This basket was usually of rushes, in form like a basin, and with a handle passing over the top.—Antich. di Ercol. tav. 21. tom. i. p. 111. ----- The unmoneyed rogue, however, whose ambitious taste soared to these expensive dainties, approached the market with a rueful countenance. Thus we find a poor fellow describing, in Antiphanes, his morning’s pilgrimage in search of a pair of soles: I once believed the Gorgons fabulous: But in the agora quickly changed my creed, And turned almost to stone, the pests beholding Standing behind the fish stalls. Forced I am To look another way when I accost them, Lest if I saw the fish they ask so much for, I should at once grow marble.[582] ----- Footnote 582: Athen. vi. 4. ----- Amphis, another comic poet, supplies us with further details respecting the hardships encountered by those who had to deal with fishmongers at Athens. Much of his wit is, I fear, intransferable, depending in a great measure on the vernacular clipping of Greek common in the market-place. But the sense, at least, may perhaps be given: “Ten thousand times more easy ’tis to gain Admission to a haughty general’s tent, And have discourse of him, than in the market Audience to get of a cursed fishmonger. If you draw near and say, How much, my friend, Costs _this_ or _that_?—No answer. Deaf you think The rogue must be, or stupid; for he heeds not A syllable you say, but o’er his fish Bends silently like Telephos (and with good reason, For his whole race he knows are cut-throats all). Another minding not, or else not hearing, Pulls by the legs a polypus.[583] A third With saucy carelessness replies, ‘Four oboli, That’s just the price. For this no less than eight. Take it or leave it!’”[584] ----- Footnote 583: Cf. Chandler, ii. 143. Plin. Hist. Nat. ix. 45, seq. Footnote 584: Athen. vi. 5. ----- Alexis, too, that most comic of comic writers, seems to have imagined, that the humour of his pieces would be incomplete without a spice of the fishmonger. Commencing, like Amphis, with an allusion to the haughty airs of military men, he glides into his subject as follows:— However, this is still endurable. But when a paltry fishfag will look big, Cast down his eyes affectedly, or bend His eyebrows upwards like a fullstrained bow, I burst with rage. Demand what price he asks For—say two mullets; and he answers straight “Ten obols”—“Ten? That’s dear: will you take eight?” “Yes, if one fish will serve you.”—“Friend, no jokes; I am no subject for your mirth.”—“Pass on, Sir! And buy elsewhere.”—Now tell me is not this Bitterer than gall?[585] ----- Footnote 585: Athen. vi. 5. -----