CHAPTER IV.
POULTRY, FRUIT, WINE, ETC.
The reader by this time will, probably, be willing to escape from fish, though it would be easy to treat him to many new kinds, and along with us take a slice of Greek pheasant, or the breast of an Egyptian quail. In other words, he will hear what we have to say on Hellenic poultry. Chrysippos, in his treatise on things desirable in themselves, appears to have reckoned Athenian cocks and hens among the number, and reprehends the people of Attica for importing, at great expense, barn-door fowls from the shores of the Adriatic, though of smaller size, and much inferior to their own; while the inhabitants of those countries, on the other hand, were anxious to possess Attic poultry.[621] Matron, the parodist, who furnishes an amusing description of an Athenian repast, observes, that excellent wild ducks were brought to town from Salamis, where they grew fat in great numbers on the borders of the sacred Lake.[622]
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Footnote 621:
Athen. vii. 23.
Footnote 622:
Athen. iv. 23.
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The thrush,[623] reckoned among the greatest delicacies of the ancients, generally at grand entertainments formed part of the propoma, or first course, and was eaten with little cakes, called ametiskoi. If we may credit Epicharmos, a decided preference was given to such as fed on the olive. Aristotle divides the thrush into three species, the first and largest of which he denominates Ixophagos, or the “mistletoe-eater;” it was of the size of a magpie. The second, equal in bigness to the black bird, he calls Trichas,[624] and the third, and smallest kind, which was named Ilas or Tulas, according to Alexander, the Myndian, went in flocks, and built its nest like the swallow.[625] Next in excellence to the thrush was a bird known by a variety of names, elaios, pirias, sycalis,[626] the beccafico of the moderns, which was thought to be in season when the figs were ripe. They likewise ate the turtle and the ringdove,[627] which are excellent in Egypt; the chaffinch, to whose qualities I cannot bear testimony; and the blackbird. Nor did they spare the starling, the jackdaw, or the strouthanion, a small bird for which modern languages cannot afford a name. Brains were thought by the ancient philosophers an odious and cannibal-like food, because they are the fountain of all sensation; but this did not prevent the gourmands from converting pigs’ brains into a dainty dish,[628] and their taste has maintained its ground in Italy. Partridges, wood-pigeons, geese, quails, jays, are also enumerated among the materials of an Hellenic banquet.
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Footnote 623:
The solitary sparrow inhabits the cliffs of Delphi, and the song-thrush is heard in the pine woods of Parnassus. Above these, when the heights of the mountain are covered with snow, is seen the Emberiza Nivalis, inhabitant alike of the frozen Spitzbergen, and of the Grecian Alp.—Sibthorpe in Walp. Mem. i. 76, seq. Homer is said to have written a poem called Ἐπικιχλίδες, because when he sung it to the boys they rewarded him with thrushes. In consequence of the estimation in which these birds were held κιχλίζω “to feed on thrushes,” came to signify “to live luxuriously.”—Payne Knight, Prolegg. ad Hom. p. 8.
Footnote 624:
The red-winged thrush, well known to sportsmen in hard weather.
Footnote 625:
Athen. ii. 68.
Footnote 626:
Arist. Hist. Anim. viii. 3. p. 221. ix. 49. p. 305. Bekk.
Footnote 627:
The turtle and the wood-pigeon are found in the woods and thickets. Among the larks, I observed the crested lark to be the most frequent species, with a small sort, probably the alauda campestris of Linnæus. Blackbirds frequent the olive grounds of Pendeli.—Sibth. in Walp. Mem. i. 76.
Footnote 628:
Athen. ii. 69–72.
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Goose’s liver was in extreme request both at Rome and Athens.[629] Another dainty was a cock served up with a rich sauce, containing much vinegar. Aristophanes speaks of the pheasant in his comedy of the Birds; and, again, in the Clouds, Athenæus rightly supposes him to mean this bird, where others imagine he alludes to the horses of the Phasis. Mnesilochos, a writer of the middle comedy, classes a plucked pheasant with _hen’s milk_, among things equally difficult to be met with, which shows that the bird had not then become common. It obtained its name from being found in immense numbers about the embouchure of the Phasis, and the bird was evidently propagated very slowly in Greece and Egypt, since we find Ptolemy Philadelphos, in a grand public festival at Alexandria, exhibiting it, among other rarities, such as parroquets, peacocks, guinea-fowl, and Ethiopian birds in cages.[630]
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Footnote 629:
See the fragment of Eubulos’s Garland-Seller, in Athen. ix. 33.
Footnote 630:
Athen. ix. 38.
