Deipnosophistae

Athenaeus of Naucratis

Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists or Banquet Of The Learned Of Athenaeus. Yonge, Charles Duke, translator. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854.

Athenæus then, having delivered this lecture on water, like a rhetorician, stopped awhile, and then began again.

Amphis, the comic writer, says somewhere or other—

  1. There is, I take it, often sense in wine,
  2. And those are stupid who on water dine.
And Antiphanes says—
  1. Take the hair, it well is written,
  2. Of the dog by whom you're bitten.
  3. Work off one wine by his brother,
  4. And one labour with another;
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  6. Horns with horns, and noise with noise,
  7. One crier with his fellow's voice
  8. Insult with insult, war with war,
  9. Faction with faction, care with care;
  10. Cook with cook, and strife with strife,
  11. Business with business, wife with wife.

The ancients applied the word ἄκρατον even to unmixed water. Sophron says—

  1. Pour unmix'd water ὕδωρ ἄκρατον in the cup.

Phylarchus says that Theodorus the Larisssean was a water-drinker; the man, I mean, who was always so hostile to king Antigonus. He asserts also that all the Spaniards drink water, though they are the richest of all men, for they have the greatest abundance of gold and silver in their country. And he says, too, that they eat only once a day, out of stinginess, though they wear most expensive clothes. And Aristotle or Theophrastus speaks of a man named Philinus as never having taken any drink or solid food whatever, except milk alone, during the whole of his life. And Pythermus, in his account of the tyrants of Piræus, mentions Glaucon as having been a water-drinker. And Hegesander the Delphian says that Anchimolus and Moschus, sophists who lived in Elis, were water-drinkers all their lives; and that they ate nothing but figs, and for all that, were quite as healthy and vigorous as any one else; but that their perspiration had such an offensive smell, that every one avoided them at the baths. And Matris the Athenian, as long as he lived, ate nothing except a few myrtle-berries each day, and abstained from wine and every other kind of drink except water. Lamprus, too, the musician, was a water-drinker, concerning whom Phrynichus says,

that the gulls lamented, when Lamprus died among them, being a man who was a water-drinker, a subtle hypersophist, a dry skeleton of the Muses, an ague to nightingales, a hymn to hell.
And Machon the comic poet mentions Moschion as a water-drinker.

But Aristotle, in his book on Drunkenness, says, that some men who have been fond of salt meat have yet not had their thirst stimulated by it; of whom Archonides the Argive was one. And Mago the Carthaginian passed three times through the African desert eating dry meal and never drinking And Polemo the Academic philosopher, from the

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time that he was thirty years of age to the day of his death, never drank anything but water, as is related by Antigonus the Carystian. And Demetrius the Scepsian says that Diocles of Peparethus drank cold water to the day of his death. And Demosthenes the orator, who may well be admitted as a witness in his own case, says that he drank nothing but water for a considerable length of time. And Pyheas says,
But you see the demagogues of the present day, Demosthenes and Demades, how very differently they live. For the one is a water-drinker, and devotes his nights to contempla- tion, as they say; and the other is a debauchee, and is drunk every day, and comes like a great potbellied fellow, as he is, into our assemblies.
And Euphorion the Chalcidean writes in this way:—"Lasyrtas the Lasionian never required drink as other men do, and still it did not make him different from other men. And many men, out of curiosity, were careful to watch him, but they desisted before they ascertained what was the truth. For they continued watching him for thirty days together in the summer season, and they saw that he never abstained from salt meat, and yet that, though drinking nothing, he seemed to have no complaint in his bladder. And so they believed that he spoke the truth. And he did, indeed, sometimes take drink, but still he did not require it.

  1. A change of meat is often good,
  2. And men, when tired of common food,
  3. Redoubled pleasure often feel,
  4. When sitting at a novel meal.

