* * * * *

I will send radishes and four cucumbers.

* * * * *

And Phrynichus too used the word σικύδιον as a diminutive, in his Monotropus; where he says, κἀντραγεῖν σικύδιον.

5. But Theophrastus says that there are three kinds of cucumbers, the Lacedæmonian, the Scytalian, and the Bœotian; and that of these the Lacedæmonian, which is a watery one, is the best; and that the others do not contain water. "Cucumbers too," says he, "contain a more agreeable and wholesome juice if the seed be steeped in milk or in mead before it is sown;" and he asserts in his book on the Causes of Plants, that they come up quicker if they are steeped either in water or milk before they are put in the ground. And Euthydemus says, in his treatise on Vegetables, that there is one kind of cucumber which is called δρακοντίας. But Demetrius Ixios states, in the first book of his treatise on Etymologies, that the name σίκυον is derived ἀπὸ τοῦ σεύεσθαι καὶ κιεῖν, from bursting forth and proceeding; for that it is a thing which spreads fast and wide. But Heraclides of Tarentum calls the cucumber ἡδύγαιον, which means growing in sweet earth, or making the earth sweet, in his Symposium. And Diocles of Carystos says that cucumber, if it is eaten with the sium in the first course, makes the eater uncomfortable; for that it gets into the head as the radish does; but that if it is eaten at the end of supper it causes no

[[125]]uncomfortable feelings, and is more digestible; and that when it is boiled it is moderately diuretic. But Diphilus says—"The cucumber being a cooling food is not very manageable, and is not easily digested or evacuated; besides that, it creates shuddering feelings and engenders bile, and is a great preventive against amatory feelings." But cucumbers grow in gardens at the time of full moon, and at that time they grow very visibly, as do the sea-urchins.

6. With respect to Figs.—The fig-tree, says Magnus, (for I will not allow any one to take what I have to say about figs out of my mouth, not if I were to be hanged for it, for I am most devilishly fond of figs, and I will say what occurs to me;) "the fig-tree, my friends, was the guide to men to lead them to a more civilized life. And this is plain from the fact that the Athenians call the place where it was first discovered The Sacred Fig; and the fruit from it they call hegeteria, that is to say, "the guide," because that was the first to be discovered of all the fruits now in cultivation. Now there are many species of figs;—there is the Attic sort, which Antiphanes speaks of in his Synonymes; and when he is praising the land of Attica, he says—

A.What fruits this land produces!
Superior, O Hipponicus, to the world.
What honey, what bread, what figs!
Hipp.It does, by Jove!
Bear wondrous figs.

And Isistrus, in his "Attics," says that it was forbidden to export out of Attica the figs which grew in that country, in order that the inhabitants might have the exclusive enjoyment of them. And as many people were detected in sending them away surreptitiously, those who laid informations against them before the judges were then first called sycophants. And Alexis says, in his "The Poet"—

The name of sycophant is one which does
Of right apply to every wicked person;
For figs when added to a name might show
Whether the man was good and just and pleasant;
But now when a sweet name is given a rogue,
It makes us doubt why this should be the case.