Deipnosophistae

Nor am I unaware that all fishes are called by one generic name, camasenes, by Empedocles the natural philosopher, when he says—

1. How could the mighty trees and sea-born camasenes . . .

And the poet, too, who wrote the Cyprian poems (whether he was a Cyprian or a man of the name of Stasinus, or whatever else his name may have been, represents Nemesis as pursued by Jupiter, and metamorphosed into a fish, in the following lines:—

1. And after them she brought forth Helen third,
2. A marvel to all mortal men to see;
3. Her then the fair-hair'd Nemesis did bear,
4. Compell'd by Jove, the sovereign of the gods.
5. She indeed fled, nor sought to share the love
6. Of that great father, son of Saturn, Jove;
7. For too great awe did overpower her mind:
8. So Nemesis did flee o'er distant lands,
9. And o'er the black and barren waves o' the sea;
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10. But Jove pursued her (and with eagerness
11. His soul desired her). In vain she took
12. The form of some large fish who bounds along,
13. Borne on the vast high-crested roaring wave;
14. Sometimes she fled along the ocean, where
15. The earth's most distant boundaries extend;
16. Sometimes she fled along the fertile land;
17. And took all shapes of every animal
18. Which the land bears, to flee from amorous Jove.

I know, also, what is related about the fish called apopyris, which is found in the lake Bolbe; concerning which Hegesander, in his Commentaries, speaks thus:—

Around Apollonia of Chalcis two rivers flow, the Ammites and the Olynthiacus, and they both fall into the lake Bolbe. And on the river Olynthiacus there is a monument of Olynthus, the son of Hercules and Bolbe. And in the months Anthesterion and Elaphebolion, the natives say that Bolbe sends Apopyris to Olynthus; and that about this time a most enormous number of fish ascend out of the lake into the river Olynthiacus: and this is a shallow river, scarcely deep enough to wet a man's ankles; but for all that there does not the less come a great number of fish, so that all the people of the district get enough cured fish for their use for the year. And it is a wonderful fact that they never pass above the monument of Olynthus. They say, in explanation of this, that the people of Apollonia did formerly, in the month Elaphebolion, celebrate sacrifices to the dead, but that they do so now in the month Anthesterion; and that on this account this ascent is made by the fish in those months alone in which the natives are accustomed to pay honour to their national heroes.

And this is the state of the case, O men fish; for you, having collected together every kind of thing, have thrown us out to be food for fishes, instead of giving them as food for us,—making such long speeches as not even Ichthys, the phi- losopher of Megara, nor Ichthyon (and this also is a proper name), who is mentioned by Teleclides in his Amphicytons would make to us. And, on your account, I will give this advice to the servant, as it is said in the Ant Men of Phere- crates:—

1. Mind that you never, O Deucalion,
2. (Even if I bid you,) set a fish before me.

For in Delos, as we are told by Semus the Delian, in the second book of the Delias, when they sacrifice to Brizo,—and she is a deity who prophesies to people asleep (for the ancients used βρίζω as synonymous with καθεύδω, to sleep, saying—

1. Then sleeping (ἀποβρίξαντες) there we waited for the dawn)—

so, when the Delian women sacrifice to this deity, they bring her, as their offering, boats full of all kinds of good things, except fish; because they address prayers to her on every subject, and especially for the safety of their vessels.

But, my friends, though I admire Chrysippus, the leader of the sect of the Stoics, on many accounts, I also praise him especially for having always classed Archestratus, that man who is so famous for his treatise on Cookery, with Philenis, to whom that indelicate composition about Amatory Pleasures is attributed; which, however, Aeschrion, the iambic poet of Samos, says was written by Polycrates the sophist, and attributed to Philænis for the sake of calumniating her, when she was a most respectable woman. And the iambics, in which this is stated, run as follows:—

1. I am Philænis, famous among men;
2. And here I lie, o'erwhelm'd by long old age.
3. Do not, O foolish sailor, pass this cape
4. Laughing and scorning and reproaching me.
5. For. now I swear by Jove, and by the gods
6. Who reign below, I never lustful was,
7. I never made myself a sport to man.
8. But one Polycrates, of Attic race,
9. A trashy chatterer, and a false accuser,
10. Wrote what he wrote; I know not what it was.

Therefore that admirable Chrysippus, in the fifth book of his treatise on Honour and Pleasure, says—

The books, too, of Philænis, and the Gastronomy of Archestratus, and all the drugs calculated to provoke appetite or sensual desires, and also all the servants who are skilled in such motions and such figures, and whose occupation it is to attend to these things.