The king of Persia, as Herodotus relates in his first book, drank no water, except what came from the river Choaspes, which flows by Susa. And when he was on a journey, he had numbers of four-wheeled waggons drawn by mules following him, laden with silver vessels containing this water, which was boiled to make it keep. And Ctesias the Cnidian explains also in what manner this water was boiled, and how it was put into the vessels and bought to the king, saying that it was the lightest and sweetest of all waters. And the second king of Egypt, he who was surnamed Philadelphus, having given his daughter Berenice in marriage to Antiochus the king of Syria, took the trouble to send her water from the river Nile, in order that his child might drink of no other river, as Polybius relates. And

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Heliodorus tells us, that Antiochus Epiphanes, whom Polybius calls Epimanes,[*](ʼἐπιφάνης, illustrious. ʼἐπιμανὴς, mad.) on account of his actions, mixed the fountain at Antioch with wine; a thing which Theopompus relates to have been also done by the Phrygian Midas, when he wished to make Silenus drunk in order to catch him. And that fountain is, as Bion relates, between the Mædi and the Pæonians, and is called Inna. But Staphylus says, that Melampus was the first who invented the idea of mixing wine with water. And Plistonicus says that water is more digestible than wine.

Now men who drink hard before eating, are usually not very comfortable in their digestion, which are apt to get out of order by such a system, and what they eat often turns sour on the stomach. So that a man who has a regard for his health, ought to take regular exercise, for the sake of promoting frequent perspiration; and he ought also to use the bath regularly for the sake of moistening and relaxing his body. And besides this, and before he bathes, he should drink water, as being an excellent thing,—drinking warm water usually in winter and spring, and cold water in summer, in order not to weaken the stomach. But he should only drink in moderation before the bath or the gymnasium, for the sake of diffusing what he drinks throughout his system beforehand, and in order to prevent the unmixed strength of wine from having too much effect on his extremities. And if any one thinks it too much trouble to live on this system, let him take sweet wine, either mixed with water or warmed, especially that which is called πρότροπος, the sweet Lesbian wine, as being very good for the stomach.

Now sweet wines do not make the head heavy, as Hippocrates says in his book on Diet, which some entitle,

The Book on Sharp Pains;
others,
The Book on Barley-water;
and others,
The Book against the Cnidian Theories.
His words are:
Sweet wine is less calculated to make the head heavy, and it takes less hold of the mind, and passes through the bowels easier than other wine.
But Posidonius says, that it is not a good thing to pledge one's friends as the Carmani do; for they, when at their banquets they wish to testify their friendship for each other, cut the veins on their faces, and mingle the blood which flows down with the liquor,
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and then drink it; thinking it the very extremes proof of friendship to taste one another's blood. And after pledging one another in this manner, they anoint their heads with ointment, especially with that distilled from roses, and if they cannot get that, with that distilled from apples, in order to ward off the effects of the drink, and in order also to avoid being injured by the evaporation of the wine; ad if they cannot get ointment of apples, they then use that extracted from the iris or from spikenard, so that Alexis very neatly says—

  1. His nose he anoints, and thinks it plain
  2. 'Tis good for health with scents to feed the brain

But one ought to avoid thick perfumes, and to drink water which is thin and transparent, and which in respect of weight is light, and which has no earthy particles in it. And that water is best which is of a moderate heat or coldness, and which, when poured into a brazen or silver vessel, does not produce a blackish sediment. Hippocrates says,

Water which is easily warmed or easily chilled is always lighter.
But that water is bad which takes a long time to boil vegetables; and so too is water full of nitre, or brackish. And in his book upon Waters, Hippocrates calls good water drinkable; but stagnant water he calls bad, such as that from ponds or marshes. And most spring-water is rather hard. But Erasistratus says that some people test water by weight, and that is a most stupid proceeding.
For just look,
says he,
if men compare the water from the fountain Amphiaraus with that from the Eretrian spring, though one of them is good and the other bad, there is absolutely no difference in their respective weights.
And Hippocrates, in his book on Places, says that those waters are the best which flow from high ground, and from dry hills,
for they are white, and sweet, and are able to bear very little wine, and are warm in winter and cold in summer.
And he praises those most, the springs of which break towards the east, and especially towards the north-east, for they must inevitably be clear, and fragrant, and light. Diodes says that water is good for the digestion, and not apt to cause flatulency, that it is moderately cooling, and good for the eyes, and that it has no tendency to make the head feel heavy, and that it adds vigour to the mind and body. And Praxagoras
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says the same; and he also praises rain-water. But Euenor praises water from cisterns, and says that the best is that from the cistern of Amphiaraus, when compared with that from the fountain in Eretria.

