Deipnosophistae

Swine's brains, too, was a not uncommon dish. Philosophers used to forbid our eating these, saying that a person who partook of them might as well eat a bear, and would not stick at eating his father's head, or anything else imaginable. And they said, that at all events none of the ancients had ever eaten them, because they were the seat of nearly all sensation. But Apollodorus the Athenian says, that none of the ancients ever even named the brain. And at all events Sophocles, in his Trachiniæ, where he represents Hercules as throwing Lichas into the sea, does not use the word ἐγκέφαλον, brains, but says λευκὸν μυελὸς, white marrow; avoiding a word which it was thought ill-omened to use:—

1. And from his hair he forces the white marrow,
2. His head being burst asunder in the middle,
3. And the blood flows:

1. Unhappy child, how miserably have
2. Your native city's walls produced your death,
3. And dash'd your head in pieces! Fatal towers,
4. Which Phæbus builded! How did your mother oft
5. Cherish those curly locks, and press upon them
6. With never-wearied kisses! now the blood
7. Wells from that wound, where the bones broken gape;
8. But some things are too horrid to be spoken.

1. He never ceased devouring even the brains (ἐγκέφαλον).

1. I would be content
2. To lose two membranes of the ἐγκέφαλον.

white marrow.

1. Come now, and I will nod my head to you.

Now all these things were put into the dishes which were served up as propomata: pepper, green leaved myrrh, galingal, Egyptian ointment. Antiphanes says—

1. If any one buys pepper and brings it home,
2. They torture him by law like any spy.

1. Now is the time for a man to go and find pepper,
2. And seed of orach, and fruit, and buy it, and bring it here.

1. Just take some Cnidian grains, or else some pepper,
2. And pound them up with myrrh, and strew around.

1. Pepper from Libya take, and frankincense,
2. And Plato's heaven-inspired book of wisdom.

1. Take the conyza's woolly leaves and stalks,
2. And often cut new pepper up, and add
3. Cardamums fresh from Media.

Pepper indeed is a fruit: and there are two kinds of it; the one is round, like a vetch, having a husk, and is rather red in colour; but the other is oblong, black, and full of seeds like poppy-seeds. But this kind is much stronger than the other. Both kinds are heating, on which account they are used as remedies for, and antidotes against, hemlock.

And people who are suffocated are recovered by an infusion of vinegar and pepper, or else by the fruit of the nettle when crushed.

Let us now speak of oil—Antiphanes or Alexis makes mention of the Samian Oil, saying—

1. This man you see will be a measurer
2. Of that most white of oils, the Samian oil.

1. The man anointed was with Carian oil.

1. Oil from the Thurians comes; from Gela lentils.

Pickle is a thing often mentioned. Cratinus Says—

1. Your basket will be full of briny pickle.

1. His beard was all besmear'd with pickle juice.

1. Eating this briny season'd pickle.

1. These men will choke me, steeping me in putrid pickle.

Vinegar too was much used by the ancients, and this is the only seasoning to which the Attics give the name of ἧδος, as if it were akin to ἡδὺς, sweet. And Chrysippus the philosopher says, that the best vinegar is the Egyptian and the Cnidian. But Aristophanes, in his Plutus, says—

1. Sprinkling it o'er with Sphettian vinegar.

Perhaps he says Sphettian because the Sphettians are sour-tempered people.

And at Cleonæ there are manufactories of vinegar.

1. A. He first takes off his coat, and then he sups,
2. After what fashion think you?
3. B. Why, like a Spartan.
4. A. A measure then of vinegar . . . .
5. B. Bah!
6. A. Why bah
7. B. A measure holds but such and such a quantity
8. Of the best Cleonæan vinegar.

1. Their seasonings have not vinegar sufficient.

Vinegar has a tendency to make the exterior parts coagulate, and it affects the strings within the stomach in a very similar manner; but any parts which are tumid it dissolves, because forsooth different humours are mixed up in us.

1. You have compell'd me to bring forth from thence
2. Four half-pint measures full of vinegar
3. From Decelea, and now drag me through
4. The middle of the forum.

But I myself drink ὀξύμελι.

Seasonings are mentioned even by Sophocles. In his Phæacians we find the expression,

1. And seasoning for food.

1. You are steeping the seasonings.

Many bushels of seasonings, and many sacks and bags of books, and of all other things which may be useful for life.