And again he says —

That they learn such things, and get hold of the books written on such subjects by Philænis and Archestratus, and by those who have written similar works.

And in his seventh book he says—

Just as it would not be advisable to study the writings of Philænis or the Gastronomy of Archestratus, as tending to make a person live better.

But you, who are constantly making mention of this Archestratus, have made this entertainment full of intem- perance; for what of all the things which could unduly excite

men has this fine epic poet omitted?—he, the only imitator of the life of Sardanapalus the son of Anacyndaraxes, who, Aristotle says, is made more obscure still by adding the name of his father; on whose tomb, Chrysippus says, the following inscription was engraved:—

1. Knowing that you are mortal, feed your soul
2. On banquets and delights; for in the grave
3. There's no enjoyment left. I now am dust
4. Who once was king of mighty Nineveh;
5. The things which I did eat, the joys of love,
6. The insolent thoughts with which my wealth did fill me,
7. Are all I now have left; for all my power
8. And all my happiness is gone for ever.
9. This is the only prudent rule of life,
10. I never shall forget it, let who will
11. Hoard boundless treasures of uncounted gold.

And the great poet has said of the Phæacians—

1. To dress, to dance, to sing, our sole delight,
2. The feast or bath by day, and love by night.

And another person, not unlike Sardanapalus in disposition, gives this advice and these rules to those who are deficient in wisdom:—

1. I to all mortals now give this advice:
2. Live for the day with pleasure; he who dies
3. Is nought; an empty shade beneath the earth:
4. Man lives but a short space, and therefore should,
5. While life remains, enjoy himself.

And Amphis the comic poet, in his Ialemus, says—

1. The man who knows that he is but a mortal,
2. And yet seeks not enjoyment while alive,
3. Leaving all other cares, is but a fool
4. In mine and all wise men's opinion,
5. And most unhappy in his destiny.

And, in his play entitled the Gynæcocracy, he say nearly the same—

1. Drink and play, our mortal life
2. On earth can but a brief space last;
3. Death alone will last for ever,
4. When once our too brief term is past.

And a man of the name of Bacchides, who lived on the same principles as Sardanapalus, after he was dead had the following inscription placed on his tomb:—

1. Eat, drink, indulge thy soul with all delights,
2. This stone is all that now remains for Bacchides.

Alexis, in his Tutor of Intemperate Men—(as Sotion the Alexandrian says, in his Commentary on the Silli of Timon; for I myself have never met with the play, though I have read more than eight hundred plays of what is called the Middle Comedy, and have made extracts from them, but still I have never fallen in with the Tutor of Intemperate Men, nor do I recollect having seen any mention of it in any regular list of such plays; for Callimachus has not inserted it in his catalogue, nor has Aristophanes, nor even those scholars at Pergamus, who have handed down to us lists of plays,)how— ever, Sotion says that in that play a slave, named Xanthias, was represented as exhorting all his fellow-slaves to a life of luxury, and saying—

1. Why do you talk such stuff, why run about
2. To the Lyceum and the Academy,
3. To the Odeum's gates, hunting in vain
4. For all the sophists' nonsense? there's no good in it;
5. Let us drink, drink, I say. O Sicon, Sicon!
6. Let us amuse ourselves; while time allows us
7. To gratify our souls.—Enjoy yourself,
8. My good friend Manes! nothing is worth more
9. To you than your own stomach. That's your father;
10. That only is your mother;-as for virtues,
11. And embassies, and military commands,
12. They are but noisy boasts, vain empty dreams.
13. Fate at its destined hour will come to chill you;
14. Take all that you can get to eat and drink;
15. Pericles, Codrus, Cimon, are but dust.

But it would be better, says Chrysippus, if the lines inscribed on the tomb of Sardanapalus were altered thus—

1. Knowing that thou art mortal, feed thy soul
2. On wise discourse. There is no good in eating.
3. For I am now no good, who once did eat
4. All that I could, and sought all kinds of pleasure.
5. Now what I thought and learnt and heard of wisdom
6. Is all I now have left; my luxuries
7. And all my joys have long deserted me.