But that water is undeniably nutritious is plain from the fact that some animals are nourished by it alone, as for instance, grasshoppers. And there are many other liquids which are nutritious, such as milk, barley-water, and wine. At all events, animals at the breast are nourished by milk; and there are many nations who drink nothing but milk. And it is said that Democritus, the philosopher of Abdera, after he had determined to rid himself of life on account of his extreme old age, and when he had begun to diminish his food day by day, when the day of the Thesmophorian festival came round, and the women of his household besought him not to die during the festival, in order that they might not be debarred from their share in the festivities, was persuaded, and ordered a vessel full of honey to be set near him: and in this way he lived many days with no other support than honey; and then some days after, when the honey had been taken away, he died. But Democritus had always been fond of honey; and he once answered a man, who asked him how he could live in the enjoyment of the best health, that he might do so if he constantly moistened his inward parts with honey, and his outward man with oil. And bread and honey was the chief food of the Pythagoreans, according to the statement of Aristoxenus, who says that those who eat this for breakfast were free from disease all their lives. And Lycus says that the Cyrneans (and they are a people who live near Sardinia) are very long-lived, because they are continually eating honey; and it is produced in great quantities among them.

When he says, men have adjourned the investigation into all such matters, he uses the word ἀνατιθέμενος instead of ἀναβαλλόμενος.

The word ἄνηστις is used in the same sense as νῆστις, i.e. fasting (just as we find στάχυς and ἄσταχυς) by Cratinus, when he says—

  1. For you are not the first who's come to supper
  2. After a lengthened fast,
And the word ὀξύπεινος is used by Diphilus for hungry—
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  1. I'm glad when those who set them up as wise,
  2. Are naked seen and hungry.
And Antiphanes says—
  1. A. At all events he's one complaint,
  2. For he is hungry ever.
  3. B. The keen Thessalian race you paint,
  4. Who can be sated never.
And Eubulus says—
  1. Then Zethus was advised to seek the plain,
  2. The holy plain of Thebes; for there men sell
  3. The cheapest loaves and cakes.
  4. Again advice came to the great Amphion,
  5. The sweet musician, pointing out to him
  6. The famous Athens for his resting-place,
  7. Whose sons at hunger ne'er repine, but feed
  8. On air and sweetest hopes.

The word μονοσιτῶν, eating once a day, occurs too in Alexis—

  1. When you meet with a man who takes only one meal,
  2. Or a poet who music pretends not to feel;
  3. The man half his life, the bard half his art, loses;
  4. And sound reason to call either living refuses.
And Plato says,
he not only was not content with one meal a-day, but sometimes he even dined twice the same day.

We know that men used to call sweetmeats νωγαλεύματα. Araros says in the Campylion—

  1. These νωγαλεύματα are very nice.
And Alexis says—
  1. In Thasian feasts his friends he meets,
  2. And νωγαλίζει, sweetmeats eats.
And Antiphanes, in the Busiris, says—
  1. Grapes, and pomegranates, and palms,
  2. And other νώγαλα.

Philonides used the word ἀπόσιτος for fasting; and Crobylus has the word αὐτόσιτος, writing παράσιτον, αὐτόσιτον.

Eupolis, too, used ἀναρίστητος for without breakfast Crates has the word ἀναγκόσιτος, eating by force, and Nicostratus uses ἀναγκοσιτέω.

  1. There is a youth most delicately curl'd,
  2. Whom I do feed by force beneath the earth.
And Alexis has the word ἀριστόδειπνον, breakfast-dinner—
  1. By whom the breakfast-dinner is prepared.