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Among the favourite game of the Athenian gourmands was the Attagas,[631] or francolin, a little larger than the partridge, variegated with numerous spots, and of common tile colour, somewhat inclining to red. It is said to have been introduced from Lydia into Greece, and was found in extraordinary abundance in the Megaris. Another of their favourites was the porphyrion, a bird which might with great advantage be introduced into many countries of modern Europe, since it was exceedingly domestic, and kept strict watch over the married women, whose _faux pas_ it immediately detected and revealed to their husbands, after which, knowing the revengeful spirit of ladies so situated, it very prudently hung itself. It is no wonder, therefore, that the breed has long been extinct, or that the remnant surviving has taken refuge in some remote region, where wives require no such vigilant guardians. In the matter of eating it agreed exactly with Lord Byron, loving to feast alone, and in retired nooks, where none could observe. Aristotle describes this half fabulous bird as unwebfooted, of blue colour, with long legs, and red beak. The porphyrion was about the size of a cock, and originally a native of Libya, where it was esteemed sacred.[632]
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Footnote 631:
No bird appears to have puzzled commentators more than the _attagas_, some supposing it to be the _francolin_, or grouse, which is Schneider’s opinion; others, as Passow, the _hazel-hen_; others, again, as Ainsworth, consider it to have been a delicious bird, resembling our wood-cock, or snipe. Mr. Mitchell’s edit. of the Acharnæ of Aristophanes, 783.—This learned writer professes not to understand what Schneider means by _francolin_. The word in Italian is _francolino_, as appears from Bellon. v. 6: Les Italiens ont nommé cet oiseau Francolin, que parcequ’il est franc dans ce pays, c’est-à-dire, qu’il est defendu au peuple d’en tuer: il n’y a que les princes qui aient cette prérogative.—Valmont de Bomare, ii. 739.—Hardouin thinks, that the Attagas is the _gallina rustica_, or _gelinotte de bois_, which Laveaux explains to be a sort of partridge.—Cf. Dict. Franç. in voce, and Plin. Hist. Nat. xi. 68. ed. Franz. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 257. This bird was plentiful about Marathon, Pac. 249.
Footnote 632:
Athen. ix. 40. Aristoph. Hist. Anim. i. 17. viii. 6.
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Another bird common in Greece, but now no longer known, was the porphyris, by some confounded with the foregoing. Of the partridge, common throughout Europe, we need merely remark, that both the gray and the red (the _bartavelle_ of the French) were common in Greece.
If we pass from the poultry to puddings and soups,[633] we shall find that the Athenians were not ill-provided with these dainties. They even converted gruel into a delicacy,[634] and it is said, that the best was made at Megara. They had bean soup, flour soup, ptisans made with pearl-barley or groats.[635] We hear, also, of a delicately-powdered dish or soup which was sprinkled over with fine flour and olives. The polphos, evidently _soupe à la julienne_, is said, by some, to have been composed of scraped roots, vegetables, and flour. Others take it to mean a sort of made-dish, resembling macaroni or vermicelli. Another kind of soup was the _kidron_, which, according to Pollux,[636] they made of green wheat, roasted and reduced to powder.
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Footnote 633:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 103.
Footnote 634:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 803.—It was thought, also, to deserve a place among the offerings to Asclepios, especially by pious old women, who, having lost their teeth, could eat nothing else. In lieu of the classical name of ἀθάρα, this gruel obtained, in the dialect of the common people, the more homely designation of κουρκούτη. Schol. Plut. 673.
Footnote 635:
Athen. iii. 101. iv. 30.
Footnote 636:
Onomast. vi. 62.—Made usually from panic seed in Caria.—Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 580, et Eq. 803. Cf. Goguet, Origine des Loix, i. 212.
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There was one dish fashionable among the ancient Greeks mistaken by our neighbours, the French, for plum-pudding, which is still found in perfection in the Levant, where I have many times eaten of it. Julius Pollux[637] has preserved the recipe for making it, and we can assure our gourmands, that nothing more exquisite was ever tasted, even in the best café of the Palais Royal. They took a certain quantity of the finest clarified lard, and, mixing it up with milk until it was quite thick, added an equal portion of new cheese, yolks of eggs, and the finest flour. The whole rolled up tight in a fragrant fig-leaf, was then cooked in chicken-broth, or soup made with kid’s flesh. When they considered it well done, the leaf was removed and the pudding soused in boiling honey. It was then served up hissing-hot. All the ingredients were used in equal proportions, excepting the yolks of eggs, of which there was somewhat more than of anything else, in order to give firmness and consistency to the whole.[638]
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Footnote 637:
Onomast. i. 237. vi. 57, 69.
Footnote 638:
Vid. Schol. Arist. Eq. 949. Acharn. 1066.
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Black puddings, made with blood, suet, and the other materials now used were also common at Athens.[639] Mushrooms and snails were great favourites; and Poliochos speaks of going out in the dewy mornings in search of these luxuries.[640] In spring, before the arrival of the swallow, the nettle was collected and eaten, it being then young and tender.[641] Leeks, onions, garlic, were in much request, the last particularly, which grew in great plenty in the Megarean territory, and hence, perhaps, the inhabitants were accounted hot and quarrelsome, garlic being supposed to inspire game, even in fighting cocks, to which it was accordingly given in great quantities.[642]
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Footnote 639:
Aristoph. Eq. 208.
Footnote 640:
Athen. ii. 19.
Footnote 641:
Aristoph. Eq. 422. Brunck.
