressed and served on the table. They are boiled or baked, and the priests of the god, of course, consume the fish themselves.' Proceeding a little further he again says:' Atargatis, according to Xanthus of Lydia, was captured by Mopsus the Lydian and with her son Ichthys was sunk in the lake of Ascalon because of her outrageous conduct, and eaten up by the fish.'
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§ 8.38 And perhaps you, dear friends, intentionally omitted, as something sacred, the fish mentioned by comic poet Ephippus, which, he says, was dished up for Geryones in the like-named play. His words are these:'Whensoever the dwellers in that country catch a fish — not one of every-day size, but bigger in bulk than Crete, which the sea-waters wash all around — they give him a dish which can hold a hundred of these. And the neighbours round about it are Sindians, Lycians, Mygdoniots, Cranaans, Paphians. These hew the wood whenever the king cooks that mighty fish; and they haul so much of it that it fills the circuit of the city as it stands, while others light the fire underneath. To make the pickle they draw off a lake full of water, and it takes a hundred ox -teams, for eight continuous months, to bring up the salt for it. On the top of the rim of the dish there sail five galleys, each with five oars on a side, and the order is given: “Hurry with that fire, you Lycian foreman! It's not hot enough! Now stop the bellows, you Macedonian captain! Put out the fire, you Celt, if you don't want to scorch the fish.”' I am not unaware that Ephippus has these same lines in his play, The Peltast, in which the following also are appended to the foregoing:'This is the kind of nonsense he babbles at dinner, and he lives in the company of schoolboys who look up to him with admiration, although he couldn't do a sum with counters, and, proud in mien, proudly swishes his foppish coat.' It is high time, noble Ulpian, that you inquire to whom Ephippus alludes in this description, and explain to us, of these sayings,'if aught therein is indistinct to thee and hard to find out, question again, and learn all clearly; for more leisure is mine than I desire,' as Aeschylus says in his Prometheus."
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§ 8.39 [347C] Then Cynulcus cried out: “What big inquiry — not big fish! would Ulpian here comprehend? He is always picking out the prickly spines of hepseti, and smelts, and any other little fish that may be more damnable than they, passing over the big cuts. It reminds me of what Eubulus says in Ixion:'At fashionable dinners, though cakes of finest meal are served, they always eat only dill or parsley or cress or other silly stuff dressed for them.' In like manner, I think, our'cauldron devotee' Ulpian, to quote my compatriot Cercidas of Megalopolis, refuses to eat anything that becomes a man, but watches the diners to see if they have skipped a spine or gristle or cartilage in the viands served, laying not to heart the saying of the noble and glorious Aeschylus, who declared that his tragedies were large cuts taken from Homer's mighty dinners. And Aeschylus was one of the great philosophers; for once, when he was defeated unfairly, as Theophrastus or Chamaeleon says in the work On Pleasure, he declared that his tragedies were dedicate days to Time, and he knew that he should receive his fitting reward.
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§ 8.40 [348] ”How, moreover, can Ulpian understand what the harp-player Stratonicus said of the harp-singer Propis of Rhodes? For Clearchus says in his work On Proverbs that Stratonicus attended a performance by Propis, who, though large of stature, was poor in his art, which fell short of his bodily size; and when people asked Stratonicus who the performer was, he replied'A poor nobody makes a large fish,' implying that he was first of all a nobody, then poor, and moreover, though large, he was a fish in his lack of voice. But Theophrastus, in the treatise On the Ridiculous, while acknowledging that the saying came from Stratonicus, declares that it referred to the actor Simycas by a distortion of the proverb,'No rotten fish is large.' Aristotle gives the following account of this proverb in The Constitution of Naxos:'The majority of the well-to do in Naxos used to live in the city, while the rest were scattered among the villages. Now in one of these villages, the name of which was Leistadae, dwelt Telestagoras. He was very rich and famous, and honoured by the people in all other ways, but especially by gifts sent to him daily. And whenever they came down to the village from town and tried to beat down the price of any goods offered for sale, the shopkeepers were in the habit of saying that they would prefer to make a present of their goods to Telestagoras rather than to sell at so small a price. So some young sparks tried to purchase a large fish, and when the fisherman repeated the same old story, they got angry at hearing it so often, and being rather tipsy, they went rioting to the house of Telestagoras. But though he welcomed them kindly, the young men assaulted him and his two daughters, who were of marriageable age. At this the Naxians in great indignation took up arms and attacked the young men, and a serious civil war began, the Naxians being led by Lygdamis, who, as a result of this military leadership, rose to be tyrant of his native land....'