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After this we rose up and sat down again as each of us pleased, not waiting for a nomenclator to arrange us in order.

Now that rooms were fitted up with couches for three, and with couches for four, and for seven, and for nine, and for other successive numbers, in the time of the ancients, we may prove from Antiphanes, who says—

  1. I bring you, since you are but three,
  2. To a room with equal couches.
And Phrynichus says—
  1. One room had seven couches fine,
  2. While another boasted nine.
And Eubulus says—
  1. A. Place now a couch for seven.
  2. B. Here it is.
  3. A. And five Sicilian couches.
  4. B. Well, what next
  5. A. And five Sicilian pillows.
And Amphis says—
  1. Will you not place a couch for three?
Anaxandrides—
  1. A couch was spread,
  2. And songs to please the aged man.
  3. Open the supper rooms, and sweep the house,
  4. And spread the couches fair, and light the fire;
  5. Bring forth the cups, and fill with generous wine.

. . . . . . And Plato the philosopher,

Men now distinguish the couches and coverings with reference to what is put round the couch and what is put under it.
And his namesake, the comic poet, says—
  1. There the well-dress'd guests recline
  2. On couches rich with ivory feet;
  3. And on their purple cushions dine,
  4. Which rich Sardinian carpets meet.
For the art of weaving embroidered cloths was in great perfection in his time, Acesas and Helicon, natives of Cyprus, being exceedingly eminent for their skill in it; and they were weavers of very high reputation. And Helicon was the son of Acesas, as Hieronymus reports: and so at Pytho there is an inscription on some work—
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  1. Fair Venus's isle did bring forth Helicon,
  2. Whose wondrous work you now do gaze upon;
  3. And fair Minerva's teaching bade his name
  4. And wondrous skill survive in deathless fame.
And Pathymias the Egyptian was a man of similar renown. Ephippus says—
  1. Place me where rose-strewn couches fill the room,
  2. That I may steep myself in rich perfume.
Aristophanes says—
  1. Oh you who press your mistress to your arms,
  2. All night upon sweet-scented couches lying.
Sophron too speaks of coverlets embroidered with figures of birds as of great value. And Homer, the most admirable of all poets, calls those cloths which are spread below λῖτα, that is to say, white, neither dyed nor embroidered. But the coverlets which are laid above he calls
beautiful purple cloths.

The Persians, according to the account of Heraclides, are the people who first introduced the system of having particular servants to prepare the couches, in order that they might always be elegantly arranged and well made. And on this account Artaxerxes, having a high esteem for Timagoras the Cretan, or, as Phanias the Peripatetic says, for Entimus the Gortinian, who went up to the king in rivalry of Themistocles, gave him a tent of extraordinary size and beauty, and a couch with silver feet; and he sent him also expensive coverlets, and a man to arrange them, saying that the Greeks did not know how to arrange a couch. And so completely had this Cretan gained the favour of the king, that he was invited to a banquet of the royal family, an honour which had never been paid to any Greek before, and never has been since; for it was reserved as an especial compliment for the king's relations. Nor was this compliment paid to Timagoras the Athenian, who submitted to offer adoration t the king, and who was held in the highest honour by him, though some of the things which were set before the kin were sent to him from the royal table. The king of Persi, too, once took achaplet from off his head and dipped it in perfume, and sent it to Antalcidas the Lacedæmonian. But he did this too, and many similar things, to Entimus; also, and in addition to everything else, he invited him to a banquet of the royal family. And the Persians were very indignant this,

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thinking that it was making such an honour too common, and also because they thought they were on the eve of another expedition against Greece. He sent him also a couch with silver feet, and cushions for it, and a flowered tent surmounted with a canopy, and a silver chair, and a gilt parasol, and some golden vessels inlaid with precious stones, and a hundred large vessels of silver, and silver bowls, and a hundred girls, and a hundred boys, and six thousand pieces of gold, besides what was allowed him for his daily expenses.

