The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 3 (of 3)Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Philosophy
The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 3 (of 3)
Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Civilization, Greco-Roman; Dinners and dining -- Greece; Greece -- Social life and customs; Homosexuality -- Greece
And Æschylides too, in the third book of his Georgics, shows us that it
is a different fruit from the pear, and sweeter. For he is speaking of
the island Ceos, and he expresses himself thus,—"The island produces
the very finest pears, equal to that fruit which in Ionia is called
hamamelis; for they are free from kernels, and sweet, and delicious."
But Aethlius, in the fifth book of his Samian Annals, if the book be
genuine, calls them homomelides. And Pamphilus, in his treatise on
Dialects and Names, says, "The epimelis is a species of pear." Antipho,
in his treatise on Agriculture, says that the phocides are also a kind
of pear.
64. Then there are pomegranates. And of pomegranates some kinds are
said to be destitute of kernels, and some to have hard ones. And those
without kernels are mentioned by Aristophanes in his Farmers; and in
his Anagyrus he says—
Except wheat-flour and pomegranates.
He also speaks of them in the Gerytades; and Hermippus, in his
Cercopes, says—
Have you e'er seen the pomegranate's kernel in snow?
And we find the diminutive form ῥοίδιον, like βοίδιον.
Antiphanes also mentions the pomegranates with the hard kernels in his
Bœotia—
I bade him bring me from the farm pomegranates
Of the hard-kernell'd sort.
And Epilycus, in his Phoraliscus, says—
You are speaking of apples and pomegranates.
[Sidenote: POMEGRANATES.]
Alexis also, in his Suitors, has the line—
He took the rich pomegranates from their hands.
But Agatharchides, in the nineteenth book of his History of Europe,
tells us that the Bœotians call pomegranates not ῥοιαὶ but σίδαι,
speaking thus:—"As the Athenians were disputing with the Bœotians
about a district which they called Sidæ, Epaminondas, while engaged
in upholding the claims of the Bœotians, suddenly lifted up in his
left hand a pomegranate which he had concealed, and showed it to
the Athenians, asking them what they called it, and when they said
ῥοιὰ, 'But we,' said he, 'call it σίδη.' And the district bears
the pomegranate-tree in great abundance, from which it originally
derived its name. And Epaminondas prevailed." And Menander, in his
Heauton-Timorumenos, called them ῥοίδια, in the following lines—
And after dinner I did set before them
Almonds, and after that we ate pomegranates.
There is, however, another plant called sida, which is something like
the pomegranate, and which grows in the lake Orchomenus, in the water
itself; and the sheep eat its leaves, and the pigs feed on the young
shoots, as Theophrastus tells us, in the fourth book of his treatise on
Plants; where he says that there is another plant like it in the Nile,
which grows without any roots.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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