The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus Part 24

82. Artichokes were often eaten. And Sophocles, in his Colchian Women, calls an artichoke ?????a, but in his Phnix he writes the word ???a???, saying--

The artichoke fills every field with its thorn.

But Hecataeus the Milesian, in his Description of Asia, at least if the book under this t.i.tle is a genuine work of that author, (for Callimachus attributes it to Nesiotas;) however, whoever it was who wrote the book speaks in these terms--"Around the sea which is called the Hyrcanian sea there are mountains lofty and rough with woods, and on the mountains there is the p.r.i.c.kly artichoke." And immediately afterwards he subjoins--"Of the Parthian tribes the Chorasmians dwell towards the rising sun, having a territory partly champaign and partly mountainous.

And in the mountains there are wild trees; the p.r.i.c.kly artichoke, the willow, the tamarisk." He says moreover that the artichoke grows near the river Indus. And Scylax, or Polemo, writes, "that that land is well watered with fountains and with ca.n.a.ls, and on the mountains there grow artichokes and many other plants." And immediately afterwards he adds, "From that point a mountain stretches on both sides of the river Indus, very lofty, and very thickly overgrown with wild wood and the p.r.i.c.kly artichoke."

But Didymus the grammarian, explaining what is meant by Sophocles when he speaks of the p.r.i.c.kly artichoke (which he calls ???a???), says, "Perhaps he means the dog-brier, because that plant is p.r.i.c.kly and rough; for the Pythian priestess did call that plant a wooden b.i.t.c.h. And the Locrian, after he had been ordered by an oracle to build a city in that place in which he was bitten by a wooden b.i.t.c.h, having had his leg scratched by a dog-brier, built the city in the place where the brier had stood. And there is a plant called the dog-brier, something between a brier and a tree, according to the statement of Theophrastus, and it has a red fruit, like a pomegranate, and it has a leaf like that of the willow.

83. Phaenias, in the fifth book of his treatise on Plants, speaks of one which he calls the Sicilian cactus, a very p.r.i.c.kly plant. As also does Theophrastus, in his sixth book about Plants, who says, "But the plant which is called the cactus exists only in Sicily, and is not found in Greece: and it sends forth stalks close to the ground, just above the root. And the stalks are the things which are called cacti: and they are eatable as soon as they are peeled, and rather bitter; and they preserve them in brine. But there is a second kind, which sends up a straight stalk, which they call pt?????; and that also is eatable. The sh.e.l.l of the fruit, as soon as the outer soft parts have been taken away, is like the inside of a date: that also is eatable; and the name of that is ?s???????." But who is there who would not place such belief in these a.s.sertions as to say confidently that this cactus is the same as that plant which is called by the Romans _carduus_, or thistle; as the Romans are at no great distance from Sicily, and as it is evidently the same plant which the Greeks call ?????a, or the artichoke? For if you merely change two letters, ???d?? and ???t?? will be the same word.

And Epicharmus also shows us plainly this, when he puts down the cactus in his catalogue of eatable vegetables; in this way--"The poppy, fennel, and the rough cactus; now one can eat of the other vegetables when dressed with milk, if he bruises them and serves them up with rich sauce, but by themselves they are not worth much." And in a subsequent pa.s.sage he says--"Lettuces, pines, squills, radishes, cacti." And again he says--"A man came from the country, bringing fennel, and cacti, and lavender, and sorrel, and chicory, and thistles, and ferns, and the cactus, and dractylus, and otostyllus, and scolium, and seni, and onopordus." And Philetas the Coan poet says--

A fawn about to die would make a noise, Fearing the venom of the th.o.r.n.y cactus.

84. And, indeed, Sopater the Paphian, who was born in the time of Alexander the son of Philip, and who lived even till the time of the second Ptolemy king of Egypt, called the artichoke ???a?a just as we do, as he himself declares in one of the books of his history. But Ptolemy Euergetes the king of Egypt, being one of the pupils of Aristarchus the grammarian, in the second book of his Commentaries writes thus--"Near Berenice, in Libya, is the river Lethon, in which there is the fish called the pike, and the chrysophrys, and a great mult.i.tude of eels, and also of lampreys which are half as big again as those which come from Macedonia and from the Copaic lake. And the whole stream is full of fishes of all sorts. And in that district there are a great quant.i.ty of anchovies, and the soldiers who composed our army picked them, and ate them, and brought them to us, the generals having stripped them of their thorns. I know, too, that there is an island called Cinarus, which is mentioned by Semus.

85. Now with respect to what is called the Brain of the Palm.--Theophrastus, speaking of the plant of the palm-tree, states, "The manner of cultivating it, and of its propagation from the fruit, is as follows: when one has taken off the upper rind, one comes to a portion in which is what is called the brain." And Xenophon, in the second book of the Anabasis, writes as follows: "There, too, the soldiers first ate the brain of the palm or date-tree. And many of them marvelled at its appearance, and at the peculiarity of its delicious flavour. But it was found to have a great tendency to produce headache; but the date, when the brain was taken out of it, entirely dried up."

Nicander says in his Georgics--

And at the same time cutting off the branches Loaded with dates they bring away the brain, A dainty greatly fancied by the young.

And Diphilus the Siphnian states--"The brains of the dates are filling and nutritious; still they are heavy and not very digestible: they cause thirst, too, and constipation of the stomach."

But we, says Athenaeus, O my friend Timocrates, shall appear to keep our brains to the end, if we stop this conversation and the book at this point.