There were tables with ivory feet, the top slabs of which were made of maple wood. Cratinus says—

  1. Fair girls await you, and a table
  2. Of highly polish'd dappled maple.
And when one of the Cynics used the word τρίπους, meaning a table, Ulpian got indignant and said, "To-day I seem to have trouble coming on me arising out of my actual want of business; for what does this fellow mean by his tripod, unless indeed he counts Diogenes' stick and his two feet, and so makes him out to be a tripod'? At all events every one else calls the thing which is set before us τράπεζα.

Hesiod, in his poem on the marriage of Ceyx, (although indeed the sons of the Grammarians deny that that poem is his work, but I myself think that it is an ancient piece,) does call tables τρίποδες. And Xenophon, a most accomplished writer, in the second book of the Anabasis, writes—

τρίποδες were brought in for every one, to the number of about twenty, loaded with ready carved meats.
And he goes on,
And these τράπεζαι were placed for the most part where the strangers sat.
Antiphanes says—
  1. The τρίπους was removed, we wash'd our hands.
Eubulus says—
  1. A. Here are five τρίποδες for you; here five more.
  2. B. Why I shall be quinquagenarian.
Epicharmus says—
  1. A. And what is this?
  2. B. A τρίπους.
  3. A. How is that?
  4. Has it not four feet? 'tis a τετράπους.
  5. B. It may be strictly; but its name is τριπους.
  6. A. Still I can see four feet.
  7. B. At all events
  8. You are no Œdipus, to be so puzzled.
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And Aristophanes says—
  1. A. Bring me one τράπεζα more,
  2. With three feet, not one with four.
  3. B. Where can I a τρίπους τράπεζα find?

It was a custom at feasts, that a guest when he had lain down should have a paper given to him, conning a bill of fare of what there was for dinner, so that he night know what the cook was going to serve up.

We find a fruit called Damascenes. Now many of the ancient writers mention Damascus, a city of great reputation and importance; and as there is a great quantity of plum-trees in the territory of the Damascenes, and as they are cultivated there with exceeding care, the tree itself has got to be called a Damascene, as being a kind of plum different from what is found in other countries. The fruit is more like prunes. And many writers speak of them, and Hipponax says—

  1. I have a garland of damascenes and mint.
And Alexis says—
  1. A. And in my sleep I thought I saw a prize.
  2. B. What was it?
  3. A. Listen.—There came up to me,
  4. While still within th' arena's spacious bounds,
  5. One of my rivals, bringing me a crown-
  6. A ripe revolving crown of damascenes.
  7. B. Oh Hercules! and were the damascenes ripe?
And again he says—
  1. Did you e'er see a sausage toasted,
  2. Or dish of tripe well stuff'd and roasted?
  3. Or damascenes stew'd in rich confection—
  4. Such was that gentleman's complexion.
Nicander says—
  1. The fruit they call a plum, the cuckoo's prize.
But Clearchus the Peripatetic says that the Rhodians and Sicilians call plums βράβυλα, and so Theocritus the Syracusan uses the word—
  1. Heavy with plums, the branches swept the ground.
And again he says—
  1. Far as the apple doth the plum surpass.
But the damascene is smaller in circumference than other plums, though in flavour it is very like them, except that it is a little sharper. Seleucus, in his Dictionary, says that
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βράβυλα, ἦλα, κοκκύμηλα, and μάδρυα are all different names for the same thing; and that plums are called βράβυλα, as being good for the stomach, and βορὰν ἐκ βάλλοντα,, that is, assisting to remove the food; and ἦλα, which is the same word as μῆλα, meaning simply fruit, as Demetrius Ixion says in his Etymology. And Theophrastus says, κοκκύμηλα καὶ σποδιάς: σποδιὰς being a kind of wild plum. And Araros calls the tree which bears the fruit κοκκυμηλέα, and the fruit itself κοκκύμηλον. And Diphilus of Siphnos pronounces plums to be juicy, digestible, and easily evacuated, but not very nutritious.

