Deipnosophistae

And Alexis says this with reference to those who are too anxious as to buying their fish, in his Rich Heiress—

1. Whoever being poor buys costly fish,
2. And though in want of much, in this is lavish,
3. He strips by night whoever he may meet.
4. So when a man is stripp'd thus, let him go
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5. At early morn and watch the fish-market.
6. And the first man he sees both poor and young
7. Buying his eels of Micio, let him seize him,
8. And drag him off to prison by the throat.

And Diphilus, in his Merchant, says that there is some such law as this in existence among the Corinthians—

1. A. This is an admirable law at Corinth,
2. That when we see a man from time to time
3. Purveying largely for his table, we
4. Should ask him whence he comes, and what's his business:
5. And if he be a man of property,
6. Whose revenues can his expenses meet,
7. Then we may let him as he will enjoy himself.
8. But if he do his income much exceed,
9. Then they bid him desist from such a course,
10. And fix a fine on all who disobey.
11. And if a man having no means at all
12. Still lives in splendid fashion, him they give
13. Unto the gaoler.
14. B. Hercules! what a law.
15. A. For such a man can't live without some crime.
16. Dost thou not see? He must rove out by night
17. And rob, break into houses, or else share
18. With some who do so. Or he must haunt the forum,
19. A vile informer, or be always ready
20. As a hired witness. And this tribe we hate,
21. And gladly would expel from this our city.
22. B. And you'd do well, by Jove; but what is that to me?
23. A. Because we see you every day, my friend,
24. Making not moderate but extravagant purchases.
25. You hinder all the rest from buying fish,
26. And drive the city to the greengrocer,
27. And so we fight for parsley like the combatants
28. At Neptune's games on th' Isthmus. . Does a hare
29. Come to the market? it is yours; a thrush
30. Or partridge? all do go the selfsame way.
31. So that we cannot buy or fish or fowl;
32. And you have raised the price of foreign wine.

And Sophilus, in his Androcles, wishes that the same custom prevailed at Athens also, thinking that it would be a good thing if two or three men were appointed by the city to the regulation of the provision markets. And Lynceus the Samian wrote a treatise on purveying against some one who was very difficult to please when making his purchases; teaching him what a man ought to say to those homicidal fishmongers, so as to buy what he wants at a fair rate and without being exposed to any annoyance.

Ulpian again picking out the thorns from what was said, asked—Are we able to show that the ancients used silver vessels at their banquets? and is the word πίναξ a Greek noun? For with reference to the line in Homer—

1. The swineherd served up dishes (πίνακας) of rich meat,[*](Odyss. xvi. 49.)

Aristophanes the Byzantine said that is was a modernism to speak of meats being placed on platters (πίνακες), not being aware that in other places the poet has said—

1. Dishes (πίνακας) of various meats the butler brought.[*](Ib. i. 141.)

I ask also, if any men among the ancients had ever acquired a multitude of slaves, as the men of modern times do: and if the word τήγανον (frying-pan) is ever found, and not the form τάγηνον only. So that we may not fix our whole attention on eating and drinking, like those who from their devotion to their bellies are called parasites and flatterers.

And Aemilianus replied to him,—The word πίναξ, when used of a vessel, you may find used by Metagenes the comic writer, in his Valiant Persians: and Pherecrates, my friend, has used the form τήγανον in his Trifles, where he says—

1. He said he ate anchovies from the frying-pan (τηγάνον).

And the same poet has also said in the Persæ—

1. To sit before the frying-pans (τήγανα) burning rushes.

And Philonides says, in his Buskins—

1. Receive him now with rays and frying-pans (τήγανα).

And again he says—

1. Smelling of frying-pans (τήγανα).

And Eubulus says, in his Orthane—

1. The bellows rouses Vulcan's guardian dogs,
2. With the warm vapour of the frying-pan (τήγανον).

And in another place he says—

1. But every lovely woman walks along
2. Fed with the choicest morsels from the frying-pan (τήγανον).

And in his Titans he says—

1. And the dish
2. Doth laugh and bubble up with barbarous talk,
3. And the fish leap ἐν μέσοισι τηγάνοις.

And Phrynichus also uses a verb derived from the word in his Tragedian—

1. 'Tis sweet to eat fried meat, at any feast
2. For which one has been at no cost oneself.

