The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus Part 10

61. Theopompus the Chian says, that the vine is found at Olympia, near the Alpheus; and that there is a place about eight furlongs from Elis where the natives at the time of the Dionysian games close up three empty brazen vessels, and seal them in the presence of all the people round about; and at a subsequent time they open them and find them full of wine. But h.e.l.lanicus says, that the vine was first discovered in Plinthina, a city of Egypt; on which account Dion, the academic philosopher, calls the Egyptians fond of wine and fond of drinking: and also, that as subsidiary to wine, in the case of those who, on account of their poverty, could not get wine, there was introduced a custom of drinking beer made of barley; and moreover, that those who drank this beer were so pleased with it that they sung and danced, and did everything like men drunk with wine. Now Aristotle says, that men who are drunk with wine show it in their faces; but that those who have drunk too much beer fall back and go to sleep; for wine is stimulating, but beer has a tendency to stupefy.

62. Now that the Egyptians really are fond of wine this is a proof, that they are the only people among whom it is a custom at their feasts to eat boiled cabbages before all the rest of their food; and even to this very time they do so. And many people add cabbage seed to potions which they prepare as preventives against drunkenness. And wherever a vineyard has cabbages growing in it, there the wine is weaker. On which account the citizens of Sybaris also, as Timaeus says, used to eat cabbages before drinking. And so Alexis says--

Last evening you were drinking deep, So now your head aches. Go to sleep; Take some boil'd cabbage when you wake; And there's an end of your headache.

And Eubulus says, somewhere or other--

Wife, quick! some cabbage boil, of virtues healing, That I may rid me of this seedy feeling.

For the ancients used to call cabbage ??fa???. And so Apollodorus of Carystus expressly says--

We call it ??fa???, and strangers ????; But sure to women they must both the same be.

And Anaxandrides says--

If you b.u.t.ter and cabbage eat, All distempers you will beat, Driving off all headaches horrid, And clouds which hover round your forehead.

And Nicochares says--

Instead of cabbage, acorns boil to-morrow, Which equally rid you of all your sorrow.

And Amphis tells us--

When one's been drunk, the best relief I know Is stern misfortune's unexpected blow; For that at once all languor will dispel, As sure as cabbage.

And Theophrastus also speaks of the effect which the cabbage produces, saying that the vine as long as it lives always turns away from the smell of cabbage.

FOOTNOTES:

[1:1] We have adopted the conventional t.i.tle, "Banquet of the Learned;"

but it may, perhaps, be more accurate to translate it, "The Contrivers of Feasts." _Vide_ Smith's Biographical Dictionary, _voc._ Athenaeus.

[3:1] Callimachus.

[3:2] Marcus Aurelius.

[4:1] Asteropaeus was one of the Trojan heroes who endeavoured to fight Achilles, being armed with two spears.

[4:2] Pindar. Ol. i. 22.--See Moore's translation.

[7:1] Epicharmus.

[8:1] There is a pun here that is untranslateable. ???t???? is a finger; but the ???t???? ?da??? were also priests of Cybele in Crete, and are the people to whom the discovery of iron, and the art of working it by fire, is ascribed.

[9:1] f???????, fond of fish.

[9:2] f???de?p???, fond of feasting.

[13:1] Odyss. iv. 54. The poetical translations are from the corresponding pa.s.sages in Pope's Homer.

[13:2] Ib. iv. 65.

[14:1] Iliad, xxiv. 262.

[15:1] Iliad, i. 469.

[15:2] Ib. xi. 629.

[16:1] Iliad, xxii. 427.

[16:2] Odyss. ii. 340.

[16:3] Ib. xxi. 293.

[17:1] Odyss. xv. 499.

[17:2] Iliad, xxiv. 124.

[18:1] _Vide_ Liddell and Scott, _in voc._, who say, "In Homer it is taken at sunrise; and so aesch. Ag. 331, later _breakfast_ was called ????t?sa, and then ???st?? was the midday meal, our _luncheon_, the Roman _prandium_, as may be seen from Theoc. iv. 90-7, 8;" and 25: translate ?sp???sa supper, and ?p?d??p?? a second course of sweetmeats.

[18:2] Odyss. xvii. 599. This word is found nowhere else; waiting till evening, b.u.t.tman Lexic. s. v. de???, 12, explains it, having taken an afternoon meal.--L. & S. _v._ Call. Fr. 190.

[19:1] Odyss. viii. 98.

[19:2] Iliad, ix. 225.

[20:1] The real reading is ??????s? te p?s?, Iliad, i. 5. "He made them the prey of dogs and of all birds."

[20:2] Odyss. xii. 322.

[21:1] Iliad, xvi. 745.

[21:2] Odyss. vii. 70.

[21:3] Iliad, i. 471.

[21:4] Odyss. vii. 179.

[21:5] Il. iv. 65.

[22:1] Iliad, iv. 3.

[22:2] Odyss. iv. 18.

[23:1] Odyss. vii. 481.

[23:2] Ib. xii. 191.