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§ 8.41.1 349D “But I do not think it untimely, now that I have mentioned the harp-player Stratonicus, to add something myself to what has been said about his cleverness in repartee. Being a teacher of harp-players, he had in his studio nine images of the Muses, one of Apollo, and just two pupils; and when somebody asked him how many pupils he had, he replied,'With the assistance of the gods, a round dozen.' Once he journeyed to Mylasa, where he saw many temples but very few people. So he took his place in the middle of the market and called,'Oyez, oyez, ye temples!' And Machon records these reminiscences of him:
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§ 8.41.12'Once on a time Stratonicus journeyed to Pella, having previously heard from several sources that the baths there usually made people splenetic. Well, observing several lads exercising in the bath beside the fire, all of them with bodies and complexions at the top of their form, he said that his informants had made a mistake. But when he came out again, he noticed a man who had a spleen twice as large as his belly. (He remarked:) ”The door-keeper who sits here and receives the cloaks of patrons as they enter must plainly have an eye on their spleens as well, to make sure immediately that the people inside are not crowded."
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§ 8.41.25 A wretched harper was once entertaining Stratonicus, and while the wine flowed he began to display his art to him. The appointments of the dinner were gorgeous and pretentious; and Stratonicus, having enough of the music, and no one else to talk to, smashed his cup. He then asked for a larger one, and receiving many cups he pledged them in turn to the Sun, alternately drinking and dozing, trusting the rest to fate. By chance, so it appeared, a revel band of acquaintances burst in upon the singer, and Stratonicus immediately became quite drunk. When they asked him further why he had been continually drinking much wine and had made himself drunk so soon, he answered: “This crafty and abominable harper has given me a dinner and then slain me like an ox at the manger.”
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§ 8.41.40 Once Stratonicus travelled to Abdera to attend the spectacle which was to be given there, and he saw that every citizen had a personal herald who proclaimed separately, whenever he desired, the coming New Moon; and seeing that the heralds in that region were, one might say, far too many, in proportion to the common folk, he walked carefully on the tips of his toe-nails in the town, his eyes intent upon the ground beneath. When a stranger there asked him what had suddenly happened to his feet, he replied, “I'm all right, stranger, in all my limbs, and I can run much faster to a dinner than any parasite. But I am torn with anxiety and utterly afraid that I may tread on a herald and impale my foot on him.” When a poor piper was on the point of playing his pipes at a sacrifice Stratonicus said “Hush, until we've poured a libation and prayed to the gods!”
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§ 8.41.58 Cleon was a harp-singer, nicknamed Ox, who sang terribly off pitch, shamefully abusing his harp. Having heard him to the end, Stratonicus remarked: “We used to have a proverb about Ass and the Lyre, but now it's the Ox and the Lyre.” Stratonicus the harp-singer once sailed to Pontus to visit its king, Berisades. After a long stay there, he wanted to return to Greece. But when it appeared that Berisades would not allow it, they say that Stratonicus answered him thus: “What! you don't intend to stay here yourself, do you?”
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§ 8.41.69 Again, Stratonicus the harp-singer once found himself, a stranger, in Corinth. There an old hag kept looking at him and would not desist, no matter where he went. And he: “In the gods' name, granny, tell me what you want, and why you keep gazing at me?” "I wondered, she said, “that your mother could carry you for ten months and hold you within her womb, when our city smarts with the pain of keeping you a single day.” Axiothea, Nicocreon's wife, attended by her pretty maid, went to a dinner and broke wind, and then trod on an almond with her Sikyonian slipper and cracked it. When Stratonicus heard it he said, “Not the same sound!” But when night came on, because of that saying he paid for his frank speech in the waters of the sea. A poor harp-singer in Ephesus, it appears, once exhibited his pupil to his friends. Stratonicus, who happened to be present, said: “The man who cannot teach himself to play because he is so bad, is seen at his worst when he tries to teach others.”'
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§ 8.42.1 [350] “ Clearchus, in the second book of his work On Friendship, says:'The harp-player Stratonicus, whenever he started for bed, would tell his slaves to bring him a drink.'Not so much because I am thirsty,” he said, “as because I don't want to be thirsty.” In Byzantium a harp-singer sang his prelude beautifully, but made a mess of the songs that followed. Stratonicus got up and made proclamation: “Whoever will reveal the hiding-place of the harp-singer who sang the prelude will receive a thousand drachmas.” When he was asked by someone who were the most god-forsaken people, he said that of the Pamphylians, the Phaselites were the most so, but of the inhabited world, the people of Side were the most god-forsaken.' And again, Hegesander says, when he was asked whether the Boeotians were perhaps more uncivilized than the Thessalians he replied,'the Elians.' And once he set up a trophy in his schoolroom with this inscription,'In protest against all bad harpers.' Asked by someone which boats were safer, the fast galleys or the round-bottomed merchantmen, he answered,'Those which are safely moored.'