There is another fruit, called Cherries.—Theophrastus says, in his book on Plants, that the Cherry-tree is a tree of a peculiar character, and of large size, for it grows to a height of four-and-twenty cubits,[*](A cubit was about 18 1/4 .inches.) and its leaf is like that of the medlar, but somewhat harder and thicker, and its bark like the linden; its flower is white, like that of the pear or the medlar, consisting of a number of small petals of a waxy nature; its fruit is red, like that of the lotus in appearance, and of the size of a bean; but the kernel of the lotus is hard, while that of the cherry is soft. And again he says,

The κράταιγος, which some call κραταίγων, has a spreading leaf like a medlar, only that is larger, and wider, and longer; and it has no deep grain in it as the medlar has. The tree is neither very tall nor very large; the wood is variegated, yellow, and strong: it has a smooth bark, like that of the medlar; and a single root, which goes down very deep into the earth; the fruit is round, of the size of an olive; when fully ripe it is of a yellow colour, becoming gradually darker; and from its flavour and juice it might almost be taken for a wild medlar.
By which description of the cratægus it appears to me that he means the tree which is now called the cherry.

Asclepiades of Myrlea speaks of a tree which he calls the Ground-cherry, and says,

In the land of the Bithynians there is found the ground-cherry, the root of which is not large; nor is the tree, but like a rose-bush; in all other respects the fruit is like the common cherry; but it makes those who eat much of it feel heavy, as wine does, and it gives them head-aches.
These are the words of Asclepiades. And it appears to me that he is speaking of the arbutus. For
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the tree which bears the arbutus-berry answers his descrip- tion, and if a man eats more than six or seven of the berries he gets a headache. Aristophanes says—
  1. And planted by no hand, the arbutus
  2. Makes red the sunny hills.
Theopompus says—
  1. The myrtle berries and red arbutus.
Crates says—
  1. Beauteous the breast of tender maid,
  2. As arbutus or apples red.
And Amphis—
  1. Mulberries you see, my friend, are found
  2. On the tree which we know as the mulberry;
  3. So the oak bears the acorn round,
  4. And the arbutus shines with its full berry.
And Theophrastus tells us,
The κόμαρος (as he calls it) is the tree which bears the arbutus berry.

There is question about the

Agen,
a satyric drama, whether it was composed by Python, (and if by him whether he was a native of Catana or of Byzantium,) or by the king Alexander himself.

Then Laurentius says—

You, O Greeks, lay claim to a good many things, as either having given the names to them, or having been the original discoverers of them. But you do not know that Lucullus, the Roman general, who subdued Mithridates and Tigranes, was the first man who Introduced this plant into Italy from Cerasus, a city of Pontus; and he it was who gave the fruit the Latin name of Cerasus, cherry, after the name of the city, as our historians relate.

Then Daphnis answers—

But there was a very celebrated man, Diphilus of Siphnos, many years more ancient than Lucullus, for he was born in the time of king Lysimachus, (who was one of the successors of Alexander,) and he speaks of cherries, saying, 'Cherries are good for the stomach, and juicy, but not very nutritious; if taken after drinking cold water they are especially wholesome; but the red and the Milesian are the best kinds, and are diuretic.'

There is a fruit usually called the συκάμινον, which the people of Alexandria call the μόρον, in which they differ from every one else; but it has no connexion with the Egyptian

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fig, which some call συκόμορον, and which the natives scrape slightly with a knife, and then leave on the tree; and then when it has been tossed about by the wind, within three days it becomes ripe and fragrant, (especially if the wind is west,) and very good to eat, as there is something in it which is moderately cooling for people in a fever, when made up with oil of roses into a plaster, so as to be put upon the stomach, and it is no slight relief to the patient. Now the Egyptian sycaminus bears its fruit on the main stem, and not on the branches. But the sycaminus is a mulberry, a fruit mentioned by Aeschylus in his Phrygians, where he says of Hector,
  1. His heart was softer than a mulberry.
And in his
Cretan Women
he says of the brier—
  1. As the full branch to earth is Weigh'd
  2. With mulberries, white and black and red.
And Sophocles has the lines—
  1. First you shall see the full white ear of corn,
  2. And then the large round rosy mulberry.
And Nicander in his Georgics says that it is the first of all fruits to appear; and he calls the tree which bears it μορέα, as also do the Alexandrians—
  1. The mulberry-tree, in which the young delight,
  2. Brown autumn's harbinger.

