I cannot now eat any other loaf,
For I've just had one at Gnathænius',
Whom I found boiling up γηθυλλίδες.
But some say that the γηθυλλὶς is the same as the peculiar kind of leek called γήθυον, which Phrynichus mentions in his Saturn. And Didymus, interpreting that play, says that the γήθυον resembles the leek called the vine-leek, or ἀμπελόπρασον; and he says that they are also called ἐπιθυλλίδες. And Epicharmus also mentions the gethyllides in his Philoctetes, where he says—
Two heads of garlic, two gethyllides.
And Aristophanes, in his second Æolosicon, says—
Some roots of leeks (γηθύων), which taste almost like garlic.
And Polemo the geographer, in his book on Samothrace, says that Latona had a longing for the gethyllis, writing as follows:—"Among the Delphians, at the festival which they call the Theoxenia, there is a rule that whoever brings the largest gethyllis to Latona shall receive a portion of food from off her table; and I myself have seen a gethyllis as big as a turnip or as the round rape. And men say that Latona, when she was pregnant with Apollo, longed for the gethyllis; on which account it is treated with this respect."
14. Next comes the gourd. But as gourds were served round to us in the winter season, every one marvelled, thinking that they were fresh gourds; and we recollected what the beautiful Aristophanes said in his Seasons, praising the glorious Athens in these lines:—
A. There you shall at mid-winter see
Cucumbers, gourds, and grapes, and apples,
And wreaths of fragrant violets
Cover'd with dust, as if in summer.
And the same man will sell you thrushes,
And pears, and honey-comb, and olives,
Beestings, and tripe, and summer swallows,
And grasshoppers, and bullock's paunches.
There you may see full baskets pack'd
With figs and myrtle, crown'd with snow;
There you may see fine pumpkins join'd
To the round rape and mighty turnip;
So that a stranger well may fear
To name the season of the year.
B. That's a fine thing if all the year
A man can have whate'er he pleases.
A. Say rather, it's the worst of evils;
For if the case were different,
Men would not cherish foolish fancies
Nor rush into insane expenses.
But after some short breathing time
I might myself bear off these things;
As indeed in other cities,
Athens excepted, oft I do:
However, as I tell you now,
The Athenians have all these things.
Because, as we may well believe,
They pay due honour to the gods.
B. 'Tis well for them they honour you,
Which brings them this enjoyment, since
You seek to make their city Egypt,
Instead of the immortal Athens.
POULTRY.
At all events, we were astonished eating cucumbers in the month of January; for they were green, and full of their own peculiar flavour, and they happened to have been dressed by cooks who above all men knew how to dress and season such things. Laurentius, therefore, asked whether the ancients were acquainted with this vegetable, or with this way of dressing it. And Ulpian said—Nicander the Colophonian, in the second book of his Georgics, mentions this way of dressing the vegetable, calling the gourds not κολόκυνται, but σίκυαι; for, indeed, that was one of their names, as we have said before. And his words are:—