Deipnosophistae

Athenaeus of Naucratis

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

The next bird is the partridge. A great many authors mention this bird, as also does Aristophanes. And some of

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them in the oblique cases shorten the penultima of the noun; as Archilochus does where he writes—
  1. πτώσσουσαν ὥς τε πέρδῖκα,
in the same way as ὄρτῦγα and χοίνῖκα have the penultima short. But it is usually made long by the Attic writers. Sophocles, in his Camici, says—
  1. A man arrived, who in the famous hills
  2. Of Attica is a namesake of the partridge (πέρδι·κος).
And Pherecrates, or whoever it was who wrote the Chiron, says—
  1. He goes against his will, like any partridge (πέρδι·κος τρόπον).
And Phrynichus, in his Tragedians, says—
  1. And Cleombrotus the son of Perdix (πέρδι·κος),
(for the bird is sometimes cited as a model of lasciviousness).

Nicophon, in his Handicraftsmen, says—

  1. The hepseti, and all those partridges (περδι·κας).
But Epicharmus, in his Revellers, uses the word with the penultima short, where he says—
  1. They brought in cuttle-fish, who swim the deep,
  2. And partridges (πέρδικας) who fly in lofty air.
And Aristotle gives the following account of the bird— "The partridge is a land bird, with cloven feet; and he lives fifteen years: but the female lives even more. For among all birds the female lives longer than the male. It lays eggs, and hatches its young itself, as the common hen does. And when it is aware that it is being hunted, it comes away from its nest, and rolls near the legs of the huntsman, giving him a hope that he may catch it; and so it deceives him, until its young have flown away, and then it flies away itself also.

But it is a very ill-disposed and cunning animal; and moreover it is much devoted to amatory enjoyments; on which account it breaks the eggs of its hen, that it may not be deprived of her while she is hatching them; and therefore the hen, knowing this, runs away and hides her eggs.
And Callimachus gives the same account in his treatise on Birds. And the single birds fight with one another, and the one which is defeated becomes the mate of the conqueror. But Aristotle says that they all in turn use the bird which has been defeated as their mate, and that the tame birds also
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take the wild ones for their mates. And the bird which is defeated by the other patiently allows itself to be treated by him as his mate. And this happens at a particular time of the year, as is also stated by Alexander the Myndian. And they lay their eggs on the ground, both the cocks and the hens making themselves separate nests. And the leader of the wild birds attacks the decoy partridge, and when he is taken another comes forward to fight the decoy bird; and this is done whenever the bird used for the decoy is a cock bird; but when a hen is employed for the purpose, then she crows till the leader of the wild birds meets her, and the rest of the wild birds assemble and drive him away from the hen, because he is attending to her and not to them; on which account sometimes he advances without making any noise, in order that no other bird may hear his voice and come to fight him. And sometimes the hen also checks the crowing of the cock as he comes up:[*](Schweighaeuser thinks, with apparent reason, that there is some corruption in the text here.) and very often when she is sitting on her nest she gets off it on perceiving the cock approaching the decoy bird, and remains there to receive his embraces in order to draw him away from the decoy bird. And so very eager to propagate their species are both quails and partridges, that they fall into the hands of the hunters on that account, sitting on the tiles. They say, too, that when hen partridges are taken out to hunt, even when they see or smell a cock standing or flying down the wind, become pregnant, and some say that they immediately begin to lay eggs. And about breeding time they fly about with their mouths open, putting out their tongues, both hens and cocks. And Clearchus says, in his treatise on Panic Fear,—
Sparrows and partridges, and also the common barn-door fowl and the quail, are eager to propagate their species, not only the moment that they see the hen, but even as soon as hey hear her voice. And the cause of this is the excessive impression made on their minds by amatory pleasures and proximity. And you may see more easily all that takes place with respect to the propagation of their species if you put a looking-glass opposite to them. For they run forward, being deceived by the appearance, and behave as if they saw a hen, and so are caught. Only the common poultry cock does not
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do so. But the perception of the reflected image operates on them only so far as to make them wish to fight.
And this is the statement of Clearchus.

