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
Dorion also mentions the eritimi, saying, that they are much the
same as the chalcides, and that they are very nice in forced meat.
And Epænetus, in his book upon Fishes, says—"The sea-weasel; the
smaris, which some call the dog's-bed; the chalcides, which they
also call sardini; the eritimi, the sea-hawk, and the sea-swallow."
And Aristotle, in the fifth book of his Parts of Animals, calls them
sardines. And Callimachus, in his Names used by different Nations,
writes thus—"The encrasicholus, the eritimus, are names used by the
Chalcedonians; the trichidia, the chalcis, the ictar, the atherina."
And in another part, giving a list of the names of fishes, he says—"The
ozæna, the osmylnion, are names used by the Thurians; the iopes, the
eritimi, are names used by the Athenians." And Nicander mentions the
iopes in his Bœotian,—
[Sidenote: FISH.]
But as when round a shoal of newly born
Iopes, phagri, or fierce scopes roam,
Or the large orphus.
And Aristophanes, in his Ships of Burden, says—
O wretched fish, the first of trichides
To be immersed in pickle.
For they used to steep in pickle all the fish which were proper to be
dressed on the coals. And they called pickle, Thasian brine; as also
the same poet says in his Wasps,—
For before that it twice drank in the brine.
138. There is also a fish called the thratta. And since we have brought
the discussion to this point, and have also discussed the thrissa; let
us now examine what the thrattæ are, which are mentioned by Archippus,
in his play called the Fishes. For in that play, in the treaty between
the Fishes and the Athenians, he introduces the following sentences—
And it is agreed on further
That both the high contracting parties
Shall restore all they now do hold
Of each other's property.
We shall give up thus the Thrattæ,
And the flute-playing Atherina,
And Thyrsus's daughter Sepia,
And the mullet, and Euclides,
Who was archon t'other day,
And the coraciontes too,
Who from Anagyrus come;
And the offspring of the tench,
Who swims round sacred Salamis;
And the frog who's seated near,
From the marshes of Oreum.
Now in these lines, perhaps a man may ask what sort of thrattæ among
the fishes are meant here, which the fish agree to give up to the men.
And since I have got some private things written out on this subject,
I will now recite to you that portion of them which bears most on the
subject.
The thratta, then, is really a genuine sea-fish; and Mnesimachus, in
his Horse-breeder, mentions it; and Mnesimachus is a poet of the middle
comedy. And he speaks thus—
The mullet, and the lebias, and the sparus,
The bright æolias, and the thratta too,
The sea-swallow, the caris, and the cuttle-fish.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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