POULTRY, FRUIT, WINE, ETC.
The reader by this time will, probably, be willing to escape from fish,
though it would be easy to treat him to many new kinds, and along with
us take a slice of Greek pheasant, or the breast of an Egyptian quail.
In other words, he will hear what we have to say on Hellenic poultry.
Chrysippos, in his treatise on things desirable in themselves, appears
to have reckoned Athenian cocks and hens among the number, and
reprehends the people of Attica for importing, at great expense,
barn-door fowls from the shores of the Adriatic, though of smaller size,
and much inferior to their own; while the inhabitants of those
countries, on the other hand, were anxious to possess Attic
poultry.[621] Matron, the parodist, who furnishes an amusing description
of an Athenian repast, observes, that excellent wild ducks were brought
to town from Salamis, where they grew fat in great numbers on the
borders of the sacred Lake.[622]
-----
Footnote 621:
Athen. vii. 23.
Footnote 622:
Athen. iv. 23.
-----
The thrush,[623] reckoned among the greatest delicacies of the ancients,
generally at grand entertainments formed part of the propoma, or first
course, and was eaten with little cakes, called ametiskoi. If we may
credit Epicharmos, a decided preference was given to such as fed on the
olive. Aristotle divides the thrush into three species, the first and
largest of which he denominates Ixophagos, or the “mistletoe-eater;” it
was of the size of a magpie. The second, equal in bigness to the black
bird, he calls Trichas,[624] and the third, and smallest kind, which was
named Ilas or Tulas, according to Alexander, the Myndian, went in
flocks, and built its nest like the swallow.[625] Next in excellence to
the thrush was a bird known by a variety of names, elaios, pirias,
sycalis,[626] the beccafico of the moderns, which was thought to be in
season when the figs were ripe. They likewise ate the turtle and the
ringdove,[627] which are excellent in Egypt; the chaffinch, to whose
qualities I cannot bear testimony; and the blackbird. Nor did they spare
the starling, the jackdaw, or the strouthanion, a small bird for which
modern languages cannot afford a name. Brains were thought by the
ancient philosophers an odious and cannibal-like food, because they are
the fountain of all sensation; but this did not prevent the gourmands
from converting pigs’ brains into a dainty dish,[628] and their taste
has maintained its ground in Italy. Partridges, wood-pigeons, geese,
quails, jays, are also enumerated among the materials of an Hellenic
banquet.
-----
Footnote 623:
The solitary sparrow inhabits the cliffs of Delphi, and the
song-thrush is heard in the pine woods of Parnassus. Above these, when
the heights of the mountain are covered with snow, is seen the
Emberiza Nivalis, inhabitant alike of the frozen Spitzbergen, and of
the Grecian Alp.—Sibthorpe in Walp. Mem. i. 76, seq. Homer is said to
have written a poem called Ἐπικιχλίδες, because when he sung it to the
boys they rewarded him with thrushes. In consequence of the estimation
in which these birds were held κιχλίζω “to feed on thrushes,” came to
signify “to live luxuriously.”—Payne Knight, Prolegg. ad Hom. p. 8.
Footnote 624:
The red-winged thrush, well known to sportsmen in hard weather.
Footnote 625:
Athen. ii. 68.
Footnote 626:
Arist. Hist. Anim. viii. 3. p. 221. ix. 49. p. 305. Bekk.
Footnote 627:
The turtle and the wood-pigeon are found in the woods and thickets.
Among the larks, I observed the crested lark to be the most frequent
species, with a small sort, probably the alauda campestris of Linnæus.
Blackbirds frequent the olive grounds of Pendeli.—Sibth. in Walp. Mem.
i. 76.
Footnote 628:
Athen. ii. 69–72.
-----
Goose’s liver was in extreme request both at Rome and Athens.[629]
Another dainty was a cock served up with a rich sauce, containing much
vinegar. Aristophanes speaks of the pheasant in his comedy of the Birds;
and, again, in the Clouds, Athenæus rightly supposes him to mean this
bird, where others imagine he alludes to the horses of the Phasis.
Mnesilochos, a writer of the middle comedy, classes a plucked pheasant
with _hen’s milk_, among things equally difficult to be met with, which
shows that the bird had not then become common. It obtained its name
from being found in immense numbers about the embouchure of the Phasis,
and the bird was evidently propagated very slowly in Greece and Egypt,
since we find Ptolemy Philadelphos, in a grand public festival at
Alexandria, exhibiting it, among other rarities, such as parroquets,
peacocks, guinea-fowl, and Ethiopian birds in cages.[630]
-----
Footnote 629:
See the fragment of Eubulos’s Garland-Seller, in Athen. ix. 33.
Footnote 630:
Athen. ix. 38.
-----
Among the favourite game of the Athenian gourmands was the Attagas,[631]
or francolin, a little larger than the partridge, variegated with
numerous spots, and of common tile colour, somewhat inclining to red. It
is said to have been introduced from Lydia into Greece, and was found in
extraordinary abundance in the Megaris. Another of their favourites was
the porphyrion, a bird which might with great advantage be introduced
into many countries of modern Europe, since it was exceedingly domestic,
and kept strict watch over the married women, whose _faux pas_ it
immediately detected and revealed to their husbands, after which,
knowing the revengeful spirit of ladies so situated, it very prudently
hung itself. It is no wonder, therefore, that the breed has long been
extinct, or that the remnant surviving has taken refuge in some remote
region, where wives require no such vigilant guardians. In the matter of
eating it agreed exactly with Lord Byron, loving to feast alone, and in
retired nooks, where none could observe. Aristotle describes this half
fabulous bird as unwebfooted, of blue colour, with long legs, and red
beak. The porphyrion was about the size of a cock, and originally a
native of Libya, where it was esteemed sacred.[632]
-----
Footnote 631:
No bird appears to have puzzled commentators more than the _attagas_,
some supposing it to be the _francolin_, or grouse, which is
Schneider’s opinion; others, as Passow, the _hazel-hen_; others,
again, as Ainsworth, consider it to have been a delicious bird,
resembling our wood-cock, or snipe. Mr. Mitchell’s edit. of the
Acharnæ of Aristophanes, 783.—This learned writer professes not to
understand what Schneider means by _francolin_. The word in Italian is
_francolino_, as appears from Bellon. v. 6: Les Italiens ont nommé cet
oiseau Francolin, que parcequ’il est franc dans ce pays, c’est-à-dire,
qu’il est defendu au peuple d’en tuer: il n’y a que les princes qui
aient cette prérogative.—Valmont de Bomare, ii. 739.—Hardouin thinks,
that the Attagas is the _gallina rustica_, or _gelinotte de bois_,
which Laveaux explains to be a sort of partridge.—Cf. Dict. Franç. in
voce, and Plin. Hist. Nat. xi. 68. ed. Franz. Cf. Schol. Aristoph.
Vesp. 257. This bird was plentiful about Marathon, Pac. 249.
Footnote 632:
Athen. ix. 40. Aristoph. Hist. Anim. i. 17. viii. 6.
-----
Another bird common in Greece, but now no longer known, was the
porphyris, by some confounded with the foregoing. Of the partridge,
common throughout Europe, we need merely remark, that both the gray and
the red (the _bartavelle_ of the French) were common in Greece.
If we pass from the poultry to puddings and soups,[633] we shall find
that the Athenians were not ill-provided with these dainties. They even
converted gruel into a delicacy,[634] and it is said, that the best was
made at Megara. They had bean soup, flour soup, ptisans made with
pearl-barley or groats.[635] We hear, also, of a delicately-powdered
dish or soup which was sprinkled over with fine flour and olives. The
polphos, evidently _soupe à la julienne_, is said, by some, to have been
composed of scraped roots, vegetables, and flour. Others take it to mean
a sort of made-dish, resembling macaroni or vermicelli. Another kind of
soup was the _kidron_, which, according to Pollux,[636] they made of
green wheat, roasted and reduced to powder.
-----
Footnote 633:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 103.
Footnote 634:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 803.—It was thought, also, to deserve a place
among the offerings to Asclepios, especially by pious old women, who,
having lost their teeth, could eat nothing else. In lieu of the
classical name of ἀθάρα, this gruel obtained, in the dialect of the
common people, the more homely designation of κουρκούτη. Schol. Plut.
673.
Footnote 635:
Athen. iii. 101. iv. 30.
Footnote 636:
Onomast. vi. 62.—Made usually from panic seed in Caria.—Schol.
Aristoph. Pac. 580, et Eq. 803. Cf. Goguet, Origine des Loix, i. 212.
-----
There was one dish fashionable among the ancient Greeks mistaken by our
neighbours, the French, for plum-pudding, which is still found in
perfection in the Levant, where I have many times eaten of it. Julius
Pollux[637] has preserved the recipe for making it, and we can assure
our gourmands, that nothing more exquisite was ever tasted, even in the
best café of the Palais Royal. They took a certain quantity of the
finest clarified lard, and, mixing it up with milk until it was quite
thick, added an equal portion of new cheese, yolks of eggs, and the
finest flour. The whole rolled up tight in a fragrant fig-leaf, was then
cooked in chicken-broth, or soup made with kid’s flesh. When they
considered it well done, the leaf was removed and the pudding soused in
boiling honey. It was then served up hissing-hot. All the ingredients
were used in equal proportions, excepting the yolks of eggs, of which
there was somewhat more than of anything else, in order to give firmness
and consistency to the whole.[638]
-----
Footnote 637:
Onomast. i. 237. vi. 57, 69.
Footnote 638:
Vid. Schol. Arist. Eq. 949. Acharn. 1066.
-----
Black puddings, made with blood, suet, and the other materials now used
were also common at Athens.[639] Mushrooms and snails were great
favourites; and Poliochos speaks of going out in the dewy mornings in
search of these luxuries.[640] In spring, before the arrival of the
swallow, the nettle was collected and eaten, it being then young and
tender.[641] Leeks, onions, garlic, were in much request, the last
particularly, which grew in great plenty in the Megarean territory, and
hence, perhaps, the inhabitants were accounted hot and quarrelsome,
garlic being supposed to inspire game, even in fighting cocks, to which
it was accordingly given in great quantities.[642]
-----
Footnote 639:
Aristoph. Eq. 208.
Footnote 640:
Athen. ii. 19.
Footnote 641:
Aristoph. Eq. 422. Brunck.
Footnote 642:
Aristoph. Pac. 503.
-----
Among the herbs eaten by his countrymen, Hesiod enumerates the
mallow,[643] and the asphodel, which are likewise said by Aristophanes
to have constituted a great part of the food of the early Greeks.
Gœttling, therefore, not without reason, wonders that Pythagoras should
have prohibited the use of the mallow. Lupines, pomegranates,
horse-radish, the dregs of grapes and olives, all of which entered into
the material of an Attic entertainment, were commonly cried about the
streets of Athens.[644] But these edible lupines, (θέρμοι) still eaten
by the Egyptian peasantry and the poor generally throughout the Levant,
must be distinguished from the common species. An anecdote of Zeno, of
Cittion, will illustrate the character of this kind of pulse, with which
the philosopher was evidently familiar. Being one day asked why, though
naturally morose, he became quite affable when half-seas-over: “I am
like the lupine,” he replied, “which, when dry, is very bitter, but
perfectly sweet and agreeable after it has been well soaked.”[645]
Kidney-beans, too, were in much request, and pickled olives, slightly
flavoured with fennel.
-----
Footnote 643:
Cf. Lucian. Amor. § 33.
Footnote 644:
Cf. Arist. Acharn. 166. Eq. 493. Athen. xiii. 22.
Footnote 645:
This is as good as the reply of an English labourer who, being
reproached for babbling in his drink, replied, “Sir, I am like a
hedgehog—when I’m wet I open.”
-----
The radish[646] was esteemed a great delicacy, particularly that of
Thasos and Bœotia. And the seeds of the ground-pine,[647] still eaten as
a dessert in Italy, entered, in Greece, also into the list of edible
fruits.[648] The tree, I am informed, has been introduced into England,
but I have nowhere seen its fruit brought among pears, walnuts, and
apples, to table. Hen’s milk has already been spoken of among the good
things of Hellas;[649] but lest the reader should suspect us of amusing
him with fables, it should be explained, that the white of an egg was so
called by Anaxagoras.[650] Eggs of all kinds were much esteemed.
Sometimes they were boiled hard, and cut in two with a hair; but, many
writers, confounding ὄα, the berries of the service-tree, with ὠὰ, eggs,
have imagined that the Athenians, in the capriciousness of their
culinary taste, actually ate pickled eggs, an idea which stirs to the
bottom the erudite bile of David Ruhnken.[651] Generally, eggs were
eaten soft, as with us, or swallowed quite raw. Those of the pea-hen
were considered the most delicate; next to these, the eggs of the
chenalopex bergander, or Egyptian goose, and, lastly, those of the hen.
This, at least, is the opinion of Epicrates and Heracleides, of
Syracuse, in their treatises on cookery.[652]
-----
Footnote 646:
Hesiod. Oper. et Dies, 41. ed. Gœttling. Aristoph. Plut. 543.
Brunck.—Lobeck. Aglaoph. p. 899.
Footnote 647:
The kernels of the stone-pine are brought to table in Turkey. They are
very common in the kitchens of Aleppo.—Russell ap. Walp. Mem. i. 236.
Footnote 648:
Tim. Lex. Platon. v. στέμφυλα, p. 239. Ruhnken. Athen. ii. 45.
Footnote 649:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 505.
Footnote 650:
Athen. ix. 37.
Footnote 651:
Not. ad Timæi Lex. Plat. p. 189. Cf. Platon. Conviv. Oper. iv. 404.
Bekk. Athen. ii. 50.
Footnote 652:
Athen. ii. 50.
-----
As when an entertainment was given the host necessarily expected his
guests to make a good dinner, they usually commenced the business of the
day with an antecœnium or whet, consisting of herbs of the sharpest
taste. At Athens, the articles which generally composed this course were
colewort, eggs, oysters, œnomel—a mixture of honey and wine—all supposed
to create appetite.[653] To these even in later times were added the
mallow and the asphodel, king’s-spear or day-lily, gourds,[654] melons,
cucumbers. The melons of Greece are still delicious, and famous as ever
in the Levant. Antioch was celebrated for its cucumbers, Smyrna for its
lettuces. Mushrooms were always a favourite dish;[655] and they had
receipts for producing them, which even now, perhaps, may not be wholly
unworthy of attention.
-----
Footnote 653:
Potter, Archæol. Græc. iv. 20. Stuck. Antiq. Conviv. iii. 11. Petron.
Satyr. § 31. 33.
Footnote 654:
The σίκυα or long Indian gourd, so called because the seed was first
brought from India to Greece. Athen. ii. 53.
Footnote 655:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 189. 191. Eccles. 1092. Theoph. Hist. Plant.
vii. 13. 8. Dioscor. ii. 200, seq. Athen. xii. 44. 70. Plin. Hist.
Nat. xix. 11.
-----
The use, however, of this kind of food was always attended with great
danger, there being comparatively few species that could be safely
eaten. Persons were frequently poisoned by them, and a pretty epigram of
Euripides has been preserved, commemorating a mother and three children
who had been thus cut off, in the island of Icaros:
Bright wanderer through the eternal way,
Has sight so sad as that which now
Bedims the splendour of thy ray,
E’er bid the streams of sorrow flow?