Partridges are by some people called κάκκαβαι, as, for instance, by Alcman, who speaks as follows—

  1. Alcman, too, began the strain;
  2. And he introduced into the language
  3. The compound name of κακκαβίδες:
showing plainly enough that he had learnt to compound the word from the noise made by partridges. On which account also Chamæleon of Pontus said that the discovery of music was originally made by the ancients from the birds singing in desert places; by imitation of whom they arrived at the art of music; but it is not all partridges who make the noise called κακκαβίζειν, or cackling. At all events, Theophrastus, in his treatise on the Different Noises made by Animals of the same Species, says—
The partridges in Attica, near Corydallus, on the side towards the city, cackle; but those on the other side twitter.
And Basilis, in the second book of his History of India, says—
The diminutive men in those countries which fight with cranes are often carried by partridges.
And Menecles, in the first book of his Collectanea, says—
The pygmies fight both with partridges and with cranes.
But there is a different kind of partridge found in Italy, of a dark colour on its wings, and smaller in size, with a beak inclining in the smallest possible degree to a red colour. But the partridges about Cirrha are not at all nice to eat as to their flesh, on account of the nature of their food. But the partridges in Bœotia either do not cross into Attica at all, or else, whenever they do, they are easily recognised by their voices, as we have previously mentioned. But the partridges which are found in Paphlagonia, Theophrastus says, have two hearts. But those in the island of Sciathos feed on cockles. And sometimes they have as many as fifteen or sixteen young at a time; and they can only fly short distances, as Xenophon tells us in the first book of his Anabasis, where he writes,—
But if any one rouses the bustard suddenly it is easy to catch him; for they can only fly a short distance, like partridges, and they very soon tire; but their flesh is very delicious.

And Plutarch says that Xenophon is quite correct

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about the bustard; for that great numbers of these birds are brought to Alexandria from the adjacent parts o Libya; being hunted and caught in this manner. The animal is a very imitative one, the bustard; being especially fond of imitating whatever it sees a man do; and accordingly it does whatever it sees the hunters do. And they, standing opposite to it, anoint themselves under the eyes with some unguent, having prepared other different unguents calculated to close up the eyes and eyelids; and these other unguents they place in shallow dishes near the bustards. And so the bustards, seeing the men anoint themselves under the eyes, do the same thing also themselves, taking the unguents out of these dishes; and by this means they are quickly caught. And Aristotle writes the following account of them:—
It is a migratory bird, with cloven feet, and three toes; of about the size of a large cock, of the colour of a quail, with a long head, a sharp beak, a thin neck, large eyes, a bony tongue, and it has no crop.
But Alexander the Myndian says that it is also called λαγωδίας. And he says, also, that it ruminates, and that it is very fond of the horse; and that if any one puts on a horse's skin he can catch as many as he pleases; for they come up to him then of their own accord. And presently, in another passage, Aristotle tells us,
The bustard is something like the owl, but it is not a bird which flies by night; and it has large feathers about its ears, on which account it is called ὦτος, from ὦτα; and it is about the size of a pigeon, and a great imitator of mankind; and accordingly it is caught by dancing opposite to them.'
And it is in shape something like a man, and it is an imitator of whatever man does. On which account the comic poets call those people who are easily taken in by any one whom they chance to meet, a bustard. Accordingly, in hunting them, the man who is cleverest at it, stands opposite to them and dances; and the birds, looking at the man dancing, move like puppets pulled by strings; and then some one comes behind them, and, without being perceived, seizes on them while they are wholly occupied with the delight they derive from the imitation.

They say, also, that the screech-owl does the same thing: for it is said that they also are caught by dancing. And Homer mentions them. And there is a kind of dance,

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which is called σκὼψ, or the screech-owl, from them; deriving its name from the variety of motion displayed by this animal. And the screech-owls also delight in imitation, and it is from their name that we say that those men σκώπτουσι, who keep looking at the person whom they wish to turn into ridicule, and mock all his conduct by an exact imitation, copying the conduct of those birds. But all the birds whose tongues are properly formed, and who are capable of uttering articulate sounds, imitate the voices of men and of other birds; as the parrot and the jay. The screech-owl, as Alexander the Myndian says, is smaller than the common owl, and he has whitish spots on a leaden-coloured plumage; and he puts out two tufts of feathers from his eyebrows on each temple. Now Callimachus says that there are two kinds of screech-owls, and that one kind does screech, and the other does not—on which account one kind is called σκῶπες, and the other kind is called ἀείσκωπες, and these last are of a grey colour.

But Alexander the Myndian says that the name is written in Homer, κῶπες without the ς, and that that was the name which Aristotle gave them; and that they are constantly seen, and that they are not eatable; but that those which are only seen about the end of autumn for a day or two are eatable. And they differ from the ἀείσκωπες in their speed, and they are something like the turtle-dove and the pigeon in pace. And Speusippus, in the second book of his treatise on Things Resembling one another, also calls them κῶπες without the ς. But Epicharmus writes σκῶπας, epopses and owls. And Metrodorus, in his treatise on Custom and Habituation, says, that the screech-owl is caught by dancing opposite to it.

