OPSOPHAQ-Y. 487 



For Spartan friends again, to secure their good word, I 

 must concoct the filthy dark broth for which they are 

 famous, agreeably to the suggestion of the poet — ' black 

 broth subdues him, and a boiled cow's heel/* Lastly, 

 should any lonians be at table, they would assuredly look 

 out for that far-famed Lydian stew, the candaulium, to 

 which they are all so partial ; but unless it be most care- 

 fully condimented and seasoned, and the fried bread and 

 toasted cheese well mixed up with the very complex gravy, 

 they would put it from them with a shudder. Besides 

 all these various claims made on our professional know- 

 ledge and resources, dependent on national diversities of 

 taste ; differences in the circumstances of individuals, as 

 well as those arising from age, cause others, for which 

 also we should be properly prepared: for instance, it 

 would be quite superfluous to present a love-sick youth, 

 wholly absorbed in the charms of an absent mistress, jwith 

 any substantial entertainment ; he is a patient requiring 

 various little sentimental side-dishes ; fish easy of diges- 

 tion, such as smelts, or a small tender cuttle, viands which, 

 while they attract the eye, may be easily coaxed down 

 with a glass or two of some light wine, even by the most 

 abstracted lover; for an old man's supper something 

 warm is required to heat the blood, and to make it flow 

 freely through his veins : I keep for this class of bald- 

 headed clients, a cupboard fiiU of all manner of aphrodi- 

 siac spells — coriander, pepper, anise, and the hke, which 

 send them, Anacreon-like, at eighty to write odes fall of 

 gallantry and grace. When I have to feed philosophers, 



* Adfiva fitv ^Sifios re jicXas aKpoKwKia 6' itj>6d. From the compo- 

 sition of this dish. Dr. Martin Lyster infers that the Spartans did 

 not spring from the Jews : ' Jus nigrum Spartanorum adeo oele- 

 bratnm aifim-lav (sanguiculum, porcinum puta) fuisse astatur Jvil. 

 Poll. ; quod si rerma est, strenuo argumento est, Spartanos non 

 fuisse e Judseis oriundos.' 