And Timon says, very beautifully,—

1. Of all bad things the chief is appetite.

But Clearchus, in his essay on Proverbs, says that Terpsion was the tutor of Archestratus, who was also the first person who wrote a book on Gastronomy; and he says that he gave precepts to his pupils as to what they ought to

abstain from; and that Terpsion once extemporised the following line about a turtle:—

1. Eat now a turtle, or else leave it alone;

which, however, others read—

1. Eat now a turtle's flesh, or leave it alone.

But whence is it, O you wisest of men, that orion, who wrote a list of fish, has been mentioned as if he were the writer of some valuable history?—a fellow who, I know, has been named a musician and a fish-devourer, but certainly not a historian. Accordingly Machon, the comic poet, speaks of him as a musician, saying—

1. Dorion the musician once did come
2. To Mylon, all in vain; for he could find
3. No resting-place which he could hire at all;
4. So on some sacred ground he sat him down,
5. Which was by chance before the city gates,
6. And there he saw the keeper of the temple
7. Prepare a sacrifice.—"I pray thee, tell me,
8. In chaste Minerva's name, and all the gods',
9. What deity is it that owns this temple?"
10. The keeper thus replied: "This is, O stranger,
11. Of Jupiter-Neptune the sacred shrine."

12. How then,

    said Dorion, "could any man
13. Expect to find a lodging in a place
14. Which in one temple crowds a pair of gods?"

And Lynceus the Samian, the pupil of Theophrastus, and the brother of Duris, who wrote the Histories, and made himself tyrant of his country, writes thus in his Apophthegms—

When a man once said to Dorion the flute-player, that the ray was a good fish, he said—' Yes, about as good as if a man were to eat a boiled cloak.' And once, when some one else praised the entrails of tunny-fish, he said—' You are quite right, but then a man must eat them as I eat them;' and when the man asked him how that was, he said—' How? why willingly.' And he said that crawfish had three good qualities,—exercise, good food, and contemplation. And once, at Cyprus, when he was supping with Nicocreon, he praised a goblet that there was there; and Nicocreon said—'Whatever there is here that you fancy, the artist will make you another like it.' 'Let him make that,' he replied, 'for you; but do you give me this one.

' And this was a clever speech of the flute-player; for there is an old saying that—

1. 'Tis not that God denies a flutist sense,
2. But when he comes to blow it flies away.

And Hegesander, in his Commentaries, says this of him—

Dorion, the great fish-eater, once, when his slave had neglected to buy fish, scourged him, and ordered him to tell him the names of the best fish; and when the boy had counted up the orphus, and the sea-grayling, and the conger, and others of this sort, he said—'I desired you to tell me the names of fishes, and not of gods.'

The same Dorion, ridiculing the description of a tempest in the Nautilus of Timotheus, said that he had seen a more formidable storm in a boiling saucepan. And Aristodemus, in the second book of his Memorials of Laughable Circumstances and Sayings, says —

Dorion the musician was club-footed; and once, in some entertainment, he lost the slipper of his lame foot; on which he said, 'I will not wish anything more to the thief than that the slipper may fit him.'

But that this Dorion was notorious for his epicurism in fish, is plain from what Mnesimachus the comic poet says in his drama called Philip—

1. No, but all night Dorion the dish-piper
2. Does stay in-doors with us.

I know, too, the sportive sayings which Lasus of Hermione has uttered about fishes; which Chamæleon of Heraclea has recorded in writing, in his book on this very Lasus, where he says—' They say that Lasus called raw fish ὀπτὸς (which means roasted or visible); and when many people wondered why he did so, he thus began to prove what he had said; arguing thus: 'As whatever a person can hear (ἀκοῦσαι) is properly called ἀκουστὸν, and as whatever a person can understand by his intellect (νοῆσαι) is properly called νοητὸν, so whatever any one can see (ὄπτεσθαι) is clearly ὀπτόν;; as therefore it was possible to see the fish, he evidently was ὀπτός.ʼ.' And once, in a joke, he stole a fish from a fisherman, and having taken it, he gave it to one of the bystanders; and when the fisherman put him to his oath, he swore that he had not got it himself, and that he had not seen any one else take it; because, in fact, he himself had taken it, but some one else had got it. And then he prompted the other man, on the other hand, to swear that he had not taken it himself, and that he was not acquainted with any one else who had it; for, in fact, Lasus had taken it, and he himself had it.” And Epicharmus jests in the same way; as, in his Logus and Logina,—

1. A. Jupiter 'tis who did invite me, giving
2. A feast (γ’ ἔρανον) to Pelops.
3. B. 'Tis a sorry food,
4. That crane (γέρανος), to my mind.
5. A. But I did not say
6. A crane (γέρανον), but a feast (ἔρανόν γε), as you might well have heard.

