58. But Harpocration the Mendesian, in his treatise on Cheesecakes, speaks of a dish which the Alexandrians call παγκαρπία. Now this dish consists of a number of cakes mashed up together and boiled with honey. And after they are boiled, they are made up into round balls, and fastened round with a thin string of byblus in order to keep them together. There is also a dish called πόλτος, which Alcman mentions in the following terms—
And then we'll give you poltos made of beans (πυάνιος),
And snow-white wheaten groats from unripe corn,
And fruit of wax.
But the substantive πυάνιον, as Sosibius tells us, means a collection of all kinds of seeds boiled up in sweet wine. And χῖδρος means boiled grains of wheat. And when he speaks here of waxy fruit, he means honey. And Epicharmus, in his Earth and Sea, speaks thus—
To boil some morning πόλτος.
And Pherecrates mentions the cakes called μελικηρίδων in his Deserters, speaking as follows—
As one man smells like goats, but others
Breathe from their mouths unalloy'd μελικήρας.
59. And when all this had been said, the wise Ulpian said,—Whence, my most learned grammarians, and out of what library, have these respectable writers, Chrysippus and Harpocration, been extracted, men who bring the names of illustrious philosophers into disrepute by being their namesakes? And what Greek has ever used the word ἡμίνα; or who has ever mentioned the ἄμυλος?" And when Laurentius answered him, and said,—Whoever the authors of the poems attributed to Epicharmus were, they were acquainted with the ἡπίνα. And we find the following expressions in the play entitled Chiron—