Deipnosophistae

And that they used to cool wine, for the sake of drinking it in a colder state, is asserted by Strattis, in his Psychastæ, or Cold Hunters—

1. For no one ever would endure warm wine,
2. But on the contrary, we use our wells
3. To cool it in, and then we mix with snow.

And Lysippus says, in his Bacchæ—

1. A. Hermon, what is the matter? Where are we?
2. B. Nothing 's the matter, only that your father
3. Has just dropt down into the well to cool himself,
4. As men cool wine in summer.

And Diphilus says, in his Little Monument—

1. Cool the wine quick, O Doris.

And Protagoras in the second book of his Comic Histories, relating the voyage of king Antiochus down the river, says something about the contrivances for procuring cold water, in these terms:—

For during the day they expose it to the sun, and then at night they skim off the thickest part which rises to the surface, and expose the rest to the air, in large earthen ewers, on the highest parts of the house, and two slaves are kept sprinkling the vessels with water the whole night. And at daybreak they bring them down, and again they skim off the sediment, making the water very thin, and exceedingly wholesome, and then they immerse the ewers in straw, and after that they use the water, which has become so cold as not to require snow to cool it.

And Anaxilas speaks of water from cisterns, in his Flute Player, using the allowing expressions:—

1. A. I want some water from a cistern now.
2. B. I have some here, and you are welcome to it.

And, in a subsequent passage, he says—

1. Perhaps the cistern water is all lost.

But Apollodorus of Gela mentions the cistern itself, λακκος, as we call it, in his Female Deserter, saying—

1. In haste I loosed the bucket of the cistern,
2. And then that of the well; and took good care
3. To have the ropes all ready to let down.

Myrtilus, hearing this conversation, said,—And I too, being very fond of salt-fish, my friends, wish to drink snow, according to the practice of Simonides. And Ulpian said,— The word φιλοτάριχος, fond of salt-fish, is used by Antiphanes, in his Omphale, where he says—

1. I am not anxious for salt-fish, my girl.

But Alexis, in his Gynæcocracy, speaks of one man as ζωμοτάριχος, or fond of sauce made from salt-fish, saying—

1. But the Cilician here, this Hippocles,
2. This epicure of salt-fish sauce, this actor.

But what you mean by

according to the practice of Simonides,

I do not know. No; for you do not care, said Myrtilus, to know anything about history, you glutton; for you are a mere lickplatter; and as the Samian poet Asius, that ancient bard, would call you, a flatterer of fat. But Callistratus, in the seventh book of his Miscellanies, says that Simonides the poet, when feasting with a party at a season of violently hot weather, while the cup-bearers were pouring out for the rest of the guests snow into their liquor, and did not do so for him, extemporised this epigram:—

1. The cloak with which fierce Boreas clothed the brow
2. Of high Olympus, pierced ill-clothed man
3. While in its native Thrace; 'tis gentler now,
4. Caught by the breeze of the Pierian plain.
5. Let it be mine; for no one will commend
6. The man who gives hot water to a friend.

So when he had drunk, Ulpian asked him again where the word κνισολοῖχος is used, and also, what are the lines of Asius in which he uses the word κνισοκόλαξ? These, said Myrtilus, are the verses of Asius, to which I alluded:—

1. Lame, branded, old, a vagrant beggar, next
2. Came the cnisocolax, when Meles held
3. His marriage feast, seeking for gifts of soup,
4. Not waiting for a friendly invitation;
5. There in the midst the hungry hero stood,
6. Shaking the mud from off his ragged cloak.

And the word κνισολοῖχος is used by Sophilus, in his Philar- chus, in this passage,—

1. You are a glutton and a fat-licker.

And in the play which is entitled, The Men running together, he has used the word κνισολοιχία, in the following lines:—

1. That pandar, with his fat-licking propensities,
2. Has bid me get for him this black blood-pudding.

Antiphanes too uses the word κνισολοῖχος, in his Bombylium.

Now that men drank also sweet wine while eating is proved by what Alexis says in his Dropidas—

1. The courtesan came in with sweet wine laden,
2. In a large silver cup, named petachnon,
3. Most beauteous to behold. Not a flat dish,
4. Nor long-neck'd bottle, but between the two.