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
And Diphilus says--"Vetches are very indigestible, create moisture, they
are also diuretic, and apt to cause flatulence." And according to
Diocles, they produce a sort of fermentation in the body. The white
vetches are better than the black; and so also are the yellow or
box-coloured. And the Milesian are better than those called κρεῖοι; and
the green are better than the dry, and those which have been soaked are
better than those which have not been. The discoverer of the vetch is
said to have been Neptune.
45. With respect to Lupins. Alexis says--
A curse upon the man;
Let him not come near me, who eats lupins in season,
And then leaves the husks and shells in the vestibule.
Why was he not choked while eating them? I know,
I know most certainly, that Cleænetus the tragedian
Did not eat them. For Cleænetus
Never threw away the husk of a single vegetable,
So exceedingly economical is that man.
And Lycophron of Chalcis, in a satiric drama which he wrote against
Menedemus the philosopher, for the purpose of turning him into
ridicule, (it was from Menedemus that the sect of the Eretrians derived
its name,) laughs at the suppers of the philosophers, and says--
The lupin, common to all the people, in great plenty
Danced upon the board, the companion of poor couches.
And Diphilus says--
There is no business more mischievous or degrading
Than that of the pander.
I would rather walk along the streets selling
Roses, and radishes, and lupin-beans, and press'd olives,
And anything else in the world, rather than give encouragement
To such a miserable trade.
And you may observe, that he then uses the expression θερμοκύαμοι,
lupin-beans, as they are called even now. Polemo says, that the
Lacedæmonians call lupins λυσιλαΐδες. And Theophrastus, in his book
about The Causes of Plants, tells us that the lupin, and the bitter
vetch, and the common vetch, are the only kinds of green vegetable which
do not produce animal life, because of their harshness and bitterness.
But the vetch, says he, turns black as it decays. He says, also, that
caterpillars come in vetches, and it is in the fourth book of the same
treatise that he states this. Diphilus the Siphnian writer says that
lupins are very apt to create moisture, and are very nutritious,
especially those kinds which are rendered sweet by being soaked. On
which account Zeno the Citiæan, a man of harsh disposition and very apt
to get in a passion with his friends, when he had taken a good deal of
wine, became sweet-tempered and gentle; and when people asked him what
produced this difference in his disposition, he said, that he was
subject to the same influences as lupins: for that they before they were
cooked were very bitter; but that when they had been steeped in liquor
they were sweet and wholesome.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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