Footnote 549: Od. κ. 234, seq. Footnote 550: Il. λ. 623, sqq. This mixture called κυκεὼν, is more than once mentioned by Plato—De Rep. iii. t. vi. p. 148. ----- Fruits and potherbs, as may be supposed, were already in use.[551] Garlic we have mentioned above; and Odysseus, after all his wars and wanderings, recalls to mind with a quite natural pleasure the apple and pear trees which his father, Laertes, had given him when a boy.[552] Alcinoös possessed a fine orchard, where, though the process of grafting is supposed to have been then unknown, we find a variety of beautiful fruits, as pears, apples, pomegranates, delicious figs, olives, and grapes; and in his kitchen-garden were all kinds of vegetables.[553] And the shadowy boughs of a similar orchard, covered with golden fruit, wave over Tantalos in Hades, but are blown back by the wind whenever the wretched old sinner stretches forth his hand towards them.[554] From this circumstance Athenæus, with much ingenuity, infers that fruit was actually in use before the Trojan war! Apples seem then, as now, to have constituted a favourite portion of the dessert, though among the Homeric warriors they seem sometimes to have formed a principal part of the meal; for Servius[555] describes the primitive repasts as consisting of two courses, of which the first was animal food, and apples the second. ----- Footnote 551: Cf. Hom. Il. λ. 629, seq. Footnote 552: Od. ω. 339. Footnote 553: Od. η. 115, sqq. Plut. Sympos. v. 8. Footnote 554: Od. λ. 587, sqq. Footnote 555: Ad Æneid. i. 727. Footnote 556: Il. ι. 214. In later times it was customary to bruise thyme small, and mingle it with salt to give it a finer flavour. Aristoph. Acharn. 772. Suid. v. θυμιτίδων ἁλῶν. t. i. p. 1336. b. -----