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
The comic poet Aristomenes, in his Bacchus, speaks of meat cured by
being sprinkled with salt, saying—
I put before you now this salted meat.
And in his Jugglers he says—
The servant always ate some salted crab.
76. But since we have here "fresh cheese (τρόφαλις), the glory of fair
Sicily," let us, my friends, also say something about cheese (τυρός).
For Philemon, in his play entitled The Sicilian, says—
I once did think that Sicily could make
This one especial thing, good-flavour'd cheese;
But now I've heard this good of it besides,
That not only is the cheese of Sicily good,
But all its pigeons too: and if one speaks
Of richly-broider'd robes, they are Sicilian;
And so I think that island now supplies
All sorts of dainties and of furniture.
The Tromilican[102] cheese also has a high character, respecting which
Demetrius the Scepsian writes thus in his second book of the Trojan
Array—"Tromilea is a city of Achaia, near which a delicious cheese is
made of goat's milk, not to be compared with any other kind, and it is
called Tromilican. And Simonides mentions it in his Iambic poem, which
begins thus—
You're taking wondrous trouble beforehand,
Telembrotus:
and in this poem he says—
And there is the fine Achaian cheese,
Called the Tromilican, which I've brought with me.
[Sidenote: CHEESE.]
And Euripides, in his Cyclops, speaks of a harsh-tasted cheese, which
he calls ὀπίας τυρὸς, being curdled by the juice ὀπὸς of the fig-tree—
There is, too, τυρὸς ὀπίας, and Jove's milk.[103]
But since, by speaking in this way of all the things which are now
put on the table before us, I am making the Tromilican cheese into
the remains of the dessert, I will not continue this topic. For
Eupolis calls the relics of sweetmeats (τραγημάτων) and confectionery
ἀποτραγήματα. And ridiculing a man of the name of Didymias, he calls
him the ἀποτράγημα of a fox, either because he was little in person,
or as being cunning and mischievous, as Dorotheus of Ascalon says.
There are also thin broad cheeses, which the Cretans call females,
as Seleucus tells us, which they offer up at certain sacrifices. And
Philippides, in his play called the Flutes, speaks of some called
πυρίεφθαι (and this is a name given to those made of cream), when he
says—
Having these πυρίεφθαι, and these herbs.
And perhaps all such things are included in this Macedonian term
ἐπιδειπνίδες. For all these things are provocatives to drinking.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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