Footnote 642:
Aristoph. Pac. 503.
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Among the herbs eaten by his countrymen, Hesiod enumerates the mallow,[643] and the asphodel, which are likewise said by Aristophanes to have constituted a great part of the food of the early Greeks. Gœttling, therefore, not without reason, wonders that Pythagoras should have prohibited the use of the mallow. Lupines, pomegranates, horse-radish, the dregs of grapes and olives, all of which entered into the material of an Attic entertainment, were commonly cried about the streets of Athens.[644] But these edible lupines, (θέρμοι) still eaten by the Egyptian peasantry and the poor generally throughout the Levant, must be distinguished from the common species. An anecdote of Zeno, of Cittion, will illustrate the character of this kind of pulse, with which the philosopher was evidently familiar. Being one day asked why, though naturally morose, he became quite affable when half-seas-over: “I am like the lupine,” he replied, “which, when dry, is very bitter, but perfectly sweet and agreeable after it has been well soaked.”[645] Kidney-beans, too, were in much request, and pickled olives, slightly flavoured with fennel.
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Footnote 643:
Cf. Lucian. Amor. § 33.
Footnote 644:
Cf. Arist. Acharn. 166. Eq. 493. Athen. xiii. 22.
Footnote 645:
This is as good as the reply of an English labourer who, being reproached for babbling in his drink, replied, “Sir, I am like a hedgehog—when I’m wet I open.”
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The radish[646] was esteemed a great delicacy, particularly that of Thasos and Bœotia. And the seeds of the ground-pine,[647] still eaten as a dessert in Italy, entered, in Greece, also into the list of edible fruits.[648] The tree, I am informed, has been introduced into England, but I have nowhere seen its fruit brought among pears, walnuts, and apples, to table. Hen’s milk has already been spoken of among the good things of Hellas;[649] but lest the reader should suspect us of amusing him with fables, it should be explained, that the white of an egg was so called by Anaxagoras.[650] Eggs of all kinds were much esteemed. Sometimes they were boiled hard, and cut in two with a hair; but, many writers, confounding ὄα, the berries of the service-tree, with ὠὰ, eggs, have imagined that the Athenians, in the capriciousness of their culinary taste, actually ate pickled eggs, an idea which stirs to the bottom the erudite bile of David Ruhnken.[651] Generally, eggs were eaten soft, as with us, or swallowed quite raw. Those of the pea-hen were considered the most delicate; next to these, the eggs of the chenalopex bergander, or Egyptian goose, and, lastly, those of the hen. This, at least, is the opinion of Epicrates and Heracleides, of Syracuse, in their treatises on cookery.[652]
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Footnote 646:
Hesiod. Oper. et Dies, 41. ed. Gœttling. Aristoph. Plut. 543. Brunck.—Lobeck. Aglaoph. p. 899.
Footnote 647:
The kernels of the stone-pine are brought to table in Turkey. They are very common in the kitchens of Aleppo.—Russell ap. Walp. Mem. i. 236.
Footnote 648:
Tim. Lex. Platon. v. στέμφυλα, p. 239. Ruhnken. Athen. ii. 45.
Footnote 649:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 505.
Footnote 650:
Athen. ix. 37.
Footnote 651:
Not. ad Timæi Lex. Plat. p. 189. Cf. Platon. Conviv. Oper. iv. 404. Bekk. Athen. ii. 50.
Footnote 652:
Athen. ii. 50.
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As when an entertainment was given the host necessarily expected his guests to make a good dinner, they usually commenced the business of the day with an antecœnium or whet, consisting of herbs of the sharpest taste. At Athens, the articles which generally composed this course were colewort, eggs, oysters, œnomel—a mixture of honey and wine—all supposed to create appetite.[653] To these even in later times were added the mallow and the asphodel, king’s-spear or day-lily, gourds,[654] melons, cucumbers. The melons of Greece are still delicious, and famous as ever in the Levant. Antioch was celebrated for its cucumbers, Smyrna for its lettuces. Mushrooms were always a favourite dish;[655] and they had receipts for producing them, which even now, perhaps, may not be wholly unworthy of attention.
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Footnote 653:
Potter, Archæol. Græc. iv. 20. Stuck. Antiq. Conviv. iii. 11. Petron. Satyr. § 31. 33.
Footnote 654:
The σίκυα or long Indian gourd, so called because the seed was first brought from India to Greece. Athen. ii. 53.
Footnote 655:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 189. 191. Eccles. 1092. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 13. 8. Dioscor. ii. 200, seq. Athen. xii. 44. 70. Plin. Hist. Nat. xix. 11.
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The use, however, of this kind of food was always attended with great danger, there being comparatively few species that could be safely eaten. Persons were frequently poisoned by them, and a pretty epigram of Euripides has been preserved, commemorating a mother and three children who had been thus cut off, in the island of Icaros:
Bright wanderer through the eternal way, Has sight so sad as that which now Bedims the splendour of thy ray, E’er bid the streams of sorrow flow? Here, side by side, in death are laid Two darling boys, their mother’s care; And here their sister, youthful maid, Near her who nursed and thought them fair.[656]
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Footnote 656:
Athen. ii. 57.
