The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus Part 35

While still a boy, bearing my sister company, I came to Athens, by some merchant brought; For Syria was my birthplace. There that merchant Saw us when we were both put up for sale, And bought us, driving a most stingy bargain.

No man could e'er in wickedness surpa.s.s him; So miserly, that nothing except thyme Was ever bought by him for food, not e'en So much as might have fed Pythagoras.

73. While Ulpian went on jesting in this manner, Cynulcus cried out--I want some bread; and when I say bread ?rtos I do not mean Artus king of the Messapians, the Messapians, I mean, in Iapygia, concerning whom there is a treatise among Polemo's works. And Thucydides also mentions him, in his seventh book, and Demetrius the comic writer speaks of him in the drama ent.i.tled Sicily, using the following language--

From thence, borne on by the south wind, we came Across the sea to the Italian sh.o.r.e, Where the Messapians dwelt; and Artus there, The monarch of the land, received us kindly, A great and n.o.ble host for foreigners.

But this is not the time for speaking of that Artus, but of the other, which was discovered by Ceres, surnamed Sito (food), and Simalis. For those are the names under which the G.o.ddess is wors.h.i.+pped by the Syracusans, as Polemo himself reports in his book about Morychus. But in the first book of his treatise addressed to Timaeus, he says, that in Scolus, a city of Botia, statues are erected to Megalartus (the G.o.d or G.o.ddess of great bread), and to Megalomazus (the G.o.d or G.o.ddess of abundant corn). So when the loaves were brought, and on them a great quant.i.ty of all kinds of food, looking at them, he said--

What numerous nets and snares are set by men To catch the helpless loaves;

as Alexis says in his play, The Girl sent to the Well. And so now let us say something about bread.

74. But Pontia.n.u.s antic.i.p.ating him, said; Tryphon of Alexandria, in the book ent.i.tled the Treatise on Plants, mentions several kinds of loaves; if I can remember them accurately, the leavened loaf, the unleavened loaf, the loaf made of the best wheaten flour, the loaf made of groats, the loaf made of remnants (and this he says is more digestible than that which is made only of the best flour), the loaf made of rye, the loaf made of acorns, the loaf made of millet. The loaf made of groats, said he, is made of oaten groats, for groats are not made of barley. And from a peculiar way of baking or roasting it, there is a loaf called ipnites (or the oven loaf) which Timocles mentions in his Sham Robbers, where he says--

And seeing there a tray before me full Of smoking oven-loaves, I took and ate them.

There is another kind called escharites (or the hearth-loaf), and this is mentioned by Antidotus in the Protochorus--

I took the hot hearth-loaves, how could I help it?

And dipp'd them in sweet sauce, and then I ate them.

And Crobylus says, in his Strangled Man--

I took a platter of hot clean hearth-loaves.

And Lynceus the Samian, in his letter to Diagoras, comparing the eatables in vogue at Athens with those which were used at Rhodes, says--"And moreover, while they talk a great deal about their bread which is to be got in the market, the Rhodians at the beginning and middle of dinner put loaves on the table which are not at all inferior to them; but when they have given over eating and are satisfied, then they introduce a most agreeable dish, which is called the hearth-loaf, the best of all loaves; which is made of sweet things, and compounded so as to be very soft, and it is made up with such an admirable harmony of all the ingredients as to have a most excellent effect; so that often a man who is drunk becomes sober again, and in the same way a man who has just eaten to satiety is made hungry again by eating of it."

There is another kind of loaf called tabyrites, of which Sopater, in his Cnidia, says--The tabyrites loaf was one which fills the cheeks.

There was also a loaf called the achaeinas. And this loaf is mentioned by Semus, in the eighth book of his Delias; and he says that is made by the women who celebrate the Thesmophoria. They are loaves of a large size.

And the festival is called Megalartia, which is a name given to it by those who carry these loaves, who cry--"Eat a large achaeinas, full of fat."

There is another loaf called cribanites, or the pan-loaf. This is mentioned by Aristophanes, in his Old Age. And he introduces a woman selling bread, complaining that her loaves have been taken from her by those who have got rid of the effects of their old age--

_A._ What was the matter?

_B._ My hot loaves, my son.

_A._ Sure you are mad?

_B._ My nice pan-loaves, my son, So white, so hot. . . . . .

There is another loaf called the encryphias, or secret loaf. And this is mentioned by Nicostratus, in his Hierophant, and Archestratus the inventor of made dishes, whose testimony I will introduce at the proper season.

There is a loaf also called dipyrus, or twice-baked. Eubulus says, in his Ganymede--

And nice hot twice-baked loaves.

And Alcaeus says, in his Ganymede--

_A._ But what are dipyri, or twice-baked loaves?

_B._ Of all loaves the most delicate.

There is another loaf, called laganum. This is very light, and not very nutritious; and the loaf called apanthracis is even less nutritious still. And Aristophanes mentions the laganum in his Ecclesiazusae, saying--

The lagana are being baked.

And the apanthracis is mentioned by Diocles the Carystian, in the first book of his treatise on Wholesomes, saying--"The apanthracis is more tender than the laganum: and it appears that it is made on the coals, like that called by the Attic writers encryphias, which the Alexandrians consecrate to Saturn, and put them in the temple of Saturn for every one to eat who pleases."

75. And Epicharmus, in his Hebe's Marriage, and in his Muses (and this play is an emendation of the former one), thus enumerates the different kinds of loaves--"The pan-loaf, the h.o.m.orus, the stat.i.tes, the encris, the loaf made of meal, the half loaf," which Sophron also mentions in his Female Actors, saying--

Pan-loaves and h.o.m.ori, a dainty meal For G.o.ddesses, and a half-loaf for Hecate.

And I know, my friends, that the Athenians spell this word with a ?, writing ???a??? and ???a??t??; but Herodotus, in the second book of his history, writes it with a ?, saying ?????? d?afa?e?. And so Sophron said--

Who dresses suet puddings or clibanites, Or half-loaves here?

And the same writer also speaks of a loaf which he calls p?a??t??, saying in his Gynaecea--

He feasted me till night with placite loaves.

Sophron also mentions tyron bread, or bread compounded with cheese, saying in the play called the Mother-in-law--

I bid you now eat heartily, For some one has just giv'n a tyron loaf, Fragrant with cheese, to all the children.

And Nicander of Colophon, in his Dialects, calls unleavened bread d??at??. And Plato the comic writer, in his Long Night, calls large ill-made loaves Cilician, in these words--

Then he went forth, and bought some loaves, not nice Clean rolls, but dirty huge Cilicians.

And in the drama ent.i.tled Menelaus, he calls some loaves agelaei, or _common loaves_. There is also a loaf mentioned by Alexis, in his Cyprian, which he calls autopyrus--

Having just eaten autopyrus bread.

And Phrynichus, in his Poastriae, speaks of the same loaves, calling them autopyritae, saying--

With autopyrite loaves, and sweeten'd cakes Of well-press'd figs and olives.

And Sophocles makes mention of a loaf called orindes, in his Triptolemus, which has its name from being made of rice ????a, or from a grain raised in aethiopia, which resembles sesamum.

Aristophanes also, in his Tagenistae, or the Fryers, makes mention of rolls called collabi, and says--

Each of you take a collabus.

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

Bring here a paunch of pig in autumn born, With hot delicious collabi.