Deipnosophistae

Athenaeus of Naucratis

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

And Archedicus, in his Treasure, another philosophical cookling, speaks in this way—

  1. In the first place the guests invited came
  2. While still the fish lay on the dresser raw.
  3. Give me some water.
    Bring the fish up quick.
  4. Then placing all my pans upon the fire,
  5. I soak'd the ashes well with oil, and raise
  6. A rapid heat. Meantime the fragrant herbs
  7. And pleasant sharpness of the seasonings
  8. Delight my master. Quickly I serve up
  9. Some fish exactly boiled; retaining all
  10. His juice, and all his unextracted flavour;
  11. A dish which any free-born man must know
  12. How to appreciate rightly. In this manner
  13. At the expense of one small pot of oil
  14. I gain employment at full fifty banquets.
And Philostephanus, in his Delian, gives a catalogue of the names of some celebrated cooks in these lines, and those which follow them—
  1. In my opinion you, O Dædalus,
  2. Surpass all cooks in skill and genius,
  3. Save the Athenian Thimbron, call'd the Top.
  4. So here I've come to beg your services,
  5. Bringing the wages which I know you ask.

And Sotades, not the Maronite poet, who composed Ionian songs, but the poet of the middle comedy, in the play entitled The Shut-up Women, (for that was the name which he gave to it,) introduces a cook making the following speech,—

  1. First I did take some squills, and fried them all;
  2. Then a large shark I cut in slices large,
  3. Roasting the middle parts, and the remainder
  4. I boil'd and stuff'd with half-ripe mulberries.
  5. Then I take two large heads of dainty grayling,
  6. And in a large dish place them, adding simply
  7. Herbs, cummin, salt, some water, and some oil.
  8. Then after this I bought a splendid pike,
  9. To boil in pickle with all sorts of herbs.
  10. Avoiding all such roasts as want a spit,
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  12. I bought too some fine mullet, and young thrushes,
  13. And put them on the coals just as they were,
  14. Adding a little brine and marjoram.
  15. To these I added cuttle-fish and squills.
  16. A fine dish is the squill when carefully cook'd.
  17. But the rich cuttle-fish is eaten plain,
  18. Though I did stuff them all with a rich forced meat
  19. Of almost every kind of herb and flower.
  20. Then there were several dishes of boil'd meats,
  21. And sauce-boats full of oil and vinegar.
  22. Besides all this a conger fine and fat
  23. I bought, and buried in a fragrant pickle;
  24. Likewise some tench, and clinging to the rocks
  25. Some limpets. All their heads I tore away,
  26. And cover'd them with flour and bread crumbs over,
  27. And then prepared them as I dress'd the squills.
  28. There was a widow'd amia too, a noble
  29. And dainty fish. That did I wrap in fig-leaves,
  30. And soak'd it through with oil, and over all
  31. With swaddling clothes of marjoram did I fold it,
  32. And hid it like a torch beneath the ashes.
  33. With it I took anchovies from Phalerum,
  34. And pour'd on them one cruet full of water.
  35. Then shredding herbs quite fine, I add more oil,
  36. More than two cotylee in quantity.
  37. What next? That's all. This sir is what I do,
  38. Not learning from recipes or books of cookery.

However, this is enough about cooks. But we must say something about the conger. For Archestratus, in his Gastronomy, tells us how every part of it should be treated, saying—

  1. In Sicyon my friend you best can get
  2. A mighty head of conger, fat, and strong,
  3. And large; and also take his entrails whole,
  4. Then boil him a long time, well-soak'd in brine.
And after this he goes through the whole country of Italy, saying where the congers are best, describing them like a regular writer of an Itinerary, and he says—
  1. There too fine congers may be caught, and they
  2. Are to all other fish as far superior
  3. As a fat tunny is to coracini.
And Alexis, in his Seven against Thebes, says—
  1. And all the parts of a fine conger eel
  2. Well hash'd together, overlaid with fat.

And Archedicus, in his Treasure, introduces a cook speaking of some fish which he has been buying in the following terms—

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  1. Then for three drachmas I agrayling bought.
  2. Five more I gave for a large conger's head
  3. And shoulders. (Oh, how hard a thing is life!)
  4. Another drachma for the neck. I swear
  5. By Phoebus, if I knew where I could get
  6. Or buy another neck myself, at once
  7. I'd choke the one which now is on my shoulders,
  8. Rather than bring these dishes to this place.
  9. For no one ever had a harder job
  10. To buy so many things at such a price;
  11. And yet if I have bought a thing worth buying
  12. May I be hang'd. They will devour me.
  13. What I now say is what concerns myself.
  14. And then, such wine they spit out on the ground!
  15. Alas! Alas!