1. I like a cook will cleverly season . . . .

1. It is not every one who can season skilfully.

1. Very bad vinegar seasoned in an expensive way.

1. Dried grapes, and salt, and eke new wine
2. Newly boiled down, and assafætida,
3. And cheese, and thyme, and sesame,
4. And nitre too, and cummin seed,
5. And sumach, honey, and marjoram,
6. And herbs, and vinegar and oil
7. And sauce of onions, mustard and capers mix d,
8. And parsley, capers too, and eggs,
9. And lime, and cardamums, and th' acid juice
10. Which comes from the green fig-tree, besides lard
11. And eggs and honey and flour wrapp'd in fig-leaves,
12. And all compounded in one savoury forcemeat.

1. Cutting asparagus and squills and marjoram, (ὃς)
2. Which gives the pickle an aristocratic taste,
3. When duly mixed (μιχθεὶς) with coriander seed.

1. But in a hurried manner in his hand
2. He hides the marjoram (τὸν ὀρίγανον).

1. She from Arcadia brought
2. The harshly-tasted (τὴν δριμυτάτην) marjoram.

Cratinus used the word πέπονες, which properly means merely full ripe, in speaking of the cucumbers which give seed, in his Ulysseses—

1. Tell me, O wisest son of old Laertes,
2. Have you e'er seen a friend of yours in Paros
3. Buy a large cucumber that's run to seed?

1. Do you not see
2. That Meleager, son of mighty Glaucon,
3. . . . . Goes about every where like a stupid cuckoo,
4. With legs like the seedless πέπων cucumber?

1. His ankles swell'd
2. Larger than e'en a πέπων cucumber.

1. She was to me
2. More tender than a πέπων cucumber.

of wild vegetables the following should be boiled before eating: the lettuce (the best kind of which is the black); the cardamum; mustard from the Adriatic; onions (the best kinds are the Asalonian, and that called getian); garlic, that other kind of garlic called physinga, the πέπων cucumber, and the poppy.

The lettuce was in great request as an article of food. Its name is θρῖδαξ, but the Attics call it θριδακίνη. Epicharmus says—

1. A lettuce (θρῖδαξ) with its stalk peel'd all the way up.

1. The leek-destroying grubs, which go
2. Throughout the leafy gardens
3. On fifty feet, and leave their trace,
4. Gnawing all herbs and vegetables;
5. Leading the dances of the long-tailed satyrs
6. Amid the petals of the verdant herbs,
7. And of the juicy lettuces (θριδακινίδες),
8. And of the fragrant parsley.

Of lettuce (θριδακίνη) the white is the sweeter and the more tender: there are three kinds; there is the lettuce with the broad stalk, and the lettuce with the round stalk, and in the third place there is the Lacedæmonian lettuce-its leaf is like that of a thistle, but it grows up straight and tall, and it never sends up any side shoots from the main stalk. But some plants of the broad kind are so very broad in the stalk that some people even use them for doors to their gardens. But when the stalks are cut, then those which shoot again are the sweetest of any.

But Nicander the Colophonian, in the second part of his Dictionary, says that the lettuce is called βρένθις by the Cyprians. And it was towards a plant of this kind that Adonis was flying when he was slain by the boar. Amphis in his Ialemus says—

1. Curse upon all these lettuces (θριδάκιναι)!
2. For if a man not threescore years should eat them,
3. And then betake himself to see his mistress,
4. He'll toss the whole night through, and won't be equal
5. To her expectations or his own.

1. Do not put lettuces before me, wife,
2. Upon the table; or the blame is yours.
3. For once upon a time, as goes the tale,
4. Venus conceal'd the sadly slain Adonis;
5. Beneath the shade of this same vegetable;
6. So that it is the food of dead men, or of those
7. Who scarcely are superior to the dead.

Pamphilus in his book on Languages says, that Hipponax called the lettuce τετρακίνη: but Clitarchus says that it is the Phrygians who give it this name. Ibycus the Pythagorean says that the lettuce is at its first beginning a plant with a broad leaf, smooth, without any stalk, and is called by the Pythagoreans the eunuch, and by the women ἄστυτις; for that it makes the men diuretic and powerless for the calls of love: but it is exceedingly pleasant to the taste.

