OPSOPHAaY. 475 



to overcome them at vernacular slang, and to bear away 

 the object of contention at a reasonable price. That 

 such a vade mecum was really wanted, there can be little 

 doubt, if we may believe the testimony of contempora- 

 ries. 'Whenever,' says a complainant, ' a citizen has oc- 

 casion to address a great functionary of state, he is sure 

 to receive, a courteous reply j but if he should venture on 

 a word of expostulation with any of these execrable fish- 

 dealers {Kardparoi l')(6v6'n-coKai) , he is instantly over- 

 powered by a volley of abuse.' ' I asked one of these 

 gentry the other day,' writes complainant two, ' the price 

 of a glaucus' head, but the fellow looked gloatingly upon 

 it, and, as Telephus* might have done, deigned not a 

 word of reply. I put the same question to a neighbour, 

 who forthwith began to amuse himself by playing with a 

 polypus; a third, to whom I then spoke, was worse than 

 either,forhe at once flewinto a passion — flared ujijeTrprja-e, 

 and then, choking, swore at me in half-articulate oaths.' 

 'Assumption in great men, to whom the state looks up, 

 and has delegated her dignity and authority, must be 

 borne with a good grace,' writes a third complainant, 'but 

 the insolent bearing of these ichthyopolist scoundrels is 

 worse than gall and wormwood, iriKporep eartv avrrj'; 

 7^9 'XpXrj'i.' Fishmongers were accordingly designated by 

 many terms of obloquy and reproach, aU of which clearly 

 show what the Greek public at large thought of them : 

 thus they were ' monsters,' ' gorgons,' ' homicides,' ' wild 

 beasts,' and a race more hateful than either usurers or 

 quacks, as we read in Antiphanes' play, jjnao'irovqpo'i, i.e. 

 the ' Eogue Hater.' But overbearing insolence was only 

 one of their bad traits : they were also the biggest cheats 

 and liars under the sun. The sea, they said, was open 

 to all, but fish was only for those who coidd pay for it ; 



* A notorious fish-glutton, not only an o-^6(^ayos, but a great 

 KaT(oat)o\//'d^ayor. 