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Diodes, of Carystos, enumerates among wholesome vegetables the red beet, the mallow, the dock, the nettle, orach, the bolbos, or truffle, and the mushroom, of which the best kinds were supposed to grow at the foot of elm and pine trees.[657]
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Footnote 657:
Athen. ii. 57. 59.
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The sion[658] (sium latifolium), another of their vegetables, is a plant found in marshes and meadows, with the smallage.[659]
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Footnote 658:
Plin. Hist. Nat. xix. 11. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 191. 199.
Footnote 659:
Dioscorid. ii. 154.
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Another plant, of far greater celebrity, was the Silphion,[660] once extremely plentiful in Cyrenaica, as also, though of an inferior quality, in Syria, Armenia, and Media, but afterwards so rare as to be thought extinct. Besides being used in seasoning soups and sauces, and mixed with salt for giving a superior flavour to meat, its juice occupied a high place among the materia medica.[661] A single plant was discovered in the reign of Nero, and sent to Rome as a present to the Emperor. Its seed, according to Pollux,[662] was called magudaris, its root silphion, the stem caulos, and the leaf maspeton. Be this as it may, it communicated to the sauces in which it was infused a pungent and somewhat bitter taste, and was in no favour with Archestratos.[663]
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Footnote 660:
Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 891.
Footnote 661:
It is called _laser_, Plin. Hist. Nat. xix. 15. Hard. But Philoxenos, in his Glossary, writes λάσαριον. Idem. See Dioscorid. iii. 76; and Strabo, xi. 13. t. ii. p. 452. Cf. Ezek. Spanh. Diss. iv. De Usu et Præstant. Numism. p. 253, sqq. Brotier, in his notes on Pliny, observes, on the authority of Le Maire, that the Silphion is still found in the neighbourhood of Derné, where it is called _cefie_ or _zerra_.
Footnote 662:
Onomast. vi. 67.
Footnote 663:
Ap. Athen. ii. 64.
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We come now to the fruit,[664] and shall begin with that which was the pride of Attica, the fig.[665] According to traditions fully credited in Athens, figs were first produced on a spot near the city, on the road to Eleusis, thence called _Hiera Sukè_, “the sacred fig-tree.”[666] Like its men, the figs of Attica were esteemed the best in the world, and to secure an abundant supply for the use of the inhabitants it was forbidden to export them. As might have been expected, however, this decree was habitually contravened, and the informers against the delinquents were called sycophants, that is, “revealers of figs,”[667] a word which has been adopted by most modern languages to signify mean-souled, dastardly persons, such as informers always are. The fig-tree of Laconia was a dwarfed species, and its fruit, according to Aristophanes,[668] savoured of hatred and tyranny, like the people themselves.
There is no kind of fig, Whether little or big, Save the Spartan, which here does not grow; But this, though quite small, Swells with hatred and gall, A stern foe to the Demos, I trow.[669]
Aristophanes, in Athenæus, speaking of fruit, couples myrtle-berries with Phibaleian figs.[670]
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Footnote 664:
Plat. Tim. t. vii. p. 119. Bruyerin. de Re Cib. 1. xi. p. 447, sqq.
Footnote 665:
At present the green fig is esteemed insipid in Greece. Hobhouse, Travels, i. 227.
Footnote 666:
Athen. iii. 6. Meurs. Lect. Att. v. 16. p. 274.
Footnote 667:
Athen. iii. 6.
Footnote 668:
Fragm. Γεωργ. iv. t. ii. p. 268. Bekk.
Footnote 669:
Athen. iii. 7.
Footnote 670:
See Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 707.
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According to the ancients, there were certain sorts of fig-trees that bore twice, thrice, and even four times, in the year. Sosibios, the Laconian, attributing the discovery of the fig to Bacchos, observes, that for this reason the god was, at Sparta, worshiped under the name of _Sukites_. Andriscos, however, and Agasthenes, relate that this divinity obtained the name of Meilichios, “the gracious,” among the Naxians because he taught them the use of figs. To eat figs at noon was regarded as unwholesome; and they were at all times supposed to be highly prejudicial to the voice, for which reason singers should carefully eschew them.[671]
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Footnote 671:
Athen. iii. 19.
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The apples of Delphi enjoyed great celebrity, and probably, therefore, were mild, since these were thought superior, or at least more wholesome, than sharp ones. Quinces they esteemed still more salubrious than apples, and, during certain public rejoicings, this fruit, handfuls of myrtle-leaves, crowns of roses and violets, were cast before the cars of their princes and other great men.[672] The Greeks loved to connect something of the marvellous with whatever they admired. To the quince they attributed the honour of being a powerful antidote, observing that even the Phariac poison, though of extremely rapid operation, lost its virulence if poured into any vessel which had held quinces and retained their odour.[673] According to Hermon, in his Cretic Glossaries, the quince was called Kodumala, in Crete. Sidoüs, a village of Corinthia, was famous for its fine apples; and even Corinth itself, the “windy Ephyrè” of Homer, produced them in great perfection.
