[[199]]smell, and many kinds of juicy fishes. And it is good that, before the main dinner, there should be served up what is called salad, and beet-root, and salt-fish, in order that by having the edge of our appetite taken off we may go with less eagerness to what is not equally nutritious. But at the beginning of dinner it is best to avoid abundant draughts; for they are bad as generating too great a secretion of humours in the body.

"But the Macedonians, according to the statement of Ephippus the Olynthian, in his treatise Concerning the Burial of Alexander and Hephæstion, had no notion of moderation in drinking, but started off at once with enormous draughts before eating, so as to be drunk before the first course was off the table, and to be unable to enjoy the rest of the banquet."

92. But Diphilus the Siphnian says, "The salt pickles which are made of fish, whether caught in the sea, or in the lake, or in the river, are not very nourishing, nor very juicy, but are inflammatory, and act strongly on the bowels, and are provocative of desire. But the best of them are those which are made of animals devoid of fat, such as cybia, and horæa, and other kinds like them. And of fat fish, the best are the different kinds of tunny, and the young of the tunny; for the old ones are larger and harsher to the taste; and above all, the Byzantine tunnies are so. But the tunny, says he, is the same as the larger pelamys, the small kind of which is the same as the cybium, to which species the horæum also belongs. But the sarda is of very nearly the same size as the colias. And the scombrus is a light fish, and one which the stomach easily gets rid of; but the colias is a glutinous fish, very like a squill, and apt to give twinges, and has an inferior juice, but nevertheless is nutritious. And the best are those which are called the Amyclæan, and the Spanish, which is also called the Saxitan; for they are lighter and sweeter."

But Strabo, in the third book of his work on Geography, says that near the Islands of Hercules,[199:1] and off the city of Carthagena, is a city named Sexitania, from which the salt-fish above-mentioned derive their name; and there is another city called Scombroaria, so called from the scombri which are caught in its neighbourhood, and of them the best sauce is made. But there are also fish which are called melandryæ,

[[200]]which are mentioned by Epicharmus also, in his Ulysses the Deserter, in this way—

Then there was salt and pickled fish to eat,
Something not quite unlike melandryæ.

But the melandrys is the largest description of tunny, as Pamphilus explains in his treatise on Names; and that when preserved is very rich and oily.

93. "But the raw pickle called omotarichum," says Diphilus, "is called by some people cetema. It is a heavy sticky food, and moreover very indigestible. But the river coracinus, which some people call the peltes, the one from the Nile, I mean, which the people at Alexandria have a peculiar name for, and call the heminerus, is rather fat, and has a juice which is far from disagreeable; it is fleshy, nutritious, easily digestible, not apt to disagree with one, and in every respect superior to the mullet. Now the roe of every fish, whether fresh or dried and salted, is indigestible and apt to disagree. And the most so of all is the roe of the more oily and larger fish; for that remains harder for a long time, and is not decomposed. But it is not disagreeable to the taste when seasoned with salt and roasted. Every one, however, ought to soak dried and salted fish until the water becomes free from smell, and sweet. But dried sea-fish when boiled becomes sweeter; and they are sweeter too when eaten hot than cold." And Mnesitheus the Athenian, in his treatise on Comestibles, says, "Those juices which are salt, and those which are sweet, all have an effect in relaxing the bowels; but those which are sharp and harsh are strongly diuretic. Those too which are bitter are generally diuretic, but some of them also relax the bowels. Those which are sour, however, check the secretions."

And Xenophon, that most accomplished of writers, in his treatise entitled Hiero, or the Tyrant, abuses all such food, and says, "For what, said Hiero, have you never noticed all the multitudinous contrivances which are set before tyrants, acid, and harsh, and sour; and whatever else there can be of the same kind?—To be sure I have, said Simonides, and all those things appeared to me to be very contrary to the natural taste of any man. And do you think, said Hiero, that these dishes are anything else but the fancies of a diseased and vitiated taste; since those who eat with appetite, you

[[201]]well know, have no need of these contrivances and provocatives?"