FIRST ACCLIMATISATION OF FISH i6i 



justice to its flesh was not easy : to speak of its trail, as it 

 deserved, was impossible, and to throw away even its excrement 

 was a sin." Confirmatory of Badham reads the pronouncement of 

 magnus ille et subtilis helluo, "that great and exquisite gourmet " 

 Archestratus, who from the grandiloquence and gravity of his 

 Epic was evidently of opinion omne cum fidihus helluoni ! * 



Epicharmus the comedian in his Hebe's Wedding {frag. 54, 

 Kaibel), 



(cot (TKapovq, rwv ovde to o-kSjO BifiLTOv Ik^ciKhv uto'iQ,^ 

 " Not even their trail is it lawful for the gods to throw away," 



summarises the wild infatuation of the Greeks for the scarus, 

 while from Ennius 3 some centuries later is extorted, 



" Quid scarus ? praeterii cerebrum Jo vis paene supremi : 

 Nestoris ad patriam hie capitur magnusque bonusque." 



* Archestratus is constantly quoted and always praised by Athenaeus as 

 " excellent," " experienced," etc. Archestratus the Syracusan in his work — 

 variously termed " Gastronomy," " Hedypathy," " Deipnology," " Cookery " 

 — begins his epic poem, " Here to all Greece I open wisdom's store " ! (Yonge's 

 trans.). From delivering his precepts in the style and with the gravity of the 

 old gnomic poets, Archestratus was dubbed " the Hesiod or Theognis of 

 opsophagists." The comic poets have many a gibe at him, e.g. Dionysius of 

 Sinope sums up the author of Gastronomy, to. iroWa 5' T\yv6r\K(, xovSe tv Atyet 

 {Thesmophoriis, frag. I. 26, Meineke) ! Before publishing this work, the author 

 travelled far and wide to make himself master of every dish that could be 

 served at table. Known to us almost entirely as a supreme bori vivant, and as 

 the earliest (except Terpsion) and certainly greatest Mrs. Glasse of the Greeks, 

 his accuracy of description of the various fishes used for the table was so 

 consistent, that we find even so high an authority as Aristotle making use 

 of it in his Natural History. Archestratus in his travels concerned himself 

 not at all as to the manners or morals of the countries visited, "as it is impossible 

 to change these," and held little or no intercourse with any but those, e.g. 

 chefs, who could advance the pleasures of taste. Whatever the cause, whether 

 too many sauces or too little nutritive food, he was so small and lean that the 

 scales are supposed to have returned his weight as not even one obol ! (Cf. 

 Hayward, The Art of Dining). Hayward himself must have appreciated the 

 limitation of guests, which Archestratus imposes for a proper dinner 



" I write these precepts for immortal Greece, 

 That round a table delicately spread, 

 Or three, or four, may sit in choice repast 

 Or five at most. Who otherwise shall dine, 

 Are like a troop marauding for their prey." 



(I. Disraeli's trans.) 



The sentiment, if not the number, coincides with the Latin proverb — 

 " Septem convivium, novem convicium." 



* I follow Wilamowitz in a-tcap for (TKwp, the usual reading, partly because 

 Epicharmus being a Dorian would use the Doric form, partly because being 

 a comedian he is probably playing on the words crKup and aKupos. 



' Hedyphagetica {frag. 529, Baehrens). Suidas state that the Persians 

 termed an exquisite dish ^ihs iyKf(pa\oi/. 