Diphilus says that

the stalk of the lettuce is exceedingly nutritious, and more difficult of digestion than the leaves; but that the leaves are more apt to produce flatulence, and are still more nutritious, and have a greater tendency to promote the secretions. And as a general rule the lettuce is good for the stomach, cooling and wholesome for the bowels, soporific, full of pleasant and wholesome juice, and certainly has a great tendency to make men indifferent to love. But the softer lettuce is still better for the stomach, and still more soporific; while that which is harder and drier is both less good for the stomach and less wholesome for the bowels; that, however, is also soporific. But the black lettuce is more cooling, and is good for the bowels; and summer lettuce is full of wholesome juice, and more nutritious; but that which is in season at the end of autumn is not nutritious, and has no juice. And the stalk of the lettuce appears to be a remedy against thirst.

Among some of the other nations Theophrastus says that

Artichokes were often eaten. And Sophocles, in his Colchian Women, calls an artichoke κινάρα, but in his Phœnix he writes the word κύναρος, saying—

1. The artichoke fills every field with its thorn.

Around the sea which is called the Hyrcanian sea there are mountains lofty and rough with woods, and on the mountains there is the prickly artichoke.

Of the Parthian tribes the Chorasmians dwell towards the rising sun, having a territory partly champaign and partly mountainous. And in the mountains there are wild trees; the prickly artichoke, the willow, the tamarisk.

that that land is well watered with fountains and with canals, and on the mountains there grow artichokes and many other plants.

From that point a mountain stretches on both sides of the river Indus, very lofty, and very thickly overgrown with wild wood and the prickly artichoke.

But Didymus the grammarian, explaining what is meant by Sophocles when he speaks of the prickly artichoke (which he calls κύναρος), says, "Perhaps he means the dog-brier, because that plant is prickly and rough; for the Pythian priestess did call that plant a wooden bitch. And the Locrian, after he had been ordered by an oracle to build a city in that place in which he was bitten by a wooden bitch, having had his leg scratched by a dog-brier, built the city in the place

Phænias, in the fifth book of his treatise on Plants, speaks of one which he calls the Sicilian cactus a very prickly plant. As also does Theophrastus, in his sixth book about Plants, who says,

But the plant which is called the cactus exists only in Sicily, and is not found in Greece: and it sends forth stalks close to the ground, just above the root. And the stalks are the things which are called cacti: and they are eatable as soon as they are peeled, and rather bitter; and they preserve them in brine. But there is a second kind, which sends up a straight stalk, which they call πτέρνιξ; and that also is eatable. The shell of the fruit, as soon as the outer soft parts have been taken away, is like the inside of a date: that also is eatable; and the name of that is ἀσκάληρον.

And Epicharmus also shows us plainly this, when he puts down the cactus in his catalogue of eatable vegetables; in this way—

The poppy, fennel, and the rough cactus; now one can eat of the other vegetables when dressed with milk, if he bruises them and serves them up with rich sauce, but by themselves they are not worth much.

Lettuces, pines, squills, radishes, cacti.

A man came from the country, bringing fennel, and cacti, and lavender, and sorrel, and chicory, and thisles, and ferns, and the cactus, and dractylus, and otostyllus, and scolium, and seni, and onopordus.

1. A fawn about to die would make a noise,
2. Fearing the venom of the thorny cactus.

And, indeed, Sopater the Paphian, who was born in the time of Alexander the son of Philip, and who lied even till the time of the second Ptolemy king of Egypt, called the artichoke κίναρα just as we do, as he himself declares in one

Now with respect to what is called the Brain of the Palm.—Theophrastus, speaking of the plant of the palm-tree, states,

The manner of cultivating it, and of its propagation from the fruit, is as follows: when one has taken off the upper rind, one comes to a portion in which is what is called the brain.

There, too, the soldiers first ate the brain of the palm or date-tree. And many of them marvelled at its appearance, and at the peculiarity of its delicious flavour. But it was found to have a great tendency to produce headache; but the date, when the brain was taken out of it, entirely dried up.

1. And at the same time cutting off the branches
2. Loaded with dates they bring away the brain,
3. A dainty greatly fancied by the young.

The brains of the dates are filling and nutritious; still they are heavy and not very digestible: they cause thirst, too, and constipation of the stomach.