There is a kind of shark called γαλεὸς, which is eaten. And Icesius, in his treatise on Materials, says that the best and tenderest kind of galei are those called asteriæ. But Aristotle says that there are many kinds of them—the thorny, the smooth, the spotted, the young galeus, the fox shark, and the file shark. But Dorion, in his Book on Fishes, says that the fox shark has only one fin towards his tail, but has none along the ridge of his back. But Aristotle, in the fifth book of his Parts of Animals, says that the centrines is also a kind of shark, and also the notidanus. But Epænetus, in his Cookery Book, calls the latter the enotideus, and says

that the centrines is very inferior to him, and that it has a bad smell; and that the one may be distinguished from the other by the fact of the centrines having a sort of spur on his first fin, while the rest of the kinds have not got such a thing.
And he says that these fishes have no fat or suet in them, because they are cartilaginous.

And the acanthias, or thorny shark, has this peculiarity, that his heart is five-cornered. And the galeus has three young at most; and it receives its young into his mouth, and immediately ejects them again; and the variegated galeus is especially fond of doing this, and so is the fox shark. But the other kinds do not do so, because of the roughness of the skins of the young ones.

But Archestratus, the man who lived the life of Sardanapalus, speaking of the galeus as he is found at Rhodes, says that it is the same fish as that which, among the Romans, is brought on the table to the music of flutes, and accompanied with crowns, the slaves also who carry it being

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crowned, and that it is called by the Romans accipesius. But the accipesius, the same as the acipenser, or sturgeon, is but a small fish in comparison, and has a longer nose, and is more triangular than the galeus in his shape. And the very smallest and cheapest galeus is not sold at a lower price than a thousand Attic drachmæ.[*](An Attic drachma was as near as may be 9 3/4d. So that a thousand will amount to something over 40l. ) But Appian, the grammarian, in his essay on the Luxury of Apicius, says that the accipesius is the fish called the ellops by the Greeks. But Archestratus, speaking of the Rhodian galeus, counselling his companions in a fatherly sort of way, says—
  1. Are you at Rhodese'en if about to die,
  2. Still, if a man would sell you a fox shark,
  3. The fish the Syracusans call the dog,
  4. Seize on it eagerly; at least, if fat:
  5. And then compose yourself to meet your fate
  6. With brow serene and mind well satisfied.
Lynceus, the Samian, also quotes these verses in his letter to Diagoras, and says that the poet is quite right in advising the man who cannot afford the price for one, to gratify his appetite by robbery rather than go without it. For he says that Theseus; who I take to have been some very good-looking man, offered to indulge Thepolemus in anything if he would only give him one of these fish. And Timocles, in his play called The Ring, says—
  1. Galei and rays, and all the fish besides
  2. Which cooks do dress with sauce and vinegar.

There is also the sea-grayling. Epicharmus, in his Hebe's Wedding, says—

  1. There is the variegated scorpion,
  2. The lizard, and the fat sea-grayling too.
And Numenius, in his Treatise on Fishing, says—
  1. The hycca, the callicthys, and the chromis,
  2. The orphus, the sea-grayling too, who haunts
  3. The places where seaweed and moss abound.
And Archestratus, praising the head of the glaucus, says—
  1. If you're at Megara or at Olynthus,
  2. Dress me a grayling's head. For in the shallows
  3. Around those towns he's taken in perfection.
And Antiphanes, in his Shepherd, says—
  1. Bœotian eels, and mussels too from Pontus,
  2. Graylings from Megara, from Carystus shrimps,
  3. Eretrian phagri, and the Scyrian crabs.
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And the same writer, in his Philotis, speaks thus—
  1. A. What shall be done with the grayling?
  2. B. Why
  3. Now, as at other times, boil him in brine.
  4. A. What with the pike?
  5. B. Why roast him whole, and dish h m.
  6. A. What with the galeus?
  7. B. Do him up with stuffing,
  8. And serve him hot.
  9. A. How will you have the eels!?
  10. B. Cook them with salt, and marjoram, and water.
  11. A. The conger?
  12. B. Do the same.
  13. A. The ray?
  14. B. Take herbs
  15. And season him with them.
  16. A. There is besides
  17. Half a large tunny.
  18. B. Roast it.
  19. A. Some goat's venison.
  20. B. Roast that.
  21. A. How will you have the rest o' the meat?
  22. B. All boil'd.
  23. A. The spleen?
  24. B. Stuff that.
  25. A. The paunch and trail?