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§ 8.42.17 Giving a recital in Rhodes and receiving no applause, he left the theatre remarking,'If you won't give that which cost you nothing, how can I expect to receive any contribution from you?' He used to say:'Let Elians manage athletic contests, Corinthians musical contests, and Athenians dramatic contests. If, however, any of them makes a mistake, let the Lacedemonians be flogged for it.' Thus he satirized the flagellations held in Lacedemon, as Charicles says in the first book of his work On the City Contest. When King Ptolemy was discussing with him, rather too contentiously, the art of harp-playing, he said,'O King, a sceptre is one thing, a plectrum is another.' This is told by the epic poet Capito in the fourth book of his Notes addressed to Philopappus. And having been invited on one occasion to hear a harp-singer, after the recital he quoted:'And the Father granted one part to him, but denied him the other.' When someone asked, “Which part” he answered:'He granted the power to play badly, but denied the power to sing beautifully.' And once a beam (dokos) collapsed and killed a bad man. He said:'Gentlemen, meseems (doko) there are gods; if not, there are beams (dokoi).'
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§ 8.43.1 [351] “The following sayings, appended to what have been quoted above, are recorded in the Reminiscences of Stratonicus. When the father of Chrysogonus declared that he enjoyed the possession of every theatrical appurtenance in his own house, since he himself was a theatrical producer, while one of his sons would bring out plays, and the other would furnish the flute accompaniment, Stratonicus said to him:'There is still one thing you need besides.' He asked,'What?' Stratonicus replied,'An audience in your own house.' When somebody asked him why he roamed all over Greece, instead of staying continuously in one city, he answered that he had received all Greeks as toll from the Muses, and he exacted pay from them for their ignorance of the Muses. Of Phaon he used to say that he played not harmony, but Cadmus, on his pipes. When Phaon pretended to be a proficient piper, and alleged that he possessed a chorus at Megara, he said:'Nonsense! You don't possess anything there, you are yourself possessed.' He said that he was particularly surprised at the mother of the sophist Satyrus because she had carried for ten months one whom no city could bear for ten days. Learning that Satyrus was staying in Troy to attend the Trojan games he said,' Troy hath ever had misfortune!' When Mynnacus disagreed with him on a question of music he said that he would pay no attention to him because he spoke over his ankle. He said that a poor doctor could send his patients to Hades in a single day. Meeting an acquaintance whose shoes, he saw, had been nicely polished, he expressed sympathy for his poverty, believing that they could not have been so nicely polished if the man had not done it himself.
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§ 8.43.26 In Teichious, near Miletus, lived a mixed population. When he observed that all the tombs belonged to foreigners he said:'Let's get out of here, slave. For it appears that foreigners in this place die, but not a single citizen.' While the harper Zethus was lecturing on music... he declared that Zethus was the last person who should talk on music,'because' as he said,'you have chosen the most unmusical of names, calling yourself Zethus instead of Amphion.' While giving a lesson in harp-playing to a Macedonian pupil, he became enraged at the pupil's failure to do as he was told and cried out,'To Macedonia with you!'
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§ 8.44 Once he saw a richly decorated hero-shrine beside a poor bath-house which supplied only cold water. When he came out, after an uncomfortable bath, he said:'I don't wonder that there are so many votive tablets dedicated here; every man who takes a bath here makes an offering for having been rescued alive.' He said that in Aenus it was freezing for eight months of the year and winter during the other four.'The people of Pontus,' he used to say,'had come up out of the vasty deep,' meaning'out of perdition.' He used to call the Rhodians' Cyrenaeans with white skins' and'a community of suitors'; Heracleia was'Androcorinthus'; Byzantium was'the armpit of Hellas'; the people of Leucas were' Corinthian left-overs,' the Ambraciots were'Membraciots.' As he came out of the gates of Heracleia he looked carefully around, and when someone asked him why he was so careful he said he was ashamed of being seen, because it was like coming out of a bawdy-house. Seeing two men confined to the stocks he exclaimed,'Small-town stuff that — not to be able to man the stocks completely!' To a student of music who had formerly been a gardener and who got into an argument with him on a question of music, he quoted,'Every man should tend the art he knows.' Drinking with some companions in Maroneia, he said he would know in what part of the city he was, if they led him forth blindfolded. Afterwards, as they led him and asked him where he was, he replied,'Opposite the public-house,' because Maroneia was reputed to be a collection of pubs. When Telephanes, who was lying on the couch beside him, began to blow his flute, Stratonicus said,'Get up, as belchers should!' When the bath-tender in Cardia furnished a soap-powder of vile dust, and water which was brackish, he said that he was besieged by land and by sea.

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by Charles Burton Gulick (1868-1962). Composed ca. 228 CE. Licence: public domain. Source.