And Anaxilas, in his Evandria, says—

. . . . Give it not,
Only restore it.
B.Here I now have brought it.

And Timocles says in his Heroes—

A.You bid me now to speak of everything
Rather than what is to the purpose; well,
I'll gratify you so far.
B.You shall find
As the first fruits that you have pacified
The great Demosthenes.
A.But who is he?
B.That Briareus who swallows spears and shields;
A man who hates all quibbles; never uses
Antithesis nor trope; but from his eyes
Glares terrible Mars.

According, therefore, to the above-mentioned poets, so we, restoring but not giving to you what followed after the previous conversation, will now tell you all that was said afterwards.

4. Then came into us these servants, bringing a great quantity of sea fish and lake fish on silver platters, so that we marvelled at the wealth displayed, and at the costliness of the entertainment, which was such that he seemed almost to have engaged the Nereids themselves as the purveyors. And one of the parasites and flatterers said that Neptune was sending fish to our Neptunian port, not by the agency of those who at Rome sell rare fish for their weight in money; but that some were imported from Antium, and some from Terracina, and some from the Pontian islands opposite, and some from Pyrgi; and that is a city of Etruria. For the fishmongers in Rome are very little different from those who used to be turned into ridicule by the comic poets at Athens, of whom Antiphanes says, in his Young Men—

I did indeed for a long time believe
The Gorgons an invention of the poets,
But when I came into the fish-market
I quickly found them a reality.
For looking at the fishwomen I felt
Turn'd instantly to stone, and was compell'd
To turn away my head while talking to them.
For when I see how high a price they ask,
And for what little fish, I'm motionless.

[[356]] 5. And Amphis says in his Impostor—

'Tis easier to get access to the general,
And one is met by language far more courteous,
And by more civil answer from his grace,
Than from those cursed fishfags in the market.
For when one asks them anything, or offers
To buy aught of them, mute they stand like Telephus,
And just as stubborn; ('tis an apt comparison,
For in a word they all are homicides;)
And neither listen nor appear to heed,
But shake a dirty polypus in your face;
Or else turn sulky, and scarce say a word,
But as if half a syllable were enough,
Say "se'n s'lings this," "this turb't eight'n-pence."
This is the treatment which a man must bear
Who seeks to buy a dinner in the fish-market.

And Alexis says in his Apeglaucomenos—