But since, when we were talking of partridges, we mentioned that they were exceedingly amorous birds, we ought also to add, that the cock of the common poultry fowl is a very amorous bird too; at all events Aristotle says, that when cocks are kept in the temples as being dedicated to the Gods, the cocks who were there before treat any new comer as a hen until another is dedicated in a similar manner. And if none are dedicated, then they fight together, and the one which has defeated the other works his will on the one which he has defeated. It is related, also, that a cock, whenever he goes in at any door whatever, always stoops his crest, and that

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one cock never yields to another without a battle; but Theophrastus says, that the wild cocks are still more amorous than the tame ones. He says, also, that the cocks are most inclined to pursue the hens the moment they leave their perch in the morning, but the hens prefer it as the day advances.

Sparrows, also, are very amorous birds; on which account Terpsicles says, that those who eat sparrows are rendered exceedingly prone to amorous indulgences; and perhaps it is from such an idea that Sappho represents Venus as being drawn by sparrows yoked in her chariot; for they are very amorous birds, and very prolific. The sparrow has about eight young ones at one hatching, according to the statement of Aristotle. And Alexander the Myndian says that there are two kinds of sparrows, the one a tame species, and the other a wild one; and he adds that the hen-sparrow is weaker in other respects, and also that their beaks are of a more horny colour, and that their faces are not very white, nor very black; but Aristotle says that the cock-sparrow never appears in the winter, but that the hen-sparrows remain, drawing his conclusions as to what he thinks probable from their colour; for their colour changes, as the colour of blackbirds and of coots does, who get whiter at certain seasons. But the people of Elis call sparrows δείρηται, as Nicander the Colophonian tells us in the third book of his treatise on Different Dialects.

We must also speak of the quail; they are called ὄρτυγες. And here the rearises a general question about words ending in υξ, why the words with this termination do not all have the same letter as the characteristic of the genitive case. I allude to ὄρτυξ and ὄνυξ. For the masculine simple nouns ending in ξ when the vowel υ precedes ξ, and when the last syllable begins with any one of the immutable consonants or those which are characteristic of the first[*](Athenæus here does not arrange his conjugations as we do; nor is it very plain what he means by an immutable consonant.) conjugation of barytone verbs, make the genitive with κ; as κῆρυξ κήρυκος, πέλυξ πέλυκος, ῎ερυξ ἔρυκος, βέβρυξ, βέβρυκος; but those which have not this characteristic make the genitive with a γ, as ὄρτυξ ὄρτυγος, κόκκυξ κόκκυγος, ὄρυξ ὄρυγος; and there is one word with a peculiar inflexion, ὄνυξ ὄνυχος; and as a general rule, in the nominative case plural, they follow the genitive case singular in having the same characteristic of the

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last syllable. And the case is the same if the last syllable does not begin with a consonant at all.

But with respect to the quail Aristotle says,

The quail is a migratory bird, with cloven feet, and he does not make a nest, but lies in the dust; and he covers over his hole with sticks for fear of hawks; and then the hen lays her eggs in the hole.
But Alexander the Myndian says, in the second book of his treatise on Animals,
The female quail has a thin neck, not having under its chin the same black feathers which the male has. And when it is dissected it is found not to have a large crop, but it has a large heart with three lobes; it has also its liver and its gall-bladder united in its intestines, but it has but a small spleen, and one which is not easily perceived; and its testicles are under its liver, like those of the common fowl.
And concerning their origin, Phanodemus, in the second book of his History of Attica, says:—
When Erysichthon saw the island of Delos, which was by the ancients called Ortygia, because of the numerous flocks of quails which came over the sea and settled in that island as one which afforded them good shelter . . .
And Eudoxus the Cnidian, in the first book of his Description of the Circuit of the Earth, says that the Phœnicians sacrifice quails to Hercules, because Hercules, the son of Asteria and Jupiter, when on his way towards Libya, was slain by Typhon and restored to life by Iolaus, who brought a quail to him and put it to his nose, and the smell revived him. For when he was alive he was, says Eudoxus, very partial to that bird.