“O where is the maiden, sweeter far Than the ruddy fruits of Ephyrè are? When the winds of summer have o’er them blown, And their cheeks with autumn’s gold have been strown!”[674]
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Footnote 672:
Stesich. ap. Athen. iii. 20.
Footnote 673:
Athen. iii. 21.
Footnote 674:
Antigonos Carystios, ap. Athen. iii. 22.
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Another favourite fruit was the peach, introduced from Persia into Greece.[675] The citron, too, though supposed by some not to have been known to the ancient inhabitants of Hellas, perfumed in later ages the tables of the Greeks with its delicious fragrance. This is the fruit which, according to King Juba, was called in Africa “the apple of the Hesperides,” a name bestowed by Timachidas on a rich and fragrant kind of pear called _epimelis_. The oldest Greek writer who has described the citron tree is Theophrastus,[676] who says it was found in Persia and Media. Its leaf, he observes, resembled that of the laurel, the strawberry tree, or the walnut. Like the wild pear tree, and the oxyacanthos, it has sharp, smooth, and very strong prickles. The fruit is not eaten, but together with the leaves exhales a sweet odour, and laid with cloths in coffers protects them from the moth. The citron tree, is always covered with fruit, some ripe and fit to be gathered, others green, with patches of gold; and, in the midst of these, are other branches covered thick with blossoms. It now forms the fairest ornaments of the gardens of Heliopolis, where it shades the Fountain of the Sun.
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Footnote 675:
Vict. Var. Lect. p. 892.
Footnote 676:
Hist. Plantarum, iv. 4. 2. The orange attains great perfection in Crete. Mr. Pashley speaks of twelve different kinds, and nearly as many sorts of lemons. Travels, i. 96, seq.
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Antiphanes observes, in his Bœotian, that it had only recently been introduced into Attica:
A. ’Twould be absurd to speak of what’s to eat, As if you thought of such things; but, fair maid, Take of these apples.
B. Oh, how beautiful!
A. They are, indeed, since hither they but lately Have come from the great king.
B. By Phosphoros! I could have thought them from the Hesperian bowers, Where th’ apples are of gold.
A. There are but three.
B. The beautiful is no where plentiful.[677]
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Footnote 677:
Ap. Athen. iii. 27. Mitford, Hist. Greece, i. 154, note 59, misled by Barthelemy (Anacharsis, ch. 59) confounds Antiphanes, the comic poet, born B. C. 407 (Clinton, Fast. Hellen. ii. 81) with Antiphon, the master of Thucydides, born B. C. 479, and who died in the year 411, four years before the birth of Antiphanes.—Clinton, ii. 31, 37.
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Athenæus, after quoting the testimony of poets, relates a curious anecdote _à propos_ of citrons, which I shall here repeat: it has, probably, some reference to the secret of the Psylli. An opinion, it seems, prevailed in Egypt, that a citron eaten the first thing in the morning was an antidote against all kinds of poison, whether taken into the stomach, or introduced by puncture into the blood, and the notion arose out of the following circumstance. A governor of Egypt, in the time of the Emperors, had condemned two criminals to be executed, in obedience to custom, by the bite of an asp. They were, accordingly, led in the morning towards the place of execution, and on the way the landlady of an inn, who happened to be eating citrons, compassionating their condition, gave them some which they ate. Shortly afterwards they were exposed to the hungry serpents, which immediately bit them, but instead of exhibiting the usual symptoms followed by death, they remained uninjured. At this the governor marvelled much, and at length demanded of the soldier who guarded them, whether they had taken anything previously to their arrival. Learning what had happened he put off the execution to the following day, and ordering a citron to be given to one and not to the other, they were once more exposed to the bite of the asp. The wretch who had eaten nothing died soon after he was bitten, but the other experienced no inconvenience. Similar experiments were several times afterwards made by others, until it was at length ascertained that this exquisite fruit is really an antidote against poisons.[678]
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Footnote 678:
Athen. iii. 28.
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Another fruit of which great use was made, was the damascene plum, sometimes confounded with the brabylon. The cherry,[679] introduced into Italy by Lucullus, was known to the Greeks[680] at a much earlier period, and is described by Theophrastus. The wild service berry,[681] the dwarf cherry, the arbutus fruit, and the mulberry, formed part of their dessert. Even the blackberry, when perfectly ripe, was not disdained.[682] In fact, both the mulberry and blackberry were esteemed a preventive of gout, and an ancient writer relates, that this kind of fruit having failed during a period of twenty years, that disease prevailed like an epidemic, attacking persons of both sexes and all ages, and extending its ravages even to the sheep and cattle.
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Footnote 679:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 13, 1.
Footnote 680:
It was spoken of by Xenophanes in his treatise περὶ φύσεως. Poll. vi. 46. Now this philosopher was born about the 40th Olympiad, 620 B. C.—Clinton, Fast. Hellen. ii. sub an. 477.
