Athen. xiv. 55. Footnote 466: Athen. xiv. 56. Footnote 467: Poll. vi. 76. Footnote 468: Athen. xiv. 56. ----- The trade of the butcher[469] was carried on at Athens by citizens,[470] whose shops in the Agora would seem to have been extremely well furnished, containing every variety of meat, from the chine of a prize ox,[471] to the hind quarter of an ass.[472] Sheep’s and kids’ heads were commonly sought to be rendered more attractive by having a branch of myrtle stuck between the teeth, whence one of the hetairæ was compared to a goat’s head, because she often walked the street with a sprig of myrtle in her mouth.[473] The information which antiquity has left us respecting butchers’ shops and implements is extremely imperfect. We are told simply, that they had chopping-blocks and cleavers, large axes with which animals were felled in the slaughter-houses, flaying knives, hooks whereon to suspend and display their stock, with scales for weighing meat.[474] A very curious anecdote is related of a Milesian butcher: there was a man named Killicon, who betrayed his native city Miletos, to the Prienians. Among his countrymen, who on this occasion became fugitives, was a butcher. This man fled to Samos, where he carried on his old business.[475] Some time after Killicon himself came to that island, and going into the market to buy provisions, by chance addressed himself to the Milesian butcher, whose name was Theagenes. The man remembered the traitor, and when he would have bought of him a piece of meat, desired Killicon to lay hold of the part he wanted, while he severed it from the carcase; then taking up an axe he smote off his hand, saying, “With that hand, at least, you shall never again betray your country.”[476] ----- Footnote 469: Κρεωπώλης. Butchers were also called μαγείροι κρεωδαίτας and κρεουργοὶ. Poll. vii. 25. Footnote 470: Athen. xiii. 43. Footnote 471: Jason of Pheræ once excited among the Thessalian cities a contention as to which of them should supply the finest ox: Ἐκήρυξε δὲ καὶ νικητήριον χρυσοῦν στέφανον ἔσεσθαι, εἴ τις τῶν πόλεων βοῦν ἡγεμόνα κάλλιστον τῷ θεῷ θρέψειε. Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4. 29. Footnote 472: Poll. ix. 48. Footnote 473: Athen. xiii. 23. Plut. Dem. § 12 Id. Dion. § 1. Footnote 474: Poll. vii. 25. Suid. v. κρεάγρα, t. i. p. 1521, seq. Footnote 475: Among the Romans in the good old days of the republic, gentlemen killed their own meat. “Suis enim fundum colit nostrum, quin sues habeat, et qui non audieret patres nostros dicere, ignavum, et sumptuosum esse, qui succidiam in carnario suspenderit potius ab laniario, quam ex domestico fundo?” Varro, De Re Rust. ii. 4. From the same author, (ii. 9,) we learn that ancient, like modern butchers, were fond of being attended by large fierce dogs, which he advises shepherds when in search of a co-guardian for their flocks most especially to eschew. Footnote 476: Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 359. -----