We shall now pass from the primitive aliments of the heroic times to those almost infinite varieties of good things which the ingenuity of later ages brought into use. The reader, not already familiar with the gastronomic fragments of ancient literature, will probably be surprised at the omniverous character of the Greeks, to whom nothing seems to have come amiss, from the nettle-top to the peach, from the sow’s metra to the most delicate bird, from the shark to the small semi-transparent aphyæ, caught along the shores of Attica.[[574]] Through this ocean of dainties we shall endeavour to make our way on the following plan:—first, it will be our “hint to speak” of the more solid kinds of food, as beef, mutton, pork, veal; we shall then make a transition to the soups, fowls, and fish; next the fruit will claim our attention; and, lastly, the several varieties of wines.

It has already been observed, that in the earliest ages men wholly abstained from animal food.[[575]] Afterwards when they began to cast “wolfish eyes” upon their mute companions on the globe, the hog is said to have been the first creature whose character emboldened them to make free with him. They saw it endued with less intelligence than other animals; and, from its stupidity, inferred that it ought to be eaten, its soul merely serving during life, as salt, to keep the flesh from putrefying.[[576]] The determining reason, however, appears to have been, that they could make no other use of him, since he would neither plough like the ox, nor be saddled and mounted like the horse or ass, nor become a pleasant companion, or guard the house, like the dog.

It was long before men in any country slew the ox for food; his great utility was his protection, and in some parts of the East the well-meaning priesthood at length compassed him round with the armour of superstition, which outlasted the occasion, and in India has come down in nearly all its strength to our own day. It was otherwise in Greece. There common sense quickly dissipated the illusion, which, while it was necessary, had guarded the ox, and beef became the favourite food of its hardy and active inhabitants, who likewise fed indiscriminately on sheep, goats, deer, hares, and almost every other animal, wild or tame.

It has been seen that in remote ages fish did not constitute any great part of the sustenance of the Greeks. But public opinion afterwards underwent a very considerable change. From having been held in so little estimation as to be left chiefly to the use of the poor, in the historical ages it became their greatest luxury.[[577]] And there arose among gourmands, those ancient St. Simonians, whose god was their belly, a kind of enthusiastic rivalry as to who should be first in the morning at the fish-market, and bear away, as in triumph, the largest Copaic eels, the finest pair of soles, or the freshest anthias.[[578]] On this subject, therefore, our details must be somewhat more elaborate than on beef and mutton. And first, we shall take the reader along with us to the market, whither it will be advisable that he carry as little money as possible, since, according to the comic poets, your Athenian fishmonger, not content with being a mere rogue, dealt a little also in the assassin’s trade.[[579]]

The first thing which a rich gourmand inquired in the morning was, which way the wind blew. If from the north, and there was anything like a sea, he remained sullenly at home, for no fishing smacks could in that case make the Peiræeus;[[580]] but if the wind sat in any other quarter, out he went eagerly and stealthily with a slave and basket[[581]] at his heels, casting about anxious looks to discover whether any other impassioned fish-eater had got the start of him on his way to the Agora, who might clear the stalls of the best anthias or thunny before he could reach the spot.

The unmoneyed rogue, however, whose ambitious taste soared to these expensive dainties, approached the market with a rueful countenance. Thus we find a poor fellow describing, in Antiphanes, his morning’s pilgrimage in search of a pair of soles:

I once believed the Gorgons fabulous:

But in the agora quickly changed my creed,

And turned almost to stone, the pests beholding

Standing behind the fish stalls. Forced I am