Footnote 681:
The berry of the cedar, about the same size as that of the myrtle, had a pleasant taste, and was commonly eaten.—Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 12. 3.
Footnote 682:
Athen. ii. 33–37. A dainty of a very peculiar character is sometimes seen on the tables of the modern Greeks. “We were served also with some φασκομῆλια, or sage apples, the inflated tumours formed upon a species of sage, and the effect of the puncture of a cynops.”—Sibth. in Walp. Mem. t. i. p. 62. Cf. Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. pl. 15.
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Filberts, walnuts, and almonds,[683] deservedly held a high place in the estimation of the ancients. Of almonds, the island of Naxos had the reputation of producing very excellent ones, and those of Cypros also enjoyed considerable reputation. These latter were longer in form than the former; like pickled olives they were eaten at the commencement of a repast, for the purpose of producing thirst; and bitter almonds were considered a preservative against intoxication, as we learn from an anecdote of Tiberius’s physician, who could encounter three bottles when thus fortified, but easily succumbed if deprived of his almonds. This fruit being extremely common in Greece, they had their almond-crackers, as we have our nut-crackers, which at Sparta were called _moucerobatos_ but _amygdalocatactes_ in the rest of Greece.[684]
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Footnote 683:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 11. 2.
Footnote 684:
Athen. ii. 40.
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The larger kind of chestnut, sometimes denominated the “acorns of Zeus,” appears to have been introduced into Greece from the countries round the Pontos Euxinos, where they were produced in great abundance, particularly in the environs of Heraclea. There was, likewise, a sort of chestnut imported from Persia, and another from the neighbourhood of Sardes, in Lydia. Both these and the walnut were considered indigestible; but not so the almond, of which it was thought great quantities might be eaten with impunity.[685] The best kinds were produced in Thasos and Cypros, and, when freshly gathered, the almonds of the south are, undoubtedly, of all fruit, the most delicate. The walnuts and chestnuts of Eubœa, in the opinion of Mnestheos, were difficult of digestion, but fattening; and no one can have frequented the eastern shores of the Mediterranean without observing what an important article of food, and how nourishing, they are.[686] The pistachio nut, produced from a tree resembling the almond-tree, was imported from Syria and Arabia.[687] The _persea_, now no longer known, but supposed to be represented on the walls of the Memnonium,[688] at Thebes, is, also, said, by Poseidonios, the stoic, to have grown in Arabia and Syria, and I brought home a quantity of leaves, preserved in an Egyptian coffin, which are, probably, those of this tree. Pears, which were brought to table floating in water,[689] and service-berries, were grown in great perfection in the island of Ceos, and Bœotia was famous for its pomegranates.[690]
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Footnote 685:
Dioscorid. i. 176. Athen. ii. 42. Cf. Hippocrat. de Morb. ii. p. 484. Foës.
Footnote 686:
Athen. ii. 43.
Footnote 687:
Athen. xiv. 61.
Footnote 688:
We find that the Persea grew, likewise, in the island of Rhodes, but there, though flowers came, it produced no fruit.—Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 3, 5. For a full description of the tree see iv. 2, 5, and Cf. Caus. Plant. ii. 3, 7.—In its original country, Persia, the fruit of this tree is said to have been poisonous, for which reason the companions of Cambyses carried along with them numerous young trees, which they planted in various parts of Egypt, that the inhabitants, eating of the fruit, might perish. But, through the influence of soil and climate, the nature of the Persea was wholly changed, and, instead of a harsh and fatal berry, produced delicious fruit.—Ælian. de Nat. Animal. ap. Schneid. ad Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 2, 5. t. iii. p. 284.—Cf. Athen. xiv. 61.—Schweigh. Animadv. t. xii. p. 585. Plin. xv. 13. xvi. 46.
Footnote 689:
Athen. xiv. 63.
Footnote 690:
The best pomegranates, however, were grown in Egypt and Cilicia.—Theoph. Caus. Plant. ii. 13. 4.
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Speaking of this fruit, which the Bœotians call _sidè_, Agatharchides relates the following anecdote: A dispute arising between the Athenians and Bœotians, respecting a spot called _Sidè_, situated on the borders, Epaminondas, in order to decide the question, took out a pomegranate from under his robe, and demanded of the Athenians, what they called it. “_Rhoa_” they replied. “Very good,” said Epaminondas; “but we call it _Sidè_, and, as the place derives its name from the fruit which grows there in abundance, it is clear the land must belong to us.” And it was decided in favour of the Bœotians.[691]
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Footnote 691:
Athen. xiv. 64.