And Pherecrates, in his Ant Men says—

Are you eating fried meat (σὺ δʼ ἀποτηγανίζεις)?

But Hegesander the Delphian says that the Syracusans call a dish τήγανον, and the proper τήγανον they call ξηροτήγανον; on which account he says that Theodorides says in some poem—

1. He in a τήγανον did boil it well,
2. In a large swimming dish.

Where he uses τήγανον for λοπας. But the Ionians write the word ἤγανον without the letter τ, as Anacreon says—

1. Putting his hand within the frying-pan (ἤγανον).

But with respect to the use of silver plate, my good friend Ulpian, you make me stop to consider a little; but I recollect what is said by Alexis in his Exile—

1. For where an earthen pot is to be let
2. For the cook's use.

For down to the times of the supremacy of the Macedonians the attendants used to perform their duties with vessels made of earthenware, as my countryman Juba declares. But when the Romans altered the way of living, giving it a more expensive direction, then Cleopatra, arranging her style of living in imitation of them, she, I mean, who ultimately destroyed the Egyptian monarchy, not being able to alter the name, she called gold and silver plate κέραμον; and then she gave the guests what she called the κέραμα to carry away with them; and this was very costly. And on the Rosic earthenware, which was the most beautiful, Cleopatra spent five mine every day. But Ptolemy the king, in the eighth book of his commentaries, writing of Masinissa the king of the Libyans, speaks as follows—"His entertainments were arranged in the Roman fashion, everything being served up in silver κέραμον. And the second course he arranged in the Italian mode. His dishes were all made of gold; made after the fashion of those which are plaited of bulrushes or ropes. And he employed Greek musicians.

But Aristophanes the comic writer, whom Heliodorus the Athenian says, in his treatise concerning the Acropolis, (and it occupies fifteen books,) was a Naucratite by birth, in his play called Plutus, after the god who gave his name to the play and appeared on the stage, says that dishes of silver

were in existence, just as all other things might be had made of the same metal. And his words are—

1. But every vinegar cruet, dish and ewer
2. Is made of brass; while all the dirty dishes
3. In which they serve up fish are made of silver.
4. The oven too is made of ivory.

And Plato says, in his Ambassadors—

1. Epicrates and his good friend Phormisius,
2. Received many and magnificent gifts
3. From the great king; a golden cruet-stand,
4. And silver plates and dishes.

And Sophron, in his Female Actresses, says—

1. The whole house shone
2. With store of gold, and of much silver plate.

And Philippides, in his Disappearance of Silver, speaks of the use of it as ostentatious and uncommon, and aimed at only by some foreigners who had made fortunes but lately—

1. A. I felt a pity for all human things,
2. Seeing men nobly born to ruin hasting,
3. And branded slaves displaying silver dishes
4. Whene'er they ate a pennyworth of salt-fish,
5. Or a small handful of capers, in a plate
6. Whose weight is fifty drachms of purest silver.
7. And formerly 'twould have been hard to see
8. One single flagon vow'd unto the gods.
9. B. That is rare now. For if one man should vow
10. A gift like that, some other man would steal it.

And Alexis, in his Little House, introducing a young man in love displaying his wealth to his mistress, represents him as making her some such speech as this—

1. A. I told the slaves, (for I brought two from home,)
2. To place the carefully wiped silver vessels
3. Fairly in sight. There was a silver goblet,
4. And cups which weigh'd two drachms; a beaker too
5. Whose weight was four; a wine-cooler, ten obols,
6. Slighter than e'en Philippides' own self.
7. And yet these things are not so ill-contrived
8. To make a show . . . .

And I am myself acquainted with one of our own fellow-citizens who is as proud as he is poor, and who, when all his silver plate put together scarcely weighed a drachma, used to keep calling for his servant, a single individual, an the only one he had, but still he called him by hundreds of different names.

Here, you Strombichides, do not put o the table

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any of my winter plate, but my summer plate.

And the character in Nicostratus, in the play entitled the Kings, is just such another. There is a braggart soldier, of whom he speaks—

1. There is some vinegar and a wine-cooler,
2. Thinner than thinnest gauze.

For there were at that time people who were able to beat out silver till it was as thin as a piece of skin.