The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus Part 25

[74:1] ?p?f????, ill.u.s.trious. ?p?a???, mad.

[82:1] A cubit was about 18-1/4 inches.

[84:1] The description of the mulberry given here, shows that it is rather a blackberry than our modern mulberry.

[89:1] Liddell and Scott quote Arist. Pac. 1136, to show that ???????? were eaten roasted like chestnuts, and sometimes raw, for dessert.

BOOK III.--EPITOME.

1. Callimachus the grammarian said that a great book was equivalent to a great evil.

With respect to Ciboria, or Egyptian beans, Nicander says in his Georgics--

You may sow the Egyptian bean, in order in summer To make its flowers into garlands; and when the ciboria Have fallen, then give the ripe fruit to the youths Who are feasting with you, into their hands, as they have been a long time Wis.h.i.+ng for them; but roots I boil, and then place on the table at feasts.

But when Nicander speaks of "roots," he means the things which are called by the Alexandrians _colocasia_; as he says elsewhere--

Have peel'd the beans, and cut up the colocasia.

Now there is at Sicyon a temple to the Colocasian Minerva. There is also a kind of cup called ???????.[122:1]

2. Theophrastus, in his book on Plants, writes thus: "The bean in Egypt grows in marshes and swamps; and its stalk is in length, when it is at the largest, about four cubits; but in thickness, it is as thick as one's finger: and it is like a long reed, only without joints. But it has divisions within, running through the whole of it, like honeycombs.

And on this stalk is the head and the flower, being about twice the size of a poppy; and its colour is like that of a rose, very full coloured; and it puts forth large leaves. But the root is thicker than the thickest reed, and it has divisions like the stalk. And people eat it boiled, and roasted, and raw. And the men who live near the marshes eat it very much. It grows, too, in Syria and in Cilicia, but those countries do not ripen it thoroughly. It grows, too, around Torone in Chalcidice, in a marsh of moderate size, and that place ripens it, and it brings its fruit to perfection there. But Diphilus the Siphnian says, "The root of the Egyptian bean, which is called colocasium, is very good for the stomach, and very nutritious, but it is not very digestible, being very astringent; and that is the best which is the least woolly.

But the beans which are produced by the plant called _ciborium_, when they are green are indigestible, not very nutritious, easily pa.s.s through one, and are apt to cause flatulence; but when they are dry they are not so flatulent. And from the genuine ciborium there is a flower which grows which is made into garlands. And the Egyptians call the flower the lotus; but the Naucrat.i.tans tell me, says Athenaeus, that its name is the melilotus: and it is of that flower that the melilotus garlands are made, which are very fragrant, and which have a cooling effect in the summer season.

3. But Phylarchus says, "that though Egyptian beans had never been sown before in any place, and had never produced fruit if any one had by chance sown a few, except in Egypt, still, in the time of Alexander the king, the son of Pyrrhus, it happened that some sprung up near the river Thyamis in Thesprotia in Epirus, in a certain marsh in that district; and for two years continuously they bore fruit and grew; and that on this Alexander put a guard over them, and not only forbade any one to pick them, but would not allow any one to approach the place: and on this the marsh dried up; and for the future it not only never produced the above-mentioned fruit, but it does not appear even to have furnished any water. And something very like this happened at aedepsus. For at a distance from all other waters there was a spring sending forth cold water at no great distance from the sea; and invalids who drank this water were greatly benefited: on which account many repaired thither from great distances, to avail themselves of the water. Accordingly the generals of king Antigonus, wis.h.i.+ng to be economical with respect to it, imposed a tax to be paid by those who drank it: and on this the spring dried up. And in the Troas in former times all who wished it were at liberty to draw water from the Tragasaean lake; but when Lysimachus became ruler there, and put a tax on it, that lake, too, disappeared: and as he marvelled at this, as soon as he remitted the tribute and left the place free, the water came again.

4. With respect to Cuc.u.mbers.--There is a proverb--

Eat the cuc.u.mber, O woman, and weave your cloak.

And Matron says, in his Parodies--

And I saw a cuc.u.mber, the son of the all-glorious Earth, Lying among the herbs; and it was served up on nine tables.[123:1]

And Laches says--

But, as when cuc.u.mber grows up in a dewy place.

Now the Attic writers always use the word s????? as a word of three syllables. But Alcaeus uses it as a dissyllable, s????; for he says, d???

t?? s????? from the nominative s????, a word like st????, st?????. And Phrynichus uses the word s???d??? as a diminutive, where he says--

??t?a?e?? s???d???, to eat a little cuc.u.mber.

[_From this point are the genuine words of Athenaeus._[124:1]]

I will send radishes and four cuc.u.mbers.

And Phrynichus too used the word s???d??? as a diminutive, in his Monotropus; where he says, ???t?a?e?? s???d???.

5. But Theophrastus says that there are three kinds of cuc.u.mbers, the Lacedaemonian, the Scytalian, and the Botian; and that of these the Lacedaemonian, which is a watery one, is the best; and that the others do not contain water. "Cuc.u.mbers too," says he, "contain a more agreeable and wholesome juice if the seed be steeped in milk or in mead before it is sown;" and he a.s.serts in his book on the Causes of Plants, that they come up quicker if they are steeped either in water or milk before they are put in the ground. And Euthydemus says, in his treatise on Vegetables, that there is one kind of cuc.u.mber which is called d?a???t?a?. But Demetrius Ixios states, in the first book of his treatise on Etymologies, that the name s????? is derived ?p? t?? se?es?a? ?a? ??e??, from _bursting forth and proceeding_; for that it is a thing which spreads fast and wide. But Heraclides of Tarentum calls the cuc.u.mber ?d??a???, which means _growing in sweet earth_, or _making the earth sweet_, in his Symposium. And Diocles of Carystos says that cuc.u.mber, if it is eaten with the sium in the first course, makes the eater uncomfortable; for that it gets into the head as the radish does; but that if it is eaten at the end of supper it causes no uncomfortable feelings, and is more digestible; and that when it is boiled it is moderately diuretic.

But Diphilus says--"The cuc.u.mber being a cooling food is not very manageable, and is not easily digested or evacuated; besides that, it creates shuddering feelings and engenders bile, and is a great preventive against amatory feelings." But cuc.u.mbers grow in gardens at the time of full moon, and at that time they grow very visibly, as do the sea-urchins.

6. With respect to Figs.--The fig-tree, says Magnus, (for I will not allow any one to take what I have to say about figs out of my mouth, not if I were to be hanged for it, for I am most devilishly fond of figs, and I will say what occurs to me;) "the fig-tree, my friends, was the guide to men to lead them to a more civilized life. And this is plain from the fact that the Athenians call the place where it was first discovered The Sacred Fig; and the fruit from it they call _hegeteria_, that is to say, "the guide," because that was the first to be discovered of all the fruits now in cultivation. Now there are many species of figs;--there is the Attic sort, which Antiphanes speaks of in his Synonymes; and when he is praising the land of Attica, he says--

_A._ What fruits this land produces!

Superior, O Hipponicus, to the world.

What honey, what bread, what figs!

_Hipp._ It does, by Jove!

Bear wondrous figs.

And Isistrus, in his "Attics," says that it was forbidden to export out of Attica the figs which grew in that country, in order that the inhabitants might have the exclusive enjoyment of them. And as many people were detected in sending them away surrept.i.tiously, those who laid informations against them before the judges were then first called sycophants. And Alexis says, in his "The Poet"--

The name of sycophant is one which does Of right apply to every wicked person; For figs when added to a name might show Whether the man was good and just and pleasant; But now when a sweet name is given a rogue, It makes us doubt why this should be the case.

And Philomnestus, in his treatise on the Festival of Apollo at Rhodes, which is called the Sminthian festival, says--"Since the sycophant got his name from these circ.u.mstances, because at that time there were fines and taxes imposed upon figs and oil and wine, by the produce of which imposts they found money for the public expenses; they called those who exacted these fines and laid these informations sycophants, which was very natural, selecting those who were accounted the most considerable of the citizens.

7. And Aristophanes mentions the fig, in his "Farmers;" speaking as follows:--

I am planting figs of all sorts except the Lacedaemonian, For this kind is the fig of an enemy and a tyrant: And it would not have been so small a fruit if it had not been a great hater of the people.

But he called it small because it was not a large plant. But Alexis, in his "Olynthian," mentioning the Phrygian figs, says--

And the beautiful fig, The wonderful invention of the Phrygian fig, The divine object of my mother's care.

And of those figs which are called f???e??, mention is made by many of the comic writers; and Pherecrates, in his "c.r.a.patalli," says--

O my good friend, make haste and catch a fever, And then alarm yourself with no anxiety, But eat Phibalean figs all the summer; And then, when you have eaten your fill, sleep the whole of the midday; And than feel violent pains, get in a fever, and holloa.

And Teleclides, in his Amphictyons, says--

How beautiful those Phibalean figs are!

They also call myrtle-berries Phibalean. As Antiphanes does in his "Cretans"--

. . . . . But first of all I want some myrtle-berries on the table, Which I may eat when e'er I counsel take; And they must be Phibalean, very fine, Fit for a garland.

Epigenes too mentions Chelidonian figs, that is, figs fit for swallows, in his Bacchea--