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We have already observed, that the palm-tree flourished and produced dates in Greece, particularly in Attica and Delos;[692] but it is clear, from a remark of Xenophon, that these dates were small and of an inferior quality; for, speaking of the productions of Mesopotamia, he says, that they set aside for the slaves such dates as resembled those produced in Greece, while the larger and finer kinds,[693] which were like amber in colour, they selected for their own use. They were also dried, as they still are in the East, to be eaten as a dessert, at other seasons of the year. From which we learn, that the black date, which is larger and finer than the yellow, was not then cultivated in Persia. But neither dates, nor any other fruit, could compare with the grape, which is found in perfection in almost every part of Greece, where, as in Burgundy and, I presume, in the rest of France, the law regulated the period of the vintage, prohibiting individuals from gathering their grapes earlier under a heavy penalty.[694] The best kind of grape in Attica, like that of the _Clos Vougeot_ in Burgundy, was the _Nikostrateios_, supposed to be unrivalled for excellence, though the Rhodians pretended, in their _Hipponion_, to possess its equal.[695]
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Footnote 692:
Theoph. Char. pp. 33, 233. Casaub. A very fine palm-tree is at present growing in one of the principal streets of Athens.—Blackwood’s Magazine, April, 1838.
Footnote 693:
Pollux, i. 73. Herod. i. 28, 172, 193. ii. 156. iv. 172, 183.
Footnote 694:
Plato de Legg. t. viii. p. 106. Bekk. Athen. xiv. 68.
Footnote 695:
Athen. xiv. 68. Cf. Bruyerin. de Re Cibaria, xi. 447, sqq.
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From the grape we pass naturally to wine, which has of itself formed the subject of many treatises. It will not, therefore, be expected that we should enter into very minute details; though, if we are sparing, it will certainly not be for want of materials. D’Herbelot[696] relates an oriental tradition which attributes the invention of wine to the ancient Persian monarch Giamshid; and Bochart, with some show of ingenuity, attributes to Bacchos, the Grecian inventor and god of wine, an origin which would confound him with the founder of Babylon.[697] A very celebrated wine, called _nectar_, is said to have been produced in the neighbourhood of that city.[698] But, according to Theopompos, it was the inhabitants of Chios who first planted and cultivated the vine, and from them the knowledge was transmitted to the other Greeks.[699]
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Footnote 696:
Biliothèque Orientale, Article Giamschid.
Footnote 697:
Geog. Sacr. I. ii. 13.
Footnote 698:
Chæreas. ap. Athen. i. 58.
Footnote 699:
Athen. i. 47.
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Theophrastus[700] relates that, in the territory of Heraclea, in Arcadia, there was a wine which rendered men insane and women prolific.[701] In the environs of Cerynia, in Achaia, grew a vine, the wine of which blasted the fruit of the womb, nay, the very grapes were said to possess a similar quality.[702] At Thasos were two kinds of wine, of which the one caused stupefaction, while the other was in the highest degree exhilarating.[703] The wine called anthosmias,[704] according to Phanias of Eresos, was produced by mixing one part of salt-water with fifty parts of wine, and it was considered best when made with the grapes of young vines. The comic poets are eloquent in praise of the wines of Thasos, particularly of that mixed sort, of most agreeable flavour, which was drunk in their Prytaneion. Theophrastus[705] gives the recipe for making it. They threw, he says, into the jars, a small quantity of flour kneaded with honey, the latter to impart a sweet odour to the wine, the former mildness. A similar effect was produced by mixing up hard inodorous wine with one which was oily and fragrant.[706]
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Footnote 700:
Hist. Plant. ix. 18. 10, seq. In Athenæus, instead of Heraclea, we find Heræa, i. 57. Cf. Ælian. Var. Hist. xiii. 6.
Footnote 701:
The same effect was attributed to the waters of a fountain flowing near a temple of Aphrodite upon Mount Hymettos.—Chandler, ii. 164.
Footnote 702:
Plin. Hist. Nat. xiv. 18.
Footnote 703:
Athen. i. 57.
Footnote 704:
Ὁ ἀνθέων ὀσμὴν ἔχων οἶνος.—Etym. Mag. 108. 41. Cf. Suid. v. ἀνθοσμίας. t. i. p. 289. b. Aristoph. Plut. 808. Ran. 1181.
Footnote 705:
De Odor. 51.
Footnote 706:
Athen. i. 56.—Cydonia, in Crete, is conjectured, by Mr. Pashley, to have produced a good wine.—Travels in Crete, i. 23, seq.
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The wines of Cos, Myndos, and Halicarnassos, being thought to temper the crudity of rain and well-water, were, therefore, like all others containing a quantity of salt-water, in great request at Athens and Sicyon, where the springs were harsh. The Mareotic wine[707] was made from vineyards on the banks of the lake Mareotis, where the present Pasha has his gardens, in the vicinity of Marea, once a place of considerable importance, but now a small village. Attempts, however, have been made by M. Abro, an Armenian, once more to cover the ancient sites with vineyards, several acres of ground being planted with cuttings imported from the great nursery grounds at Chambéry, in Savoy.
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Footnote 707:
Athen. i. 59.
