[[453]] But the fish called cynoglossus differs from the buglossus. And of them too Epicharmus speaks—

There were the variegated plotides,
And cynoglossi, and sciathides.

But the Attic writers call the buglossus the psetta.

31. There are also fish called congers. Icesius says that these are coarser than the common eels; and that their flesh is less firm and less nutritious, and that they are very deficient in palatable juice; but still, that they are good for the stomach. But Nicander, the epic poet, in the third book of his Treatise on Dialects, says that they are also called grylli. But Eudoxus, in the sixth book of his Circuit of the Earth, says that there are numbers of congers caught off Sicyon, each large enough to be a load for a man; and some of them even big enough to be a load for a cart. And Philemon, the comic poet, himself mentioning the extraordinary congers at Sicyon, represents a cook as priding himself on his skill, and saying in the play entitled the Soldier,—

32.

How great a wish has now come over me
To tell to heaven and earth the way in which
I did prepare that supper. Aye, by Pallas,
How sweet it is when everything goes right!
How tender was my fish! and how I dress'd it!
Not done with cheese, or powder'd o'er with dyes,
But looking as he did in life, though roasted.
So mild and gentle was the fire which I
Did to the fish apply, you'd scarce believe it.
It was as when a hen does seize some food,
And carries it away to eat at leisure:
She runs all round with care; another sees her,
And straightway follows her to take it from her.
So here, the man who first found out the pleasure
Of dainty eating, sprang up high and ran
All round and round, with his dish in his hand.
The rest pursued him—it was fine to see them:
Some got a little, some got nothing, some
Got all they wanted. Well, as I was saying,
I took some river fish, eaters of mud.
What if I'd had a scare, or blue-back'd fish
From Attic waters, O thou saving Jupiter!
Or boar from Argive woods, or noble conger
From Sicyon's bay, the conger which the god
Of the deep sea doth bear aloft to heaven,
Fit banquet for his brethren. Then no doubt
The guests who ate would all have seem'd like gods;
I should have been immortal, since the dead
By the mere smell of my meat I bring to life again.

[[454]] 33. I swear by Minerva that Menecrates the Syracusan himself would not have made such a boast as that, he who was nick-named Jupiter—a man who gave himself airs as being, by his skill in medicine, the only person who could cause man to live. Accordingly he compelled all who came to be cured by him of what is called the sacred disease, to enter into a written agreement that if they recovered they would be his slaves. And they followed him, one wearing the dress of Hercules, and being called Hercules, (and the man who was so called was Nicostratus, an Argive, who had been cured of the sacred disease, and he is mentioned by Ephippus, in his Peltast, where he says—

Did not Menecrates call himself a god,
And Nicostratus of Argos a second Hercules?)

and another followed him in the dress of Mercury, having on a cloak and bearing a caduceus, and wings besides. As Nicagoras of Zelia did, who also became afterwards the tyrant of his country, as Baton relates in the history of the Tyrants at Ephesus. And Hegesander says that he called Astycreon, who had been cured by him, Apollo. And another of those who had been cured by him, went about with him to his cost, wearing the dress of Æsculapius. But Jupiter Menecrates himself, clad in purple, and having a golden crown upon his head, and holding a sceptre, and being shod with slippers, went about with his chorus of gods. And once, writing to Philip the king, he began his letter thus—

34. "Menecrates Jupiter to Philip greeting.