The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 2 (of 3)Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Philosophy
The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 2 (of 3)
Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Civilization, Greco-Roman; Dinners and dining -- Greece; Greece -- Social life and customs; Homosexuality -- Greece
97. There is also a fish called the orphos (ὄρφως); but the word is
also spelt with an ο (ὄρφος), as Pamphilus tells us. But Aristotle, in
the fifth book of his Parts of Animals, where he says that the growth
of most fish is very rapid, says, "The orphos also grows to a large
fish from a little one with great rapidity; but he is a carnivorous
fish, with serrated teeth, and of a solitary disposition. And there is
this peculiarity in him, that it cannot be ascertained what means he
has of propagating his species, and that he can live a long time after
he has been cut in pieces. He is also one of those fish which bury
themselves in holes during the winter season, and he is fond of keeping
close to the land, rather than of going into the deep sea; but he does
not live more than two years. And Numenius, speaking of this fish, says—
Now with such baits as these it is not hard
To draw the lengthy scorpion from his bed,
Or the rough orphus: for they're easily caught.
And in another place he says—
The grayling, or the sea-born race of orphi,
Or the dark flesh'd sea-blackbird.
But Dorion says that the young orphus is called by some the orphacines.
And Archippus says, in his Fishes,—
The orphus came to them, the priest o' the god.
And Cratinus says, in his Ulysses,—
A hot slice of the newly taken orphus.
And Plato, in his Cleophon, says—
For he has brought you here, old dame, to dwell,
A rotten food for orphi and for phagri,
And other gristly boneless fish around.
And Aristophanes, in his Wasps, says—
If a man be inclined to purchase orphi,
And likes to leave alone the membrades.
Now this word ὀρφὼς, in the nominative case singular, is accented with
an acute on the ultima by the Attic writers; so Archippus writes the
word, in his Fishes, in the lines which I have already quoted; and
Cratinus also, in his Ulysses, as I have above quoted it, writes—
τέμαχος ὀρφὼ χλιαρόν.
98. There is also a fish called orcynus. Dorion, in his treatise on
Fishes, says that the orcyni come from the sea near the Pillars of
Hercules to the waters on our coasts; on which account, a great number
are taken in the Iberian and Tyrrhenian seas; and that from thence
they are dispersed over the rest of the sea. But Icesius says that
those which are caught near Cadiz are the fattest, and next to them
those which are taken near Sicily. But that those which are taken at
any great distance from the Pillars of Hercules have very little fat
on them, because they have swum a very great distance. Accordingly,
at Cadiz, it is only the shoulders by themselves which are dried and
cured; as also it is only the jaws and palate of the sturgeon, and that
part which is called the melandryas, which is cured. But Icesius says
that the entrails are very rich, and very different in flavour from the
other parts; and that the parts about the shoulders are superior even
to these.
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