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The town of Marea derived its name, according to tradition, from Maron,[708] a person who accompanied Bacchos in his military expedition, and, in honour of its founder, surrounded itself with the fruit-tree most agreeable to that god. The grapes here produced were delicious, and the wine, slightly astringent and aromatic, had an exquisite flavour. The Mareotic was white, of delicate taste, light, sparkling, and by no means heady. The best sort was the Tæniotic, so called from the _tænia_, “sandy eminences,” on which the vineyards were situated. This wine, in its pure state, had a greenish tinge, like the Johanisberg, and was rich and unctuous; but, mingled with water, it assumed the colour of Attic honey. By degrees the vine grew to be cultivated along the whole course of the Nile,[709] but its produce differed greatly in different places, both in colour and quality. Among the best was that of Antylla, a city near Alexandria, the revenues arising from which the ancient kings of Egypt, and afterwards those of Persia, settled on their queens for their girdle. The wines of the Thebaid, particularly those made about Koptos, were so extremely light as to be given even in fevers, as, moreover, they passed quickly, and greatly promoted digestion.[710]
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Footnote 708:
Idem, i. 60. Horat. Carm. i. 37. 14.
Footnote 709:
The cultivation of the vine appears to have flourished in Egypt down to the reign of the Caliph Beamrillah, who commanded all the vineyards both in the valley of the Nile and in Syria to be utterly destroyed. Maured Allatafet Jemaleddini, p. 7.
Footnote 710:
Athen. i. 60.
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According to Nicander of Colophon, the word οἶνος, “wine,” was derived from the name of _Oineus_, who having squeezed out the juice of the grape into vases, called it, after his own name, _wine_. Diphilos,[711] the comic poet, gives us, however, something better than etymologies in that burst of Bacchic enthusiasm in which, in verses fragrant as Burgundy, he celebrates the praises of the gift of Dionysos:
“Oh! friend to the wise, to the children of song, Take me with thee, thou wisest and sweetest, along; To the humble, the lowly, proud thoughts dost thou bring, For the wretch who has thee is as blythe as a king: From the brows of the sage, in thy humorous play, Thou dost smooth every furrow, every wrinkle away; To the weak thou giv’st strength, to the mendicant gold, And a slave warmed by thee as a lion is bold.”
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Footnote 711:
Idem, ii. 1, where are collected many other etymologies and curious fables.
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Nectar, the poetical drink of the gods, was a sort of wine made near Olympos in Lydia, by mingling with the juice of the grape a little pure honey and flowers of delicate fragrance. Anaxandrides, indeed, regards the nectar as the food of the immortals, and ambrosia as their wine; in which opinion he is upheld by Alcman and Sappho. But Homer and Ibycos take an opposite view of the matter.[712]
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Footnote 712:
Athen. ii. 8.
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Alexis speaks of those who are half-seas-over as much addicted to reasoning. Nicænetus[713] considers wine as the Pegasus of a poet, mounted on the wings of which like Trygæos on his beetle he soars “to the bright heaven of invention.” At the port of Munychia, too, good wine was held in high estimation; indeed, the honest folks of this borough, with small respect for the water nymphs, paid particular honour to the hero _Acratopotes_, that is, in plain English, “one who drinks unmixed wine.” Even among the Spartans,[714] in spite of their cothons, and black broth, certain culinary artistes set up in the Phydition, or common dining-hall, statues in honour of the heroes _Matton_ and _Keraon_, that is, the genii of eating and drinking. In Achaia, too, much reverence was paid to _Deipneus_, or the god who presides over good suppers.[715]
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Footnote 713:
Or Nicarchos. Anthol. Græc. xiii. 29. Athen. ii. 9.
Footnote 714:
Athen. ii. 9.
Footnote 715:
Athen. ii. 9. Cf. x. 9.
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As the Greeks had a marvellous respect for wine they, like the German paper enthusiast, almost appeared to imagine it could be made out of a stone. They had, accordingly, fig wine,[716] root wine, palm wine, and so on; and their made or mixed wines were without number. There was scarcely an island or city in the Mediterranean that did not export its wines to Athens: they had the Lesbian, the Eubœan, the Peparethian, the Chalybonian, the Thasian, the Pramnian, and the Port wine. We have already observed, that wine was drunk mixed with flour,[717] and in the island of Theræ it was thickened with the yolk of an egg. In the Megaris they prepared with raisins or dried grapes[718] a wine called _passon_, in taste resembling the Ægosthenic sweet wine, or the Cretan malmsey. But, however exquisite the wines themselves, it was not thought enough in the summer months unless they were brought to table cooled with ice or snow,[719] which was accordingly the practice.
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Footnote 716:
Damm. 2224. βρύτον. Athen. x. 67. Plato de Rep. t. vi. p. 144. Xenoph. Anab. p. 54. 138. Cyrop. p. 522. Plin. Hist. Nat. xiii. 4. Diod. Sic. ii. 136. On the οἶνος συκίτης vid. Foës. Œcon. Hip. in v. Dioscorid. v. 40. Lotus wine. Theoph. Hist. Plant, iv. 3. 1. Herod, iv. 177. Athen. vii. 9–13.
Footnote 717:
Plato de Repub. t. vi. p. 144. Bekk. Athen. viii. 1. On the Pramnian cf. Athen. 1, 17.
Footnote 718:
Athen. x. 41.
Footnote 719:
Athen. x. 56.
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