The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus Part 22

71. Then, too, there are blackbirds.--Nicostratus or Philetaerus says--

_A._ What then shall I buy? Tell me, I pray you.

_B._ Go not to more expense than a neat table; Buy a rough-footed hare; some ducklings too, As many as you like; thrushes, and blackbirds, And other small birds; there are many wild sorts.

_A._ Yes, and they're very nice.

Antiphanes also reckons starlings among the eatable birds, numerating them in the following list--"Honey, partridges, pigeons, ducks, geese, starlings, jays, rooks, blackbirds, quails, and pullets."

You are asking of us for a history of everything, and you do not allow us to say a single thing without calling us to account for it. The word st????????? (a little bird) is found in many other authors, and also in Eubulus. He says, "Take three or four partridges, and three hares, and as many small birds as you can eat, and goldfinches, and parrots, and finches, and nightjars, and whatever other birds of this kind you can come across."

72. Swine's brains, too, was a not uncommon dish. Philosophers used to forbid our eating these, saying that a person who partook of them might as well eat a bear, and would not stick at eating his father's head, or anything else imaginable. And they said, that at all events none of the ancients had ever eaten them, because they were the seat of nearly all sensation. But Apollodorus the Athenian says, that none of the ancients ever even named the brain. And at all events Sophocles, in his Trachiniae, where he represents Hercules as throwing Lichas into the sea, does not use the word ????fa???, _brains_, but says ?e???? ?e???, white marrow; avoiding a word which it was thought ill-omened to use:--

And from his hair he forces the white marrow, His head being burst asunder in the middle, And the blood flows:

though he had named all the rest of his limbs plainly enough. And Euripides, introducing Hecuba lamenting for Astyanax, who had been thrown down by the Greeks, says--

Unhappy child, how miserably have Your native city's walls produced your death, And dash'd your head in pieces! Fatal towers, Which Phbus builded! How did your mother oft Cherish those curly locks, and press upon them With never-wearied kisses! now the blood Wells from that wound, where the bones broken gape; But some things are too horrid to be spoken.

The lines too which follow these are worth stopping to consider. But Philocles does employ the word ????fa???--

He never ceased devouring even the brains (????fa???).

And Aristophanes says--

I would be content To lose two membranes of the ????fa???.

And others, too, use the word. So that it must have been for the sake of the poetical expression that Sophocles said "white marrow." But Euripides not choosing openly to display to sight an unseemly and disgusting object, revealed as much as he chose. And they thought the head sacred, as is plain by their swearing by it; and by their even venerating sneezes, which proceed from the head, as holy. And we, to this day, confirm our arrangements and promises by nodding the head. As the Jupiter of Homer says--

Come now, and I will nod my head to you.

73. Now all these things were put into the dishes which were served up as propomata: pepper, green leaves, myrrh, galingal, Egyptian ointment.

Antiphanes says--

If any one buys pepper and brings it home, They torture him by law like any spy.

And in a subsequent pa.s.sage he says--

Now is the time for a man to go and find pepper, And seed of orach, and fruit, and buy it, and bring it here.

And Eubulus says--

Just take some Cnidian grains, or else some pepper, And pound them up with myrrh, and strew around.

And Ophelion says--

Pepper from Libya take, and frankincense, And Plato's heaven-inspired book of wisdom.

And Nicander says, in his Theriaca--

Take the conyza's woolly leaves and stalks, And often cut new pepper up, and add Cardamums fresh from Media.

And Theophrastus, in his History of Plants, says--"Pepper indeed is a fruit: and there are two kinds of it; the one is round, like a vetch, having a husk, and is rather red in colour; but the other is oblong, black, and full of seeds like poppy-seeds. But this kind is much stronger than the other. Both kinds are heating, on which account they are used as remedies for, and antidotes against, hemlock." And in his treatise on Suffocation, he writes--"And people who are suffocated are recovered by an infusion of vinegar and pepper, or else by the fruit of the nettle when crushed." But we must recollect that, properly speaking, there is no noun of the neuter gender among the Greeks ending in ?, except ??? alone; for the words p?pe??, and ???, and ???f? are foreign.

74. Let us now speak of oil.--Antiphanes or Alexis makes mention of the Samian Oil, saying--

This man you see will be a measurer Of that most white of oils, the Samian oil.

Ophelion makes mention also of Carian oil, and says--

The man anointed was with Carian oil.

Amyntas, in his treatise on Persian Weights and Measures, says--"The mountains there bear turpentine and mastic trees, and Persian nuts, from which they make a great deal of oil for the king. And Ctesias says, that in Carmania there is made an oil which is extracted from thorns, which the king uses. And he, in his third book of his treatise on the Revenues derived from Asia, making a list of all the things which are prepared for the king for his supper, makes no mention of pepper, or of vinegar, which of itself is the very best of all seasonings. Nor does Deinon, in his Persian History; though he does say that ammoniac salt is sent up to the king from Egypt, and water from the Nile. Theophrastus also mentions an oil which he calls ??t????, that is to say, _extracted raw_, in his treatise on Scents, saying that it is produced from the large coa.r.s.e olives called _phaulian_, and from almonds. Amphis also speaks of the oil which is produced amongst the Thurians, as exceedingly fine--

Oil from the Thurians comes; from Gela lentils.

75. Pickle is a thing often mentioned. Cratinus says--

Your basket will be full of briny pickle.

And Pherecrates says--

His beard was all besmear'd with pickle juice.

And Sophocles, in his Triptolemus, says--

Eating this briny season'd pickle.

And Plato the comic writer says--

These men will choke me, steeping me in putrid pickle.

But the word ?????, _pickle_, is a masculine noun. As aeschylus proves, when he says ?a? t?? ?????? ?????.

76. Vinegar too was much used by the ancients, and this is the only seasoning to which the Attics give the name of ?d??, as if it were akin to ?d??, _sweet_. And Chrysippus the philosopher says, that the best vinegar is the Egyptian and the Cnidian. But Aristophanes, in his Plutus, says--

Sprinkling it o'er with Sphettian vinegar.

Didymus explaining this verse says, "Perhaps he says Sphettian because the Sphettians are sour-tempered people." And somewhere or other he mentions vinegar from Cleonae, as being most excellent, saying, "And at Cleonae there are manufactories of vinegar." We find also in Diphilus--

_A._ He first takes off his coat, and then he sups, After what fas.h.i.+on think you?

_B._ Why, like a Spartan.

_A._ A measure then of vinegar . . . .

_B._ Bah!