ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE OYSTER. 35 



into beasts assigns the state of fishes and oysters and 

 other aquatic creatures to those people who were thoroughly 

 ignorant and without thought. In the Phaedrus (d} he 

 speaks of the soul being fettered to the body like an oyster 

 to its shell, (e) 



The Greeks have not said much in praise of oysters ; 

 but then they knew nothing of Britain beyond its name, 

 and looked upon it in very much the same light as we 

 now regard the regions of the Esquimaux ; and as to the 

 little dabs of watery pulp found in the Mediterranean, 

 what are they but oysters in name ? Indeed, the best use 

 the Athenians could make of them was to use their shells 

 to ostracise any good citizen who, like Aristides, was too 

 virtuous for a " Greek." However, on the plea that 

 oysters are oysters, we presume for it could not be on 

 account of their flavour " oysters," says the author of the 

 " Tabella Cibaria," " were held in great esteem by the 

 Athenians." No doubt, when Constantine moved the seat 

 of the Empire from Rome to Constantinople, he did not 

 forget to have his Rutupians regularly forwarded ; so, 

 perhaps, after all, it was our " Natives ' which thus found 

 their way into Greece, that they delighted in ; and if so, 

 the good taste of the Athenians need not be called into 

 question ; but, as in literature and the arts, in oyster- 

 eating too, it deserves to be held up to commendation. (/"). 



There were other places from whence oysters were 

 procured, and Mucianus speaks with rapture of those found 

 at Cyzicus, a town in Asia Minor, on the shores of the 

 Sea of Marmora, the ruins now called by the Turks, Bal 

 Kiz. He describes them as larger than those of Lake 



(d) Phaedrus, 30 c. 

 (e) "Edinburgh Review," 1868. 

 (/) "The Oyster." 



B 2 