But Eupolis uses the word in its diminutive form, and in his play called Cities, calls them ὀρτύγια, speaking as follows:—

  1. A. Tell me now, have you ever bred any ὄρτυγεσ?
  2. B. I've bred some small ὀρτύγια. What of that
And Antiphanes, in his play called The Countryman, speaks as follows, using also the form ὀρτύγιον·—
  1. For what now could a man like you perform,
  2. Having the soul of a quail (ὀρτυγίου)?
It is an odd expression that Pratinas uses, who in his Dymænæ, or the Caryatides, calls the quail a bird with a sweet voice, unless indeed quails have voices in the Phliasian or Lacedæmonian country as partridges have; and perhaps it is from this, also, that the bird called σίαλις has its name, as
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Didymus says. For nearly all birds derive their tames from the sounds which they make.

There is also a bird called the ὀρτυγομήτρα (which is mentioned by Crates in his Chirons, where he says,

  1. The ὀρτυγομήτρα came from Ithaca.)
And Alexander the Myndian also mentions it, and says that in size it is nearly equal to a turtle-dove; that it has long legs, a slender body, and is very timid. And with respect to the hunting for quails, Clearchus the Solensian mentions some very singular circumstances, in his book which is entitled
A Treatise on those things which have been asserted on Mathematical Principles in Plato's Polity,
where he writes as follows—
Quails, about breeding time, if any one puts a looking-glass opposite to them, and a noose in front of it, run towards the bird which is seen in the looking-glass; and so fall into the noose.
And about the birds called jackdaws he makes a similar statement, saying—
And a very similar thing happens to the jackdaws, on account of their naturally affectionate disposition towards each other. For they are a most exceedingly cunning bird; nevertheless when a bowl full of oil is placed near them, they stand on the edge of the bowl, and look down, and then rush down towards the bird which appears visible in the liquid. In consequence of which, when they are soaked through with the oil, their wings stick together and cause them to be easily captured.
And the Attic writers make the middle syllable of the oblique cases of ὄρτυξ long, like δοίδῦκα, and κήρῦκα; as Demetrius Ixion tells us, in his treatise on the Dialect of the Alexandrians. But Aristophanes, in his Peace, has used the word with the penultima short for the sake of the metre, writing—
  1. The tame domestic quails (ὄρτῦγες οἰκογενεῖς).
There is also a bird called χέννιον, which is a small kind of quail, which is mentioned by Cleomenes, in his letter to Alexander, where he expresses himself in the following manner—
Ten thousand preserved coots, and five thousand of the kind of thrush called tylas, and ten thousand preserved χέννια.
And Hipparchus, in his Egyptian Iliad, says—
  1. I cannot fancy the Egyptian life,
  2. Plucking the chennia, which they salt and eat.

And even swans in great plenty were not wanting

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to our banquets. And Aristotle speaks in the following manner of this bird—
The swan is a prolific bird, and a quarrelsome one. And, indeed, they are so fond of fighting that they often kill one another. And the swan will fight even the eagle; though he does not begin the battle himself. And they are tuneful birds, especially towards the time of their death. And they also cross the seas singing. And they are web-footed, and feed on herbage.
But Alexander the Myndian says, that though he followed a great many swans when they were dying, he never heard one sing. And Hegesianax of Alexandria, who arranged the book of Cephalion, called the History of Troy, says that the Cycnus who fought with Achilles in single combat, was fed in Leucophrys by the bird of the same name, that is, by the swan. But Boius, or Boio, which Philochorus says was his proper name, in his book on the Origin of Birds, says that Cycnus was turned into a bird by Mars, and that when he came to the river Sybaris he was cooped with a crane. And he says, also, that the swan lines his nest with that particular grass which is called lygæa.

And concerning the crane (γέρανος), Boius says that there was among the Pygmies a very well known woman whose name was Gerana. And she, being honoured as a god by her fellow-countrymen, thought lightly of those who were really gods, and especially of Juno and Diana. And accordingly Juno, being indignant, metamorphosed her into an unsightly bird, and made her hostile to and hated by the Pygmies who had been used to honour her. And he says, also, that of her and Nicodamas was born the land tortoise. And as a general rule, the man who composed all these fables asserts that all the birds were formerly men.

