Footnote 804: Athen. vii. 32. ----- This honest fellow, in the opinion of Athenæus, exceeded in boasting even that Menecrates of Syracuse, who for his pride obtained the surname of Zeus; he was a physician, and used vauntingly to call himself the arbiter of life to mankind. He is supposed to have possessed some specific against epilepsy; but being afflicted with a vanity at least equal to his skill, he would undertake no one’s cure unless he first entered into an agreement to follow him round the country ever after as his slave, which great numbers actually did. Nicostratos, of Argos, one of the persons so restored, travelled in his train habited and equipped like Heracles; others personated Asclepios, and Apollo, while Menecrates himself enacted in this fantastic masquerade the part of Zeus; and, as the actors say, he dressed the character well, wearing a purple robe, a golden crown upon his head, sandals of the most magnificent description, and bearing a sceptre in his hand.[805] ----- Footnote 805: Athen. vii. 33. ----- But whatever might have been the conceit of our Syracusan physician, there were those among the cooking race, who certainly lagged not far behind him. They usually stunned such as came to hire them with reciting their own praises, laying claim to as much science and philosophy as would have sufficed to set up two or three sophists. In fact, to take them at their word, there was nothing which they did not know, nothing which they could not do. Painting they professed to comprehend as profound connoisseurs, and, no doubt, the soles they fried tasted all the better for the accomplishment. In astronomy, medicine, and geometry, they appear to have made a still greater proficiency than Hudibras, notwithstanding that— “In mathematics he was greater Than Tycho Brahe, or Erra Pater; For he by geometric scale Could take the size of pots of ale; Discern by sines and tangents strait If bread and butter wanted weight; And wisely tell what hour o’ the day The clock does strike by algebra.” In all this he was a fool to the Athenian cooks; for, by the help of astronomy, they could tell when mackerel was in season, and at what time of the year a haddock is better than a salmon. From geometry they borrowed the art of laying out a kitchen to the best advantage, and how to hang up the gridiron in one place, and the porridge-pot in another. To medicine it is easy to see how deeply they must have been indebted, since it not only taught them what meats are wholesome, and what not, but also enabled them by some sleight of art to diminish the appetite of those voracious parasites, who when they dined out appeared to have stomachs equal in capacity to the great tun of Heidelberg.[806] ----- Footnote 806: Athen. vii. 37. -----