And Eubulus says, in his Campylion,—

  1. There was a beautiful dish of the sea-grayling,
  2. And a boil'd pike served up i' savoury pickle.
And Anaxandrides, in his Nereus, says—
  1. The man who first discover'd all the good
  2. Of the most precious head of a large grayling,
  3. And then how dainty was the tunny's meat,
  4. Caught where the waves are by no tempests tost,
  5. How good in short is the whole race of fish,
  6. Nereus his name, dwells in this place for ever.
And Amphis, in his Seven against Thebes, says—
  1. Whole graylings, and large slices of the head.
And in his Philetærus, he says—
  1. Take a small eel, and a fine grayling's head,
  2. And slices of a pike fresh from the sea.
And Antiphanes, in his Cyclops, out-heroding even the epicure Archestratus, says—
  1. Give me an Hymettian mullet,
  2. And a ray just caught, a perch
  3. Split open, and a cuttle-fish,
  4. And a well-roasted synodon;
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  6. A slice of grayling, and a head
  7. Of mighty conger, luscious food;
  8. A frog's inside, a tunny's flank,
  9. A ray's sharp back, a cestra's loin,
  10. Sea-sparrows, and sea-thrushes too,
  11. Sprats, and anchovies, let me not
  12. Complain of any want.

And Nausicrates says, in his Captains of Ships,—

  1. A. They say there are two kinds of fish most tender
  2. And beautiful to see, which oft appear
  3. To sailors wandering o'er the spacious plains
  4. Of ocean. And they say that one foretells
  5. To mortals all the evils which hang o'er them.
  6. B. You mean the grayling.
  7. A. You are right, I do.
And Theolytus, the Methymnæan, in his Bacchic Odes, says that Glaucus the deity of the sea became enamoured of Ariadne, when she was carried off by Bacchus in the island of Dia; and that he, attempting to offer violence to her, was bound by Bacchus in fetters made of vine-twigs; but that when he begged for mercy he was released, saying—
  1. There is a place, Anthedon is its name,
  2. On the seaside, against th' Eubœan isle,
  3. Near to the stream of the still vext Euripus—
  4. Thence is my race; and Copeus was my sire.
And Promathides of Heraclea, in his Half Iambics, traces the pedigree of Glaucus as being the son of Polybus, the son of Mercury, and of Eubœa, the daughter of Larymnus. But Mnaseas, in the third book of his history of the Affairs of Europe, calls him the son of Anthedon and Alcyone; and says that he was a sailor and an excellent diver, and that he was surnamed Pontius; and that having ravished Syme, the daughter of Ialemus and Dotis, he sailed away to Asia, and colonised a desert island near Caria, and called that Syme, from the name of his wife. But Euanthes, the epic poet, in his Hymn to Glaucus, says that he was the son of Neptune and the nymph Nais; and that he was in love with Ariadne, in the island of Dia, and was favoured by her after she had been left there by Theseus. But Aristotle, in his Constitution of the Delians, says that he settled in Delos with the Nereids, and gave oracles to all who wished for them. But Possis, the Magnesian, in the third book of his Amazonis, says that Glaucus was the builder of the Argo, and that he was
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her pilot when Jason fought the Etrurians, and was the only person unwounded in that naval battle; and that by he will of Jupiter he appeared in the depths of the sea, and so became a sea deity, but was seen by Jason alone. But Nicanor the Cyrenæan, in his Changes of Names, says that Melicerta changed his name and assumed the name of Glaucus.