The next bird to be mentioned is the pigeon. Aristotle says, that there is but one genus of the pigeon, but five subordinate species; writing thus—

The pigeon, the œnas, the phaps, the dove, and the turtle-dove.
But in the fifth book of his treatise on the Parts of Animals, he makes no mention of the phaps, though Aeschylus, in his tragedy called Proteus, does mention that bird in the following line—
  1. Feeding the wretched miserable phaps,
  2. Entangled as to its poor broken sides
  3. Within the winnowing spokes.
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And in his Philoctetes he uses the word in the genitive case plural, φαβῶν.
The œonas, then,
says Aristotle,
is something larger than the pigeon, and it has a puce-coloured plumage; but the phaps is something between the pigeon and the œnas. And the species called phassa is about as large as the common cock, but of the colour of ashes; and the turtledove is less than all the other species, and is o a cinder-colour. And this last is only seen in the summer, and during the winter it keeps in its hole. Now, the phaps and the common pigeon are always to be seen, but the œnas is only visible in the autumn. And the species called the phassa is said to be longer lived than any of the others; for it lives thirty or forty years. And the cock birds never leave the hens to the day of their death, nor do the hens ever desert the cock: but when one dies the other remains solitary: and crows, and ravens, and jackdaws all do the same thing. And in every kind of the genus pigeon, both male and female sit on the eggs in turn; and when the chickens are hatched, the cock bird spits upon them to prevent their being fascinated. And the hen lays two eggs, the first of which produces a cock and the second a hen. And they lay at every season of the year; so that they lay ten or eleven times a year; and in Egypt they lay twelve times; for the hen conceives again the very next day to that in which it lays.
And further on, in the same book, Aristotle says that the kind called περιστερὰ differs from the πελειὰς, and the πελειὰς is the least of the two. And the πελειὰς is easily tamed; but the περιστερὰ is black, and small, and has red rough legs; on which account no one keeps them. But he mentions a peculiarity of the species called περιστερὰ, that they kiss one another when courting, and that if the males neglect this, the hens do not admit their embraces. However, old doves do not go through this formality; but omit the kisses and still succeed in their suit, but the younger ones always kiss before they proceed to action. And the hens, too, make love to one another, when there is no cock at hand, kissing one another beforehand. But still, as there are no real results, the eggs which they lay never produce chickens. The Dorians, however, consider the πελειὰς and the περιστερὰ as identical; and Sophron uses the two words as synonymous in his Female Actresses. But Callimachus, in his treatise on Birds, speaks of the pyrallis, the
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dove, the wood-pigeon, and the turtle-dove, as all different from one another.

But Alexander the Myndian says, that the pigeon never lifts up his head when it drinks, as the turtle-dove does; and that it never utters any sound in the winter except when it is very fine weather. It is said, also, that when the species called œnas has eaten the seed of the mistletoe, and then leaves its droppings on any tree, mistletoe after that grows upon that tree. But Daimachus, in his history of India, says that pigeons of an apple-green colour are found in India. And Charon of Lampsacus, in his history of Persia, speaking of Mardonius, and of the losses which the Persian army sustained Off Mount Athos, writes as follows—

And that was the first time that white pigeons were ever seen by the Greeks; as they had never existed in that country.
And Aristotle says, that the pigeons, when their young are born, eat a lot of earth impregnated with salt, and then open the mouths of their young and spit the salt into them; and by this means prepare them to swallow and digest their food. And at Eryx in Sicily, there is a certain time which the Sicilians call The Departure, at which time they say that the Goddess is departing into Africa: and at this time all the pigeons about the place disappear, as if they had accompanied the Goddess on her journey. And after nine days, when the festival called καταγώγια, that is to say The Return, is celebrated, after one pigeon has first arrived, flying across the sea like an avant-courier, and has flown into the temple, the rest follow speedily. And on this, all the inhabitants around, who are comfortably off, feast; and the rest clap their hands for joy. And at that time the whole place smells of butter, which they use as a sort of token of the return of the Goddess. But Autocrates, in his history of Achaia, says that Jupiter once changed his form into that of a pigeon, when he was in love with a maiden in Aegium, whose name was Phthia. But the Attic writers use the word also in the masculine gender, περιστερός. Alexis, in his People Running together, says—
  1. For I am the white pigeon (περιστερὸς) of Venus;
  2. But as for Bacchus, he knows nothing more
  3. Than how to get well drunk; and nothing cares
  4. Whether 'tis new wine that he drinks or old.
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But in his play of the Rhodian, or the Woman Caressing, he uses the word in the feminine gender; and says in that passage that the Sicilian pigeons are superior to all others—
  1. Breeding within some pigeons from Sicily,
  2. The fairest shaped of all their species.
And Pherecrates, in his Painters, says—
  1. Send off a pigeon (περιστερὸν) as a messenger.
And in his Petale he uses the diminutive form περιστέριον, where he says,—
  1. But now, my pigeon, fly thou like Callisthenes,
  2. And bear me to Cythera and to Cyprus.
And Nicander, in the second book of his Georgics, mentions the Sicilian doves and pigeons, and says,—
  1. And do you in your hall preserve a flock
  2. Of fruitful doves from Sicily or Dracontium,
  3. For it is said that neither kites nor hawks
  4. Incline to hurt those choice and sacred birds.