Phanias of Eresus, the pupil of Aristotle, calls the fruit of the wild sycamine μόρον, or mulberry, being a fruit of the greatest sweetness and delicacy when it is ripe. And he writes thus:

The mulberry is a briery sort of tree,[*](The description of the mulberry given here, shows that it is rather a blackberry than our modern mulberry.) and when the round fruit is dried it has small pips of seed, woven in like net-work, and the fruit is nutritious and juicy.
And Parthanius has the following words:—῞ἅβρυνα, that is to say, συκάμινα, which some call mulberries." And Salmonius calls the same tree βάτιον, or brier. And Demetrius Ixion says the συκάμινον and μόρον are the same, being a very juicy fruit, superior to the fig. And Diphilus of Siphnos, who was a physician, writes thus:
The συκάμινα, which are also called μόρα, are moderately full of good juice, but have not much nourishment; they are good for the stomach and easily digested; and those which are not quite ripe have a peculiar
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quality of expelling worms.
But Pythemus states, according to Hegesander, that in his time the mulberry-trees produced no fruit for twenty years, and that during that time gout became so epidemic, that not only men, but even boys and girls, and eunuchs, and women, were afflicted with it; and even herds of goats were attacked with it, so that two-thirds of the cattle were afflicted with the same disorder.

With respect to the word κάρυα, the Attic writers and all other prose writers call nearly all berries by the generic name of κάρυα, nuts. And Epicharmus calls the almond

the nut,
by way of distinction, as we do, saying—
  1. We eat roast nuts, that is, almonds.
Philyllius says—
  1. Eggs, nuts, almonds.
And Heracleon the Ephesian writes—
They called almonds κάρυα, and chestnuts, which we now call καστάνεια.
The tree itself is called καρύα by Sophocles, who says—
  1. (κάρυαι,) nut-trees and ash-trees.
And Eubulus speaks of
  1. Beeches, nut-trees, Carystian nuts.
There are some kinds of nuts, too, which are called μόστηνα.

With respect to Almonds.—The Naxian almonds are mentioned by the ancient writers; and those in the island of Naxos are superior to all others, as I am well persuaded. Phrynichus says—

  1. He knock'd out all my grinders, so that now
  2. A Naxian almond I can hardly crack.
The almonds in the island of Cyprus also are very excellent, and in comparison of those which come from other quarters, they are very long, and slightly bent at the end. And Seleucus in his Dictionary says, that the Lacedæmonians call soft nuts μύκηροι. And the Servians give that name to sweet nuts. But Arnexias says that it is the almond which is called μύκηρος. We may add, there is nothing which is a greater provocative of drinking than almonds when eaten before meals. Eupolis says in his Taxiarchs—
  1. Give me some Naxian almonds to regale me,
  2. And from the Naxian vines some wine to drink.
For there was a vine called the Naxian vine.

v.1.p.86

And Plutarch of Chæronea says, that there was in the retinue of Drusus the son of Tiberius Cæsar, a certain physician who surpassed all men in drinking, and who was detected in always eating five or six bitter almonds before he drank. But when he was prevented from eating them he was not able to stand even a very limited quantity of wine; and the cause of this was the great power of the bitterness of the almond, which is of a very drying nature, and which has the quality of expelling moisture.

Herodian of Alexandria says, that almonds derive the name of ἀμύγδαλαι, because beneath their green bark they have many ἀμυχαὶ, or lacerations.

Philemon says somewhere or other—

  1. You, like an ass, come to the husks of the dessert;
and Nicander, in the second book of his Georgics, says—

  1. Beech-trees, the ornament of Pan.

We also find the word ἀμύγδαλον in the neuter gender. Diphilus says—

  1. Sweetmeats, myrtle-berries, cheese-cakes, almonds,
using the neuter ἀμύγδαλα.