Alexander the Aetolian also mentions him in his poem entitled the Fisherman, saying that he

  1. First tasted grass,
(and then was immersed in the sea and drowned,)
  1. The herb which in the islands of the blest,
  2. When first the spring doth beam upon the earth,
  3. The untill'd land shows to the genial sun.
  4. And the sun gives it to his weary steeds,
  5. A most refreshing food, raised in the shade.
  6. So that they come in vigour back renew'd
  7. Unto their daily task, and no fatigue
  8. Or pain can stop their course.
But Aeschrion the Samian, in some one of his Iambic poems, says that Glaucus the sea-deity was in love with Hydna, the daughter of Scyllus, the diver of Scione. And he makes particular mention of this herb, namely, that any one who eats of it becomes immortal, saying—
  1. And you found too th' agrostis of the gods,
  2. The sacred plant which ancient Saturn sow'd.
And Nicander, in the third book of his Europe, says that Glaucus was beloved by Nereus. And the same Nicander, in the first book of his history of the Affairs of Aetolia, says that Apollo learnt the art of divination from Glaucus; and that Glaucus when he was hunting near Orea, (and that is a lofty mountain in Aetolia,) hunted a hare, which was knocked up by the length of the chance, and got under a certain fountain, and when just on the point of dying, rolled itself on the herbage that was growing around; and, as it recovered its strength by means of the herbage, Glaucus too perceived the virtues of this herb, and ate some himself. And becoming a god in consequence, when a storm came, he, in accordance with the will of Jupiter, threw himself into the sea. But Hedylus, whether he was a Samian or an Athenian I know not, says that Glaucus was enamoured of Melicert, and threw himself into the sea after him. But Hedyl, the mother of this poet, and daughter of Moschine of Atica, a
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poetess who composed Iambics, in her poem which is entitled Scylla, relates that Glaucus being in love with Scylla came to her cave—
  1. Bearing a gift of love, a mazy shell,
  2. Fresh from the Erythrean rock, and with it too
  3. The offspring, yet unfledged, of Alcyon,
  4. To win th' obdurate maid. He gave in vain.
  5. Even the lone Siren on the neighbouring isle
  6. Pitied the lover's tears. For as it chanced,
  7. He swam towards the shore which she did haunt,
  8. Nigh to th' unquiet caves of Aetna.

There is also a fish called the fuller. Dorion, in his treatise on Fish, says that the juice which proceeds from the boiling of a fuller will take out every kind of stain; and Epænetus also mentions it in his Cookery Book.

The eel is well known: and Epicharmus mentions sea-eels in his Muses; but Dorion, in his treatise on Fishes, mentioning those which come from the lake Copais, extols the Copaic eels highly; and they grow to a great size. At all events, Agatharchides, in the sixth book of his history of the Affairs of Europe, says that the largest eels from lake Copais are sacrificed to the gods by the Bœotians, who crown them like victims, and offer prayers over them, sprinkling them with meal; and that once, when a foreigner was astonished at the singular kind of victim and sacrifice, and asked a Bœotian whence it originated, the Bœotian answered, That he only knew one thing; that it was right to maintain the customs of one's ancestors, and that it was not right to make any excuses for them to foreigners. But we need not wonder if eels are sacrificed as victims, since Antigonus the Carystian, in his treatise on Language, says that the fishermen celebrate a festival in honour of Neptune when the tunnies come in season, and they are successful in their pursuit of them; and that they sacrifice to the god the first tunny that is caught; and that this sacrificial festival is called the Thunnæum.

But among the people of Phaselis, even salt-fish are offered in sacrifice. At all events, Heropythus, in his Annals of the Colophonians, speaking of the original settlement of Phaselis, says that

Lacius, having conducted the colony, gave as the price of the ground to Cylabras, a shepherd who fed sheep there, some salt-fish, as that was what he asked for. For when Lacius had proposed to him to take as a price for
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the soil either barley-cakes, or wheat-cakes, or salt-fish, Cyla- bras chose the salt-fish. And, on this account, the people of Phaselis every year, even to this day, sacrifice salt-fish to Cylabras.
But Philostephanus, in the first book of his treatise on the Cities of Asia, writes thus:—
That Lacius the Argive, being one of the men who had come with Mopsus, whom some say was a Lindian, and the brother of Antiphemus who colonized Gela, was sent to Phaselis by Mopsus with some men, in accordance with some directions given by Manto the mother of Mopsus, when the sterns of their ships came in collision off the Chelidoniæ, and were much broken, as Lacius and the vessels with him ran into them in the night, in consequence of their arriving later. And it is said that he purchased the land where the city now stands, in obedience to the prophetic directions of Manto, from a man of the name of Cylabras, giving him some salt-fish for it; for that was what he had selected from all the ships contained. On which account, the people of Phaselis sacrifice salt-fish to Cylabras every year, honouring him as their hero.