We must also mention ducks. The male of these birds, as Alexander the Myndian says, is larger than the female, and has a more richly coloured plumage: but the bird which is called the glaucion, from the colour of its. eyes, is a little smaller than the duck. And of the species called boscades the male is marked all over with lines, and he also is less than the duck; and the males have short beaks, too small to be in fair proportion to their size: but the small diver is the least of all aquatic birds, being of a dirty black plumage, and it has a sharp beak, turning upwards towards the eyes, and it goes a great deal under water. There is also another species of the boscades, larger than the duck, but smaller than the chenalopex: but the species which are called phascades are a little larger than the small divers, but in all other respects they resemble the ducks. And the kind called uria are not much smaller than the duck, but as to its plumage it is of a dirty earthenware colour, and it has a log and narrow beak: but the coot, which also has a narrow beak, is of a rounder shape, and is of an ash colour about the stomach, and rather blacker on the back. But Aristophanes in his Acharnians, in the following lines, mentions the dusk and the diver, from whose names (νῆττα) and κολυμβὰς) we get the verbs νήχομαι, to swim, and κολυμβάω, to dive, with a great many other water birds—

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  1. Ducks too, and jackdaws, woodcocks too, and coots,
  2. And wrens, and divers.
And Callimachus also mentions them in his treatise on Birds.

We often also had put before us the dish called parastatæ which is mentioned by Epænetus in his Cookery Book, and by Semaristus in the third and fourth books of his treatise on Synonymes. And it is testicles which are called by this name. But when some meat was served up with a very fragrant sauce, and when some one said,—Give me a plate of that suffocated meat, that Dædalus of names, Ulpian, said— I myself shall be suffocated if you do not tell me where you found any mention of meat of that kind; for I will not name them so before I know. And he said, Strattis, in his Macedonians or Cinesias, has said—

  1. Take care, and often have some suffocated meat.
And Eubulus, in his Catacollomenos, says—
  1. And platters heap'd with quantities of meat
  2. Suffocated in the Sicilian fashion.
And Aristophanes, in his Wasps, has said—
  1. Some suffocated meat in a platter.
And Cratinus, in his Delian Women, says—
  1. And therefore do you take some meat and pound it,
  2. Having first neatly suffocated it.
And Antiphanes, in his Countryman, says—
  1. And first of all
  2. I bring you the much-wish'd-for barley-cake,
  3. Which the all-genial mother Ceres gives
  4. A joyfull gift to mortals; and besides,
  5. Some tender limbs of suffocated goats
  6. Set round with herbs, a young and tender meat.
  7. B. How say you?
  8. A. I am going through a tragedy
  9. Of the divinest Sophocles.

And when some sucking-pigs were carried round, and the guests made an inquiry respecting them, whether they were mentioned by any ancient author, some one said—Phe- recrates, in his Slave turned Tutor, says—

  1. I stole some sucking-pigs not fully grown.
And in his Deserters be says—
  1. Are you not going to kill a sucking-pig?
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And Alcæus, in his Palæstra, says—
  1. For here he is himself, and if I grunt
  2. One atom more than any sucking-pig . . .
And Herodotus, in his first book, says that in Babylon there is a golden altar, on which it is not lawful to sacrifice anything but sucking-pigs. Antiphanes says in his Philetærus—
  1. There's here a pretty little cromaciscus
  2. Not yet wean'd, you see.
And Heniochus, in his Polyeuctus, says—
  1. The ox was brazen, long since past all boiling,
  2. But he perhaps had taken a sucking-pig,
  3. And slaughter'd that.
And Anacreon says—
  1. Like a young sucking kid, which when it leaves
  2. Its mother in the wood, trembles with fear.
And Crates, in his Neighbours, says—
  1. For now we constantly have feasts of lovers,
  2. As long as we have store of lambs and pigs
  3. Not taken from their dams.
And Simonides represents Danae as speaking thus over Perseus—
  1. O my dear child, what mis'ry tears my soul!
  2. But you lie sleeping,
  3. You slumber with your unwean'd heart.
And in another place he says of Archemorus—
  1. Alas the wreath! They wept the unwean'd child,
  2. Breathing out his sweet soul in bitter pangs.
And Clearchus, in his Lives, says that Phalaris the tyrant had arrived at such a pitch of cruelty, that he used to feast on sucking children. And there is a verb θῆσθαι, which means to suck milk, (Homer says—
  1. Hector is mortal, and has suck'd the breast;)
because the mother's breast is put into the mouth of the infant. And that is the derivation of the word τίτσθος, breast, from τίθημι, to place, because the breasts are thus placed in the children's mouths.
  1. After she'd lull'd to sleep the new-born kids,
  2. As yet unweaned from their mother's breast.

