Like the sepia, of which excellent pilaus are made at Alexandria, the porphyra or purple fish was very good eating, and thickened the liquor in which it was boiled.[606] There was a small delicate shell-fish caught on the island of Pharos and adjacent coasts of Egypt, which they called Aphrodite’s ear,[607] and there is still found on the same coast near Canopos a diminutive and beautiful rose-coloured conch called Venus’s nipple. On the same shore, about the rise of the Nile, that species of mussel called tellinè was caught in great abundance, but the best-tasted were said to be found in the river itself. A still finer kind were in season about autumn in the vicinity of Ephesos. The echinos, or sea-chestnut,[608] cooked with oxymel, parsley, and mint, was esteemed good and wholesome eating. Those caught about Cephalonia, Icaria, and Achaia were bitterish, those of Sicily laxative; the best were the red and the quince coloured. A laughable anecdote is told of a Spartan, who being invited to dine where sea-chestnuts were brought to table, took one upon his plate, and not knowing how they were eaten put it into his mouth, shell and all. Finding it exceedingly unmanageable, he turned it about for some time, seeking slowly and cautiously to discover the knack of eating it. But the rough and prickly shell still resisting his efforts, his temper grew ruffled: crunching it fiercely he exclaimed, “Detestable beast! Well! I will not let thee go now, after having thus ground thee to pieces; but assuredly I will never touch thee again.” ----- Footnote 606: Athen. iii. 30. During their long fasts the modern Greeks also eat the cuttle-fish, snails, &c. Chandler, ii. 143. Footnote 607: Athen. iii. 35. Footnote 608: Athen. iii. 40. The taking of this fish at Sunium is thus described by Chandler: “Meanwhile our sailors, except two or three who accompanied us, stripped to their drawers to bathe, all of them swimming and diving remarkably well; some running about on the sharp rocks with their naked feet, as if devoid of feeling, and some examining the bottom of the clear water for the Echinus or sea-chestnut, a species of shell-fish common on this coast, and now in perfection, the moon being nearly at the full.” Vol. ii. p. 8. ----- Oysters were esteemed good when boiled with mallows, or monks’ rhubarb.[609] In general, however, the physicians of antiquity considered them hard of digestion. But lest the shelled-fish should usurp more space than is their due, we shall conclude with Archestratos’ list, in which he couples with each the name of the place where the best were caught: