EELS AS GODS, AND DAINTIES 249 
The passage in Menander’s,! Drunkenness which makes one 
of the characters declaim that, were he a god, he would never 
allow a loin of beef to load his altars, unless an Eel were also 
sacrificed, testifies to the preference for the Eel to meat. 
Numerous are the pzans of praise rendered by Greek writers 
to the superlative excellence of the fish. 
The Eel is dight ‘‘ the King of fish’ 2; he, or rather she, 
was “the white-skinned Nymph” 3; was “ chief of the fifty 
Virgins of Lake Copais ’’ 4; was a very “‘ Goddess,”’ 
“ Then there came 
Those natives of the Lakes, the eels, 
Beeotian goddesses, all clothed in beet,’’ > 
(with which, or majoram, on beech leaves, Aristophanes ° tells 
us they were often served) ; and, the very last word in laudation, 
was ‘‘ the Helen of the Feast’? 
Whether this was applied because the fish was the personifi- 
cation of all delicate dainties, as Helen was the fairest of all 
the fair, or because every guest strove like Paris to supplant 
his neighbour and keep her all to himself, the reader must choose. 
Athenzus certainly leans to the latter view.8 
Philetzrus ® would seem to have no doubt in identifying 
what is the sting of death and what is the victory of the grave, 
“For when you're dead, you cannot then eat eels.” 
To the sense of smell as well as that of taste the Murenide 
Although both belong to the large family of Murenida, the Murena is usually 
a much smaller fish, seldom over 2} feet long. In shape and general appearance 
it closely resembles the Eel, but can be differentiated by its teeth and certain 
spots over the body. It becomes very corpulent, so much so that in late life 
it is unable to keep its back under water: it is easier to flay, and whiter of 
flesh than its relative. Apart from its mating with the viper, and its tendency 
(teste Columella) to go mad, its chief characteristics are greed and fierceness 
of attack. The second book of Oppian has two really spirited pictures of its 
fight with, and conquest of, the Cuttle fish, and of its rush at, but eventual defeat 
by, the Lobster. At Athens the Eel, at Rome the Murena, was the favourite. 
1 Menand. Mé6n, frag. I. 11 ff., ap. Athen., 8, 67. 
2 Archestratos, ap. Athen., 7, 53. 
3 Eubul. Echo. frag. 1,1 f., ap. Athen. 7, 56. 
4 Aristoph,, Ach., 883. See F. M. Blaydes’s note on 880 ff. 
5 Eubul., Ion, frag. 2, 3 £., ap. Athen., 7, 56. 
® Aristoph., Ach., 894. Pax, 1014. 
7 Bk. 7, 53. 
8 Bk. VII. 53. 
9 
Phileter., Oinopion, frag. 1, 4 ap. Athen., 7, 12. 