But concerning eels, Icesius, in his treatise on Materials, says that eels have a better juice in them than any other fish; and in the quality of being good for the stomach, they are superior to most, for they are very satisfying and very nutritious: though he classes the Macedonian eels among the salt-fish. But Aristotle says that eels are fond of the very purest water; on which account, the people who feed eels pour clean water over them; for they get choked in muddy water. For which reason, those who hunt for them make the water muddy, in order that the eels may be choked; for, having very small gills, their pores are almost immediately stopped up by any mud or disturbance in the water: on which account, also, they are often choked during storms, when the water is disturbed by heavy gales. But they propagate their species being entwined together, and then they discharge a sort of viscous fluid from their bodies, which lies in the mud and generates living creatures. And the people who feed eels say that they feed by night, but that during the day they remain motionless in the mud; and they live about eight years at most. But in other places, Aristotle ells us again, that they are produced without either their progenitors laying eggs or bringing forth living offspring, and also that

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they are not generated by any copulation, but that they are propagated by the putrefaction which takes place in the mud and slime—as it is said of those things which are called the entrails of the earth. From which circumstance, he says that Homer distinguishes between their nature and that of other fish; and says—
  1. The eels and fish within the briny deep,
  2. Were startled at the blaze.

But a certain Epicurean,[*](The Greek is ʼἐπικούρειος εἰκαδιστὴς, which last word was an epithet of the Epicureans, because they celebrated the death of their founder on the twentieth day of the month Gamelion. Vide L. & S. in voc. ) who was one of our party, when an eel was served up, said,—Here is the Helen of the feast; I therefore will be the Paris! And, before any one else could stretch out a hand towards it, he seized hold of it and split it up, tearing off one side down to the backbone. And the same man, when presently a hot cheese-cake was set before him, and when all refused it, cried out,

  1. I will attack it were it hot as fire;
and then, rushing upon it eagerly, and swallowing it, he was carried out severely scalded. And Cynulcus said,—The cormorant is carried out from his battle of the throat!

Moreover, Archestratus thus speaks of the eel:—

  1. I praise all kinds of eels; but far the best
  2. Is that which fishermen do take in the sea
  3. Opposite to the strait of Rhegium.
  4. Where you, Messenius, who daily put
  5. This food within your mouth, surpass all mortals
  6. In real pleasure. Though none can deny
  7. That great the virtue and the glory is
  8. Of the Strymonian and Copaic eels.
  9. For they are large, and wonderfully fat;
  10. And I do think in short that of all fish
  11. The best in flavour is the noble eel,
  12. Although he cannot propagate his species.

But, as Homer has said,

  1. The eels and fish were startled,
Archilochus has also said, in a manner not inconsistent with that—
  1. And you received full many sightless eels.
But the Athenians, as Tryphon says, form all the cases in the singular number with the υ, but do not make the cases in the
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plural in a similar manner. Accordingly, Aristophanes, in his Acharnensians, says—
  1. Behold, O boys, the noble eel (ἔγχελυν);
and, in his Lemnian Women, he says—
  1. ῎ἔγχελυν βοιωτίαν:
but he uses the nominative case in his Daitaleis—
  1. And smooth too ὥσπερ ἔγχελυς.
And Cratinus, in his Pluti, says—
  1. The tunny, orphus, grayling, eel, and sea-dog.
But the Attic writers do not form the cases in the plural number as Homer does. Aristophanes says, in his Knights- For you have fared like men who're hunting eels (ἐγχέλεις); and, in his second edition of the Clouds, he says—
  1. Imitating my images of the eels (ἐγχελέων);
and in his Wasps we find the dative case—
  1. I don't delight in rays nor in ἐγχέλεσιν
And Strattis, in his Potamii, said—
  1. A cousin of the eels (ἐγχελέων).
Simonides, too, in his Iambics, writes—
  1. Like an eel (ἔγχελυς) complaining of being slippery.
He also uses it in the accusative—
  1. A kite was eating a Mæandrian eel (ἔγχελυν),
  2. But a heron saw him and deprived him of it.
But Aristotle, in his treatise on Animals, writes the word with an ι, ἔγχελις. But when Aristophanes, in his Knights, says—
  1. Your fate resembles that of those who hunt
  2. For mud-fed eels. For when the lake is still
  3. Their labour is in vain. But if they stir
  4. The mud all up and down, they catch much fish.
  5. And so you gain by stirring up the city;
he shows plainly enough that the eel is caught in the mud, (ἐκ τῆς ἴλυος,) and it is from this word ἴλυς that the name ἔγχελυς ends in υς. The Poet, therefore, wishing to show that the violent effect of the fire reached even to the bottom of the river, spoke thus-The eels and fish were troubled; speaking of the eels separately and specially, in order to show the very great depth to which the water was influenced by the fire.

