But having kill'd this pig (χοῖρον τόνδε), of the same litter
Which has wrought so much mischief in the house,
Pushing and turning ev'rything upside down.
And these lines have all been quoted by Chamæleon, in his Commentary on Æschylus.
18. But concerning the pig, that it is accounted a sacred animal among the Cretans, Agathocles the Babylonian, in the first book of his account of Cyzicus, speaks as follows—"They say that Jupiter was born in Crete, on the mountain Dicte; on which mountain a mysterious sacrifice used to take place. For it is said that a sow allowed Jupiter to suck its udder. And that she going about with her constant grunting, made the whining of the infant inaudible to those who were looking for him. On which account all the Cretans think that that animal is to be worshipped; and nothing, it is said, can induce them to eat its flesh. And the Praisians also sacrifice to a sow; and this is a regular sacrifice among that people before marriage. And Neanthes of Cyzicus gives a similar account, in the second book of his treatise on Mysteries.
Achæus the Eretrian mentions full-grown sows under the name of πεταλίδες ὕες in Æthon, a satyric drama, where he says—
And I have often heard of full-grown sows
Under this shape and form.
PIGS.
But he has given the name of πεταλίδες by a metaphor from heifers. For they are called πέτηλοι, or spreading, from their horns, when they have spreading horns. And Eratosthenes has spoken of pigs in the same way as Achæus has in his Anterinnys, and has called them λαρινοὶ, using this word metaphorically, which properly belongs to fatted oxen which were called so from the verb λαπινεύομαι, which is a word of the same meaning as σιτίζομαι, to be fed up. And Sophron uses the word—
βόες δὲ λαρινεύονται;
or perhaps it comes from Larina, a small town of Epirus, or from the name of the herdsman, which may have been Larinus.
19. And once when a pig was served up before us, the half of which was being carefully roasted, and the other half boiled gently, as if it had been steamed, and when all marvelled at the cleverness of the cook, he being very proud of his skill, said—And, indeed, there is not one of you who can point out the place where he received the death wound; or where his belly was cut so as to be stuffed with all sorts of dainties. For it has thrushes in it, and other birds; and it has also in it parts of the abdomens of pigs, and slices of a sow's womb, and the yolks of eggs, and moreover the entrails of birds, with their ovaries, those also being full of delicate seasoning, and also pieces of meat shred into thin shavings and seasoned with pepper. For I am afraid to use the word ἰσίκια before Ulpian, although I know that he himself is very fond of the thing. And, indeed, my favourite author Paxamus speaks of it by this name, and I myself do not care much about using no words but such as are strictly Attic. Do you, therefore, show me now how this pig was killed, and how I contrived to roast half of him and to boil the other side.—And as we kept on examining him, the cook said,—But do you think that I know less about my business than the ancient cooks, of whom the comic poets speak? for Posidippus, in his Dancing Women, speaks as follows—and it is a cook who is represented as making the following speech to his pupils—