A fawn about to die would make a noise,
Fearing the venom of the thorny cactus.

84. And, indeed, Sopater the Paphian, who was born in the time of Alexander the son of Philip, and who lived even till the time of the second Ptolemy king of Egypt, called the artichoke κίναρα just as we do, as he himself declares in one

[[118]]of the books of his history. But Ptolemy Euergetes the king of Egypt, being one of the pupils of Aristarchus the grammarian, in the second book of his Commentaries writes thus—"Near Berenice, in Libya, is the river Lethon, in which there is the fish called the pike, and the chrysophrys, and a great multitude of eels, and also of lampreys which are half as big again as those which come from Macedonia and from the Copaic lake. And the whole stream is full of fishes of all sorts. And in that district there are a great quantity of anchovies, and the soldiers who composed our army picked them, and ate them, and brought them to us, the generals having stripped them of their thorns. I know, too, that there is an island called Cinarus, which is mentioned by Semus.

85. Now with respect to what is called the Brain of the Palm.—Theophrastus, speaking of the plant of the palm-tree, states, "The manner of cultivating it, and of its propagation from the fruit, is as follows: when one has taken off the upper rind, one comes to a portion in which is what is called the brain." And Xenophon, in the second book of the Anabasis, writes as follows: "There, too, the soldiers first ate the brain of the palm or date-tree. And many of them marvelled at its appearance, and at the peculiarity of its delicious flavour. But it was found to have a great tendency to produce headache; but the date, when the brain was taken out of it, entirely dried up." Nicander says in his Georgics—

And at the same time cutting off the branches
Loaded with dates they bring away the brain,
A dainty greatly fancied by the young.

And Diphilus the Siphnian states—"The brains of the dates are filling and nutritious; still they are heavy and not very digestible: they cause thirst, too, and constipation of the stomach."

But we, says Athenæus, O my friend Timocrates, shall appear to keep our brains to the end, if we stop this conversation and the book at this point.

[[119]] Some Fragments omitted in the Second Book of the Deipnosophists of Athenæus.

86. Menander says—

It is a troublesome thing to fall in with
An entire party of none but relations;
Where as soon as he has taken his cup in his hand
The father first begins the discourse,
And stammers out his recommendations:
Then after him the mother, in the second place;
And then some old aunt gossips and chatters;
And then some harsh-voiced old man,
The father of the aunt aforesaid; then too
Another old woman calls him her darling:
And he nods assent to all that is said.