Aristophanes, in Athenæus, speaking of fruit, couples myrtle-berries with Phibaleian figs.[[670]]
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]]
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]]
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.
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,