But we, says Athenæus, O my friend Timocrates, shall appear to keep our brains to the end, if we stop this conversation and the book at this point.

Menander says—

1. It is a troublesome thing to fall in with
2. An entire party of none but relations;
3. Where as soon as he has taken his cup in his hand
4. The father first begins the discourse,
5. And stammers out his recommendations:
6. Then after him the mother, in the second place;
7. And then some old aunt gossips and chatters;
8. And then some harsh-voiced old man,
9. The father of the aunt aforesaid; then too
10. Another old woman calls him her darling:
11. And he nods assent to all that is said.

And a little afterwards he says—

1. Before the shade they wear a purple cloth,
2. And then this comes after the purple;
3. Being itself neither white nor purple,
4. But a ray of the brilliancy of the woof as it were
5. Of divers colours curiously blended.

What do you say? Will you not bring something hither to the door which we may eat? and then I will sit on the ground and eat it as the beggars do: and any one may see me.

The same man says in another place—

1. Prepare then
2. A fanner to cool me, a dish, a tripod, a cup,
3. An ewer, a mortar, a pot, and a spoon.

Thales the Milesian, one of the seven wise that the overflowing of the Nile arises from the Etestian for that they blow up the river, and that the mouths of the river lie exactly opposite to the point from which they blow; and accordingly that the wind blowing in the opposite direc- tion hinders the flow of the waters; and the waves of the sea, dashing against the mouth of the river, and coming on with a fair wind in the same direction, beat back the river, and in this manner the Nile becomes full to overflowing. But Anaxagoras the natural philosopher says that the fullness of the Nile arises from the snow melting; and so, too, says

Archelaus

1. Danaus, the noble sire of fifty daughters,
2. Leaving the Nile, the fairest stream on earth,
3. Fill'd by the summer of the Aethiop land,
4. The negro's home, when the deep snow does melt,
5. And o'er the land the Sun his chariot drives.

Helen

1. These are the beauticous virgin streams of Nile,
2. Which in the place of rain bedew the plain
3. Of Egypt when the white snow melts on th' hills.

1. I know its history, and love to praise
2. The race of the Aethiop land, where mighty Nile
3. Rolls down his seven streams the country through,
4. When the spring winds bring down the heavy waters;
5. What time the sun shining along that land
6. Dissolves the mountain snow; and the whole land
7. Of flourishing Egypt, fill'd with th' holy stream,
8. Sends forth the vital ears of corn of Ceres.

And Callisthenes the historian argues against what I quoted just now as stated by Anaxagoras and Euripides: and he, too, declares his own opinion,—that as there is much very heavy and continued rain in Aethiopia about the time of the rising of the Dogstar, and from that period till the rising of Arcturus, and as the Etesian winds blow at about the same time, (for these are the winds which he says have the greatest tendency to bring the clouds over Aethiopia,) when the clouds fall upon the mountains in that region, a vast quantity of water bursts forth, in consequence of which the Nile rises. But Democritus says that about the winter solstice there are heavy falls of snow in the countries around the north; but that when the sun changes its course, at the summer solstice, the snow being melted and evaporated by the warmth, clouds are formed, and then the Etesian gales catch hold of them, and drive them towards the south; and when these clouds are all driven together towards Aethiopia and Libya, a mighty rain ensues, and the water from that flows down the mountains and fills the Nile. This, then, is the cause which Democritus alleges for this fulness of the Nile.

But Euthymenes the Massiliote says, speaking of his

But Œnopides the Chian says, that in winter the sources of the river are dried up, but in the summer they are thawed and flow; and so that for the sake of filling up the previous dryness, the rains from heaven cooperate with * * * * * * * * And on this account the river is smaller in winter and is full in summer.

But Herodotus gives an explanation quite contrary to that of the rest of those who have discussed this subject, but agreeing with the explanation of Œnopides; for he says that the stream of the Nile is of such magnitude as always to fill the river; but that the sun, as it makes its journey through Libya in the winter, dries up the river at that time; but that as it has gone off towards the north at the time of the sum- mer solstice, then the river becomes full again, and overflows the plains.

Now these are the mouths of the Nile:—towards Arabia, the Pelusiac mouth; towards Libya, the Canopic: and the rest are,—the Bolbitic, the Sebennytic, the Mendesian, the Saitic, and the Opuntic.