And Alexis, in his Demetrius, ridicules, in his comic manner, a man of the name of Phayllus, as very fond of fish, in these lines:—

1. First of all, whether the wind blew north or south,
2. As long as it blew hard, it was not possible
3. For anybody to get fish to eat.
4. But now, besides that pair of stormy winds,
5. We've a third tempest risen in Phayllus;
6. For when this last storm bursts upon the market,
7. He buys up all the fish at all the stalls,
8. And bears it off; so that we are reduced
9. To squabble for the vegetables remaining.

And Antiphanes, in his Female Fisher, enumerating some people as exceedingly fond of fish, says—

1. Give me some cuttle-fish first. O Hercules!
2. They've dirtied every place with ink; here, take them
3. And throw them back again into the sea,
4. To wash them clean: or else they'll say, O Dorion,
5. That you have caught some rotten cuttle-fish:
6. And put this crawfish back beside the sprats.
7. He's a fine fish, by Jove. O mighty Jove,
8. O you Callimedon, who now will eat you?
9. No one who's not prepared to pay his share.
10. I've giv'n you your place here on the right,
11. You mullets, food of great Callisthenes;
12. Who eats his patrimony in one dish;
13. Next comes the mighty conger from Sinope,
14. With his stout spines; the first who comes shall have him;
15. For Misgolas has no great love for such.
16. But here's a citharus, and if he sees him
17. He never will keep off his hands from him;
18. For he, indeed, does secretly adhere
19. As close as wax to all the harp-players (κιθαρῳδοῖς).
20. I ought to send this best of fish, this tench,
21. Still all alive, and leaping in his dish,
22. To the fair Pythionica, he's so fine:
23. But still she will not taste him, as her heart
24. Is wholly set on cured fish.—Here I place
25. These thin anchovies and this dainty turtle
26. Apart for Theano, to counterbalance her.

And it is a very clever way in which Antiphanes thus jested upon Misgolas, as devoting all his attention to beautiful

harp-players and lyre-players; for Aeschines the orator, in his speech against Timarchus, says this of him—

Misgolas, the son of Naucrates, of Colyttus, O men of Athens, is a man in other respects brave and virtuous, and no one can find any fault with him in any particular; but he is known to be exceedingly devoted to this kind of business, and always to have about him some harp-players, and people who sing to the music of the harp. And I say this, not by way of disparaging him, but in order that you may be aware what sort of person he is.

And Timocles, in his Sappho, says—

1. Misgolas is not seen to enter in,
2. Excited as he is by blooming youth.

And Alexis, in his Agonis, or the Little Horse, says—

1. O mother, do not threaten me, I pray,
2. With Misgolas, for I am not a harp-player.

But Antiphanes says that Pythionica is fond of cured fish, since she had for lovers the sons of Chærephilus, the seller of salt-fish; as Timocles says, in his Icarians,—

1. When that stout Anytus to Pythionica
2. Does come, to eat with her; for she invites him,
3. As people say, whenever she does get
4. Two noble tunnies from Chærephilus;
5. So fond is she of all things that are large.

And again he says—

1. And Pythionica will receive you gladly,
2. And very likely will devour the gifts
3. Which you have lately here received from us,
4. For she's insatiable. Still do you
5. Bid her give you a basket of cured fish;
6. For she has plenty; and she has indeed
7. A couple of saperdæ; ugly fish,
8. Ill salted, and broad nosed.

And before this she had a lover whose name was Cobius.

But with respect to Callimedon, the son of Carabus, Timocles, in his Busybody, tells us that he was fond of fish, and also that he squinted:—

1. Then up came Carabus Callimedon,
2. And looking on me, as it seem'd to me,
3. He kept on speaking to some other man.
4. And I, as it was likely, understanding
5. No word of what they said, did only nod.
6. But all the girls do keep on looking at him,
7. While they pretend to turn their eyes away.

And Alexis, in his Crateua, or the Apothecary, says—

1. A. I am now, these last four days, taking care of
2. These κόραι for Callimedon.
3. B. Had he then
4. Any κόραι (damsels) for daughters?
5. A. I mean κόραι,
6. The pupils of the eyes; which e'en Melampus,
7. Who could alone appease the raging Prœtides,
8. Would e'er be able to keep looking straight.

