But Strattis calls lettuces θριδακινίδες, and says—

The leek-destroying grubs, which go
Throughout the leafy gardens
On fifty feet, and leave their trace,
Gnawing all herbs and vegetables;
Leading the dances of the long-tailed satyrs
Amid the petals of the verdant herbs,
And of the juicy lettuces (θριδακινίδες),
And of the fragrant parsley.

And Theophrastus says, "Of lettuce (θριδακίνη) the white is the sweeter and the more tender: there are three kinds; there is the lettuce with the broad stalk, and the lettuce with the round stalk, and in the third place there is the Lacedæmonian lettuce—its leaf is like that of a thistle, but it grows up straight and tall, and it never sends up any side shoots from the main stalk. But some plants of the broad kind are so very broad in the stalk that some people even use them for doors to their gardens. But when the stalks are cut, then those which shoot again are the sweetest of any."

80. But Nicander the Colophonian, in the second part of his Dictionary, says that the lettuce is called βρένθις by the Cyprians. And it was towards a plant of this kind that Adonis was flying when he was slain by the boar. Amphis in his Ialemus says—

Curse upon all these lettuces (θριδάκιναι)!
For if a man not threescore years should eat them,
And then betake himself to see his mistress,
He'll toss the whole night through, and won't be equal
To her expectations or his own.

And Callimachus says that Venus hid Adonis under a lettuce, which is an allegorical statement of the poet's, intended to

[[115]]show that those who are much addicted to the use of lettuces are very little adapted for pleasures of love. And Eubulus says in his Astuti—

Do not put lettuces before me, wife,
Upon the table; or the blame is yours.
For once upon a time, as goes the tale,
Venus conceal'd the sadly slain Adonis
Beneath the shade of this same vegetable;
So that it is the food of dead men, or of those
Who scarcely are superior to the dead.

Cratinus also says that Venus when in love with Phaon hid him also in the leaves of the lettuce: but the younger Marsyas says that she hid him amid the grass of barley.

Pamphilus in his book on Languages says, that Hipponax called the lettuce τετρακίνη: but Clitarchus says that it is the Phrygians who give it this name. Ibycus the Pythagorean says that the lettuce is at its first beginning a plant with a broad leaf, smooth, without any stalk, and is called by the Pythagoreans the eunuch, and by the women ἄστυτις; for that it makes the men diuretic and powerless for the calls of love: but it is exceedingly pleasant to the taste.