And when some antelopes were brought round, Pala- medes of Elea, the collector of words, said—It is not bad meat that of the antelopes (δόρκωνες). And Myrtilus said to him—The word is only δορκύδες, not δόρκωνες. Xenophon,

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in the first book of his Anabasis, says,
And there were in that part bustards and δορκάδες.

The next thing to be mentioned is the peacock. And that this is a rare bird is shown by what Antiphanes says in his Soldier, or Tychon, where his words are—

  1. And then some man brought in one single pair
  2. Of peacocks to the city; 'twas a sight
  3. Wondrous to see; now they're as thick as quails.
And Eubulus says in his Phœnix—
  1. The peacock is admired for his rarity.
The peacock,
says Aristotle,
is cloven-footed, and feeds on herbage; it begins to breed when it is three years old, at which age it also gets the rich and varied colours of its plumage; and it sits on its eggs about thirty days, and once a-year it lays twelve eggs, and it lays these not all at once, but at intervals, laying every third day. But the first year of a hen's laying she does not lay more than eight eggs; and she sometimes lays wind eggs like the common hen, but never more than two; and she sits upon her eggs and hatches them very much in the same way as the common hen does.
And Eupolis, in his Deserters from the Army, speaks of the peacock in the following terms—
  1. Lest I should keep in Pluto's realm,
  2. A peacock such as this, who wakes the sleepers.
And there is a speech extant, by Antiphanes the orator, which is entitled, On Peacocks. And in that speech there is not one express mention of the name peacock, but he repeatedly speaks of them in it as birds of variegated plumage, saying—
That Demus, the son of Pyrilampes, breeds these birds, and that out of a desire to see these birds, a great many people come from Lacedæmon and from Thessaly, and show great anxiety to get some of the eggs.
And with respect to their appearance he writes thus—
If any one wishes to remove these birds into a city, they will fly away and depart; and if he cuts their wings he takes away their beauty. For their wings are their beauty, and not their body.
And that people used to be very anxious to see them he tells us subsequently in the same book, where he says;
But at the time of the festival of the new moon, any one who likes is admitted to see them, but on other days if any one comes and wishes to see them he is never allowed to do so; and this is not a
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custom of yesterday, or a recent practice, but one which has subsisted for more than thirty years.

But the Athenians call the word ταὧς,
as Tryphon tells us,
circumflexing and aspirating the last syllable. And they read it spelt in this way in the Deserters from the Army of Eupolis, in the passage which has been already quoted, and in the Birds of Aristophanes—
  1. Are you then Tereus? are you a bird or a peacock (ταὧς)?
And in another passage he writes—
  1. A bird then; what kind? is it not a peacock (ταὧς)?
But in the dative they say ταὧνι, as Aristophanes does in the same play. But it is quite impossible in the Attic or Ionic dialects that, in nouns which have more than one syllable, the last syllable beginning with a vowel should be aspirated; for it is quite inevitable that it should be pronounced with a lene breathing, as νεὢς, λεὢς, τυνδάρεὠς, μενέλεὠς, λειπόνεὠς, εὔνεὠς, νείλεὠς, πρᾶὀς, ὑίὀς, κεῖὀς, χῖὀς, δῖὀς, χρεῖὀς, πλεῖὀς, λεῖὀς, λαιὄς, βαιὂς, φαιὂς, πηὂς, γόὀς, θοὂς, ῥόὀς, ζωὄς. For the aspirate is fond of beginning a word, and is by nature inclined to the lead, and is never included in the last part of a word. And the name ταὧς is derived from the extension (τάσις) of the wings.
And Seleucus, in the fifth book of his treatise on Hellenisms, says:
The peacock, ταὧς:—but the Attics, contrary to all rule, both aspirate and circumflex the last syllable; but the aspirate is only attached to the first vowel, when it begins a word in the simple pronunciation of the word, and there taking the lead, and running on more swiftly, it has the first place in the word. Accordingly, the Athenians, in consequence of this arrangement, observing the inherent character of this breathing, do not put it on vowels, as they do often accents and breathings, but put it before them. And I think that the ancients used to mark the aspirate by the character H, on which account the Romans write the letter H at the beginning of all aspirated nouns, showing its predominan nature; and if this be the proper character of the aspirate, it is plain that it is contrary to all reason and analogy that the word ταῶς has any breathing at all marked upon it by the Attic writers.