And he ridicules him in a similar manner in the play entitled The Men running together. But he also jests on him for his epicurism as to fish, in the Phædo, or Phædria, where he says—

1. A. You shall be ædile if the gods approve,
2. That you may stop Callimedon descending
3. Like any storm all day upon the fish.
4. B. You speak of work for tyrants, not for ædiles;
5. For the man's brave, and useful to the city.

And the very same iambics are repeated in the play entitled Into the Well; but, in his Woman who has taken Mandragora, he says—

1. If I love any strangers more than you,
2. I'll willingly be turn'd into an eel,
3. That Carabus Callimedon may buy me.

And in his Crateua he says—

1. And Carabus Callimedon with Orpheus.

And Antiphanes says, in his Gorgythus,—

1. 'Twould harder be to make me change my mind
2. Than to induce Callimedon to pass
3. The head of a sea-grayling.

And Eubulus, in his Persons saved, says—

1. Others prostrating them before the gods,
2. Are found with Carabus, who alone of men
3. Can eat whole salt-fish out of boiling dishes
4. So wholly as to leave no single mouthful.

And Theophilus, in his Physician, ridiculing his coldness of expression, says—

And the slave put before the young man himself with great eagerness a little eel: his father had a fine cuttle-fish before him. 'Father,' says he, ' what do you think of your crawfish ' 'It is cold,' says he; 'take it away, —I don't want to eat any orators.'

[*](There is a punning allusion here to κάραβος, a crawfish, and to Callimedon's nickname, Carabus) And when Philemon says, in his Canvasser,—

1. Agyrrius, when a crawfish was before him,
2. On seeing him exclaim'd, Hail, dear papa!
3. Still what did he do? He ate his dear papa!

And Herodicus the Cratetian, commenting on this in his Miscellaneous Commentaries, says that Agyrrius was the name of the son of Callimedon.

The following people, too, have all been great epicures about fish. Antagoras the poet would not allow his slave to touch his fish with oil, but made him wash it; as Hegesander tells us. And when in the army, he was once boiling a dish of congers, and had his clothes girt round him, Antigonus the king, who was standing by, said,

Tell me, Antagoras, do you think that Homer, who celebrated the exploits of Agamemnon, ever boiled congers

And it is said that he answered, not without wit,

And do you think that Agamemnon, who performed those exploits, ever busied himself about inquiring who was cooking congers in his army?

And once, when Antagoras was cooking a bird of some kind, he said that he would not go to the bath, because he was afraid that the slaves might come and suck up the gravy. And when Philocydes said that his mother would take care of that,

Shall I,

said he,

entrust the gravy of game to my mother?

And Androcydes of Cyzicus, the painter, being very fond of fish, as Polemo relates, carried his luxury to such a pitch that he even painted with great care the fish which are around Scylla.

But concerning Philoxenus of Cythera, the dithyrambic poet, Machon the comic poet writes thus:—

1. They say Philoxenus, the ancient poet
2. Of dithyrambics, was so wonderfully
3. Attach'd to fish, that once at Syracuse
4. He bought a polypus two cubits long,
5. Then dress'd it, and then ate it up himself,
6. All but the head-and afterwards fell sick,
7. Seized with a sharp attack of indigestion.
8. Then when some doctor came to him to see him,
9. Who saw that he was greatly out of order;

10. If,

    said the doctor, "you have any business
11. Not well arranged, do not delay to settle it,
12. For you will die before six hours are over."
13. Philoxenus replied, "All my affairs,
14. O doctor, are well ended and arranged,
15. Long, long ago By favour of the gods,
16. I leave my dithyrambics all full-grown,
17. And crown'd with many a prize of victory;
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18. And I commit them to the guardianship
19. Of my dear foster-sisters, the Nine Muses,
20. And join to them both Bacchus and fair Venus.
21. This is my will. But now, since Charon gives
22. No time, but, as in the Niobe of Timotheus,
23. Keeps crying out, 'Now cross;' and deadly fate
24. Calls me away, who can't be disobey'd,
25. That I may go below with all my goods,
26. Bring me the relics of that polypus."

And in another part he says—

1. Philoxenus of Cythera, as men say,
2. Wished that he had a throat three cubits long;

3. That I might drink,

   said he, "as long as possible,
4. And that my food may all at once delight me."