_Some Fragments omitted in the Second Book of the Deipnosophists of Athenaeus._

86. Menander says--

It is a troublesome thing to fall in with An entire party of none but relations; Where as soon as he has taken his cup in his hand The father first begins the discourse, And stammers out his recommendations: Then after him the mother, in the second place; And then some old aunt gossips and chatters; And then some harsh-voiced old man, The father of the aunt aforesaid; then too Another old woman calls him her darling: And he nods a.s.sent to all that is said.

87. And a little afterwards he says--

Before the shade they wear a purple cloth, And then this comes after the purple; Being itself neither white nor purple, But a ray of the brilliancy of the woof as it were Of divers colours curiously blended.

Antiphanes says: "What do you say? Will you not bring something hither to the door which we may eat? and then I will sit on the ground and eat it as the beggars do: and any one may see me."

The same man says in another place--

Prepare then A fanner to cool me, a dish, a tripod, a cup, An ewer, a mortar, a pot, and a spoon.

_About the Ascent of the Nile._

88. Thales the Milesian, one of the seven wise men, says that the overflowing of the Nile arises from the Etesian winds; for that they blow up the river, and that the mouths of the river lie exactly opposite to the point from which they blow; and accordingly that the wind blowing in the opposite direction hinders the flow of the waters; and the waves of the sea, das.h.i.+ng against the mouth of the river, and coming on with a fair wind in the same direction, beat back the river, and in this manner the Nile becomes full to overflowing. But Anaxagoras the natural philosopher says that the fulness of the Nile arises from the snow melting; and so, too, says Euripides, and some others of the tragic poets. And Anaxagoras says that this is the sole origin of all that fulness; but Euripides goes further, and describes the exact place where this melting of the snow takes place; for in his play called "Archelaus"

he speaks thus:--

Danaus, the n.o.ble sire of fifty daughters, Leaving the Nile, the fairest stream on earth, Fill'd by the summer of the aethiop land, The negro's home, when the deep snow does melt, And o'er the land the Sun his chariot drives.

And in the "Helen" he says something similar:--

These are the beauteous virgin streams of Nile, Which in the place of rain bedew the plain Of Egypt when the white snow melts on th' hills.

And aeschylus says--

I know its history, and love to praise The race of the aethiop land, where mighty Nile Rolls down his seven streams the country through, When the spring winds bring down the heavy waters; What time the sun s.h.i.+ning along that land Dissolves the mountain snow; and the whole land Of flouris.h.i.+ng Egypt, fill'd with th' holy stream, Sends forth the vital ears of corn of Ceres.

89. And Callisthenes the historian argues against what I quoted just now as stated by Anaxagoras and Euripides: and he, too, declares his own opinion,--that as there is much very heavy and continued rain in aethiopia about the time of the rising of the Dogstar, and from that period till the rising of Arcturus, and as the Etesian winds blow at about the same time, (for these are the winds which he says have the greatest tendency to bring the clouds over aethiopia,) when the clouds fall upon the mountains in that region, a vast quant.i.ty of water bursts forth, in consequence of which the Nile rises. But Democritus says that about the winter solstice there are heavy falls of snow in the countries around the north; but that when the sun changes its course, at the summer solstice, the snow being melted and evaporated by the warmth, clouds are formed, and then the Etesian gales catch hold of them, and drive them towards the south; and when these clouds are all driven together towards aethiopia and Libya, a mighty rain ensues, and the water from that flows down the mountains and fills the Nile. This, then, is the cause which Democritus alleges for this fulness of the Nile.

90. But Euthymenes the Ma.s.siliote says, speaking of his own knowledge, acquired in a voyage which he had made, that the sea outside the Pillars of Hercules flows towards Libya and turns up and proceeds towards the north; and that then, being driven back by the Etesian gales, it is raised to a height by the winds, and flows high at that time; but, when the Etesian gales cease, it recedes. He says moreover, that that sea is sweet to the taste, and that it contains monsters like the crocodiles and the hippopotami in the Nile.

But nopides the Chian says, that in winter the sources of the river are dried up, but in the summer they are thawed and flow; and so that for the sake of filling up the previous dryness, the rains from heaven cooperate with * * * * * * * * And on this account the river is smaller in winter and is full in summer.

But Herodotus gives an explanation quite contrary to that of the rest of those who have discussed this subject, but agreeing with the explanation of nopides; for he says that the stream of the Nile is of such magnitude as always to fill the river; but that the sun, as it makes its journey through Libya in the winter, dries up the river at that time; but that as it has gone off towards the north at the time of the summer solstice, then the river becomes full again, and overflows the plains.

Now these are the mouths of the Nile:--towards Arabia, the Pelusiac mouth; towards Libya, the Canopic: and the rest are,--the Bolbitic, the Sebennytic, the Mendesian, the Saitic, and the Opuntic.

FOOTNOTES:

[62:1] We find something like this in Theoc. xxix. 1.

?????, ? f??e pa?, ???eta? ?a? ????ea.

[64:1] ???at?p?t??, drinker of unmixed wine.

[64:2] Fe?d?t?a was the Spartan name for the s?ss?t?a. _Vide_ Smith, Dict.

Ant. p. 928. _b_.

[65:1] Iliad, xvii. 180.

[66:1] Odyss. ix. 6.

[67:1] Odyss. v. 70.

[67:2] Ib. xii. 360.

[67:3] Iliad, xxii. 149.

[67:4] Ib. xi. 266.

[68:1] Iliad, xi. 477.