And as at the banquet a great many more discussions arose about each of the dishes that were served up;—But I,

v.2.p.628
said Laurentius, according to the example of our most ex- cellent friend Ulpian, will myself also say something to you (for we are feeding on discussions). What do you think of the grouse? And when some one said,—He is a species of bird; (but it is the custom of the sons of the grammarians to say of anything that is mentioned to them in this way, It is a species of plant, a species of bird, a species of stone;) Laurentius said—And I, my good friend, am aware that the admirable Aristophanes, in his Birds, mentions the grouse in the following lines—
  1. With the porphyrion and the pelican,
  2. And pelecinnus, and the phlexis too,
  3. The grouse and peacock.
But I wish to learn from you whether there is any mention of the bird in any other author. For Alexander the Myndian, in the second book of his treatise on Winged Animals, speaks of it as a bird of no great size, but rather as one of the smaller birds. For his words are these—
The grouse, a bird about the size of rook, of an earthenware colour, variegated with dirty coloured spots, and long lines, feeding on fruit; and when it lays its eggs it cackles (τετράζει). from which it derives its name (τέτραξ).
And Epicharmus, in his Hebe's Wedding, says—
  1. For when you've taken quails and sparrows too,
  2. And larks who love to robe themselves in dust,
  3. And grouse, and rooks, and beauteous fig-peckers.
And in another passage he says—
  1. There were the herons with their long bending necks,
  2. A numerous flock; and grouse, and rooks besides.
But since none of you have anything to say on the subject (as you are all silent), I will show you the bird itself; for when I was the Emperor's Procurator in Mysia, and the super- intendent of all the affairs of that province, I saw the bird in that country. And learning that it was called by this name among the Mysians and Pæonians, I recollected what the bird was by the description given of it by Aristophanes. And believing that this bird was considered by the all-accomplished Aristotle worthy of being mentioned in that work of his worth many talents (for it is said that the Stagirite received eight hundred talents from Alexander as his contribution towards perfecting his History of Animals), when I found that there was no mention of it in this work, I was delighted at having the
v.2.p.629
admirable Aristophanes as an unimpeachable witness in the matter. And while he was saying this, a slave came in bringing in the grouse in a basket; but it was in size larger than the largest cock of the common poultry, and in appearance it was very like the porphyrion; and it had wattles hanging from its ears on each side like the common cock; and its voice was loud and harsh. And so after we had admired the beauty of the bird, in a short time one was served up on the table dressed; and the meat of him was like that of the ostrich, which we were often in the habit of eating.

There was a dish too called loins (ψύαι). The poet who wrote the poem called The Return of the Atridæ, in the third book says—

  1. And with his rapid feet Hermioneus
  2. Caught Nisus, and his loins with spear transfix'd.
And Simaristus, in the third book of his Synonymes, writes thus:
The flesh of the loins which stands out on each side is called ψύαι, and the hollows on each side they call κύβοι and γάλλιαι.
And Clearchus, in the second book of his treatise on The Joints in the Human Body, speaks thus:
There is flesh full of muscle on each side; which some people call ψύαι, and others call ἀλώπεκες, and others νευρόμητραι.
And the admirable Hippocrates also speaks of ψύαι; and they get this name from being easily wiped (ἀπὸ τοῦ ῥαδίως ἀποψᾶσθαι), or as being flesh lightly touching (ἐπιψαύουσα) the bones, and lying lightly on the surface of them. And Euphron the comic poet mentions them in his Theori—
  1. There is a lobe and parts, too, called ψύαι;
  2. Learn to cut these before you view the sacrifice.

There is a dish too made of udder. Teleclides, in his Rigid Men, says—

  1. Since I'm a female, I must have an udder.
Herodotus, in the fourth book of his History, uses the same term when speaking of horses; but it is rare to find the word (οὖθαρ) applied to the other animals; but the word most commonly used is ὑπογάστριον, as in the case of fishes. Strattis, in his Atalanta, says—
  1. The ὑπογάστριον and the extremities
  2. Of the large tunny.
And Theopompus, in his Callæchrus, says—
  1. A. And th' ὑπογάστρια of fish.
  2. B. O, Ceres!
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But in the Sirens he calls it not ὑπογάστρια, but ὑπήτρια, saying—
  1. Th' ὑπήτρια of white Sicilian tunnies.