Athen. i. 7. This ox was sacrificed to Zeus the Fly-Chaser, in order to prevail on him to drive the swarms of insects, by which the spectators were incommoded, beyond the Alpheios. Cf. Plin. Nat. Hist. x. 40. ix. 34. Pausan. v. 14. i. viii. 26. 7. Ælian. De Nat. Animal. v. 17. xi. 8. ----- Besides Archestratos, there were several other celebrated gastronomers among the ancients. Of these the principal were Timachidas, of Rhodes, who wrote a poem in eleven books on good eating,[812] Noumenios, of Heraclea, pupil to the physician Dieuches, Metreas, of Pitana, the parodist Hegemon, of Thasos, surnamed the _Lentil_, by some reckoned among the poets of the old comedy, Philoxenos, of Leucadia, and a second Philoxenos, of Cythera, who composed his work in hexameter verse. The former, after chaunting the eulogium of the kettle, comes nevertheless to the conclusion at last, that superior merit belongs to the frying-pan. He earnestly recommended truffles to lovers, but would not have them touch the barbel. His anger burst forth with great vehemence against those who cut in pieces fish which should be served up whole; and, though he admits that a polypus may occasionally be boiled, it was much better, he says, to fry it. From this man the Philoxenian cakes derived their name; and he it is whom Chrysippos reproaches with half scalding his fingers in the warm bath and gargling his throat with hot water, in order that he might be able to swallow kabobs hissing from the coals.[813] He likewise used, at the houses of his friends, to bribe the cooks to bring up everything fiery hot, that he might help himself before any one else could touch them. A kindred gourmand, in the poet Krobylos, exclaims: “My fingers are insensible to fire like the Dactyls of Mount Ida. And ah! how delightful it is to refresh my throat with the crackling flakes of broiled fish! Oh I am in fact an oven, not a man!” ----- Footnote 812: Athen. i. 8. Suidas. v. Τιμαχίδας. t. i. p. 899, seq. Footnote 813: Athen. i. 9. -----