And Diogenes the Cynic, having eaten a polypus raw, died of a swelling in the belly. But concerning Philoxenus, Sopater the parodist also speaks, saying—

1. For, between two rich courses of fine fish,
2. He pleased himself by looking down the centre
3. Of Aetna's crater.

And Hyperides the orator was an epicure in fish; as Timocles the comic writer tells us, in his Delos, where he enumerates all the people who had taken bribes from Harpalus: and he writes thus—

1. A. Demosthenes has half-a-hundred talents.
2. B. A lucky man, if no one shares with him.
3. A. And Moerocles has got a mighty sum.
4. B. He was a fool who gave them; lucky he
5. Who got them.
6. A. Demon and Callisthenes
7. Have also got large sums.
8. B. Well, they were poor,
9. So that we well may pardon them for taking them.
10. A. And that great orator Hyperides.
11. B. Why, he will all our fishmongers enrich;
12. An epicure! Gulls are mere Syrians,
13. Compared to him.

And in the Icarians, the same poet says—

1. Then cross Hyperides, that fishy river,
2. Which with a gentle sound, bubbling with boasts
3. Of prudent speeches, with mild repetitions
4. * * * * *
5. And hired, bedews the plain of him who gave it.

And Philetærus, in his Aesculapius, says that Hyperides, besides being a glutton, was also a gambler. As also Axionicus, in his Lover of Euripides, says that Callias the orator was; and his words are—

A man of the name of Glaucus came to this place, bringing from Pontus a kind of shark, a fish of extraordinary magnitude,—a great dainty for epicures in fish, and, in fact, for all men who are devoted to the pleasures of the table. And he brought it on his shoulders, and said, ' Whom shall I instruct how to dress it, and how shall it be dressed? Will you have it soaked in a sauce of green herbs, or shall I baste its body with basting of warm brine, and then dress it on a fierce fire?' And a man named Moschio, a great flute-player, cried out that he should like to eat it boiled in warm pickle-juice. And this was meant as a reproof for you, O Calaides! for you are very fond of figs and cured fish; and yet you will not taste a most exquisite fish which you have served up to you in pickle.

Reproaching him with the figs as if he were a sycophant; and perhaps concealing under the mention of the cured fish, some intimation of his having been implicated in discreditable conduct. And Hermippus says, in the third book of his treatise on the Pupils of Isocrates, that Hyperides was in the habit of taking a walk, the first thing in the morning, in the fish-market.

And Timæus of Tauromenium says that Aristotle the philosopher was a great epicure in respect of fish. Matron the sophist, also, was a great fish-eater: and Antiphanes, in his Harp-player, intimates this; for that play begins thus—

1. He tells no lie . . . .
2. A man dug out his eye, as Matron does
3. The eyes of fish when he comes near to them.

And Anaxilas says, in his Morose Man,—

1. Matron has carried off and eaten up
2. A cestris' head; and I am quite undone.

It being the very extravagance of gluttony to carry a thing off while eating it, and such a thing too as the head of a cestris; unless, perhaps, you may suppose, that those who are skilful in such things are aware of there being some particular good qualities in the head of a cestris; and if so, it belonged to Archestratus's gluttony to explain that to us.

But Antiphanes, in his Rich Man, gives us a catalogue of epicures, in the following lines:—

1. Euthymus too was there, with sandals on,
2. A ring upon his finger, well perfumed,
3. Silently pondering on I know not what.
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4. Phœnicides too, and my friend Taureas,
5. Such great inveterate epicures that they
6. Would swallow all the remnants in the market;
7. They at this sight seem'd almost like to die,
8. And bore the scarcity with small good humour;
9. But gather'd crowds and made this speech to them:—
10. "What an intolerable thing it is
11. That any of you men should claim the sea,
12. And spend much money in marine pursuits,
13. While not one fin of fish comes to this market!
14. What is the use of all our governors
15. Who sway the islands? We must make a law
16. That there should be copious importation
17. Of every kind of fish. But Matron now
18. Has carried off the fishermen; and then
19. There's Diogeiton, who, by Jove, has brought
20. The hucksters over to keep back for him
21. All the best fish; and he's not popular
22. For doing this, for there is mighty waste
23. In marriage feasts and youthful luxury."

But Euphron, in his Muses, says,—

1. But when at some fine banquet of young men
2. Phœnicides perceived a smoking dish
3. Full of the sons of Nereus, he held bach
4. His hands, with rage excited. Thus he spoke:—
5. "Who boasts himself a clever parasite
6. At eating at the public cost? who thinks
7. To filch the dainty dishes from the middle?
8. Where's Corydus, or Phyromachus, or Nillus?
9. Let them come here, they shall get nought of this."