The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 1 (of 3)Athenaeus, of Naucratis
General
The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 1 (of 3)
Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Civilization, Greco-Roman; Dinners and dining -- Greece; Greece -- Social life and customs; Homosexuality -- Greece
92. But Diphilus the Siphnian says, "The salt pickles which are made of
fish, whether caught in the sea, or in the lake, or in the river, are
not very nourishing, nor very juicy, but are inflammatory, and act
strongly on the bowels, and are provocative of desire. But the best of
them are those which are made of animals devoid of fat, such as cybia,
and horæa, and other kinds like them. And of fat fish, the best are the
different kinds of tunny, and the young of the tunny; for the old ones
are larger and harsher to the taste; and above all, the Byzantine
tunnies are so. But the tunny, says he, is the same as the larger
pelamys, the small kind of which is the same as the cybium, to which
species the horæum also belongs. But the sarda is of very nearly the
same size as the colias. And the scombrus is a light fish, and one which
the stomach easily gets rid of; but the colias is a glutinous fish, very
like a squill, and apt to give twinges, and has an inferior juice, but
nevertheless is nutritious. And the best are those which are called the
Amyclæan, and the Spanish, which is also called the Saxitan; for they
are lighter and sweeter."
But Strabo, in the third book of his work on Geography, says that near
the Islands of Hercules,[199:1] and off the city of Carthagena, is a
city named Sexitania, from which the salt-fish above-mentioned derive
their name; and there is another city called Scombroaria, so called from
the scombri which are caught in its neighbourhood, and of them the best
sauce is made. But there are also fish which are called melandryæ,
which are mentioned by Epicharmus also, in his Ulysses the Deserter, in
this way--
Then there was salt and pickled fish to eat,
Something not quite unlike melandryæ.
But the melandrys is the largest description of tunny, as Pamphilus
explains in his treatise on Names; and that when preserved is very rich
and oily.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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