But Antiphanes, in his Lycon, jesting on the Egyptians after the manner of the comic poets, says—

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  1. They say in other things the Egyptian race
  2. Is clever also, since they think the eel
  3. On a level with the gods; or I may say
  4. By far more valuable. For, as to the gods,—
  5. Those we gain over by our prayers alone;
  6. But as for eels, without you spend at least
  7. Twelve drachmas you can scarce get leave to smell them.
  8. So it is altogether a holy beast.
And Anaxandrides, in his Cities, directing what he says to the Egyptians, speaks as follows—
  1. I never could myself your comrade be,
  2. For neither do'our manners nor our laws
  3. Agree with yours, but they are wholly different.
  4. You do adore an ox; I sacrifice him
  5. To the great Gods of heaven. You do think
  6. An eel the mightiest of deities;
  7. But we do eat him as the best of fish.
  8. You eat no pork; I like it above all things.
  9. You do adore a dog; but I do beat him
  10. If e'er I catch him stealing any meat.
  11. Then our laws enjoin the priests to be
  12. Most perfect men; but yours are mutilated.
  13. If you do see a cat in any grief
  14. You weep; but I first kill him and then skin him.
  15. You have a great opinion of the shrew-mouse;
  16. But I have none at all.
And Timocles, in his Egyptians, says—
  1. How can an ibis or a dog be able
  2. To save a man? For where with impious hearts
  3. Men sin against the all-acknowledged Gods,
  4. And yet escape unpunish'd, who can think
  5. The altar of a cat will be more holy,
  6. Or prompter to avenge itself, than they?

But that men used to wrap eels up in beet, and then eat them, is a fact constantly alluded to in the poets of the old comedy; and Eubulus says in his Echo—

  1. The nymph who never knew the joys of marriage,
  2. Clothed with rosy beet will now appear,
  3. The white-flesh'd eel. Hail, brilliant luminary,
  4. Great in my taste, and in your own good qualities.
And in his Ionian he says—
  1. And after this were served up the rich
  2. Entrails of roasted tunnies; then there came
  3. Those natives of the lake, the holy eels,
  4. Bœotian goddesses; all clothed in beet.
And in his Medea he says—
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  1. The sweet Bœotian Copaic virgin;
  2. For I do fear to name the Goddess.
And that the eels of the river Strymon were also celebrated, Antiphanes tells us in his Thamyras, saying—
  1. And then your namesake river, far renown'd
  2. In all the mouths of men, the mighty Strymon,
  3. Who waters the rich warlike plains of Thrace,
  4. Breeds mighty eels.
And Demetrius the Scepsian, in the sixteenth book of his Trojan Array, says that there were eels of surpassing excellence produced in the neighbourhood of the river Euleus (and this river is mentioned by Antimachus in his work entitled The Tablets, where he says—
  1. Arriving at the springs
  2. Where Euleus with his rapid eddies rises).

With respect to the ellops, some mention has already been made of him. But Archestratus also speaks in this way of him—

  1. The best of ellopes which you can eat
  2. Come from the bay of famous Syracuse.
  3. Those eat whene'er you can. For that's the place
  4. Whence this great fish originally came.
  5. But those which are around the islands caught,
  6. Or any other land, or nigh to Crete,
  7. Too long have battled with the eddying currents,
  8. And so are thin and harder to the taste.

The erythrinus, or red mullet, has been mentioned too. Aristotle, in his book on Animals, and Speusippus both say that the fishes called erythrinus, phagrus, and hepatus are all very nearly alike. And Dorion has said much the same in his treatise on Fish. But the Cyrenæans give the name of erythrinus to the hyca; as Clitarchus tells us in his Dialects.

The encrasicholi are also mentioned by Aristotle as fish of small size, in his treatise on What relates to Animals. But Dorion, in his book on Fishes, speaks of the encrasicholi among those which are best boiled, speaking in the following terms—

One ought to boil the encrasicholi, and the iopes, and the atherinæ, and the tench, and the smaller mullet, and the cuttle-fish, and the squid, and the different kinds of crab or craw-fish.