Here, side by side, in death are laid
Two darling boys, their mother’s care;
And here their sister, youthful maid,
Near her who nursed and thought them fair.[656]
-----
Footnote 656:
Athen. ii. 57.
-----
Diodes, of Carystos, enumerates among wholesome vegetables the red beet,
the mallow, the dock, the nettle, orach, the bolbos, or truffle, and the
mushroom, of which the best kinds were supposed to grow at the foot of
elm and pine trees.[657]
-----
Footnote 657:
Athen. ii. 57. 59.
-----
The sion[658] (sium latifolium), another of their vegetables, is a plant
found in marshes and meadows, with the smallage.[659]
-----
Footnote 658:
Plin. Hist. Nat. xix. 11. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 191. 199.
Footnote 659:
Dioscorid. ii. 154.
-----
Another plant, of far greater celebrity, was the Silphion,[660] once
extremely plentiful in Cyrenaica, as also, though of an inferior
quality, in Syria, Armenia, and Media, but afterwards so rare as to be
thought extinct. Besides being used in seasoning soups and sauces, and
mixed with salt for giving a superior flavour to meat, its juice
occupied a high place among the materia medica.[661] A single plant was
discovered in the reign of Nero, and sent to Rome as a present to the
Emperor. Its seed, according to Pollux,[662] was called magudaris, its
root silphion, the stem caulos, and the leaf maspeton. Be this as it
may, it communicated to the sauces in which it was infused a pungent and
somewhat bitter taste, and was in no favour with Archestratos.[663]
-----
Footnote 660:
Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 891.
Footnote 661:
It is called _laser_, Plin. Hist. Nat. xix. 15. Hard. But Philoxenos,
in his Glossary, writes λάσαριον. Idem. See Dioscorid. iii. 76; and
Strabo, xi. 13. t. ii. p. 452. Cf. Ezek. Spanh. Diss. iv. De Usu et
Præstant. Numism. p. 253, sqq. Brotier, in his notes on Pliny,
observes, on the authority of Le Maire, that the Silphion is still
found in the neighbourhood of Derné, where it is called _cefie_ or
_zerra_.
Footnote 662:
Onomast. vi. 67.
Footnote 663:
Ap. Athen. ii. 64.
-----
We come now to the fruit,[664] and shall begin with that which was the
pride of Attica, the fig.[665] According to traditions fully credited in
Athens, figs were first produced on a spot near the city, on the road to
Eleusis, thence called _Hiera Sukè_, “the sacred fig-tree.”[666] Like
its men, the figs of Attica were esteemed the best in the world, and to
secure an abundant supply for the use of the inhabitants it was
forbidden to export them. As might have been expected, however, this
decree was habitually contravened, and the informers against the
delinquents were called sycophants, that is, “revealers of figs,”[667] a
word which has been adopted by most modern languages to signify
mean-souled, dastardly persons, such as informers always are. The
fig-tree of Laconia was a dwarfed species, and its fruit, according to
Aristophanes,[668] savoured of hatred and tyranny, like the people
themselves.
There is no kind of fig,
Whether little or big,
Save the Spartan, which here does not grow;
But this, though quite small,
Swells with hatred and gall,
A stern foe to the Demos, I trow.[669]
Aristophanes, in Athenæus, speaking of fruit, couples myrtle-berries
with Phibaleian figs.[670]
-----
Footnote 664:
Plat. Tim. t. vii. p. 119. Bruyerin. de Re Cib. 1. xi. p. 447, sqq.
Footnote 665:
At present the green fig is esteemed insipid in Greece. Hobhouse,
Travels, i. 227.
Footnote 666:
Athen. iii. 6. Meurs. Lect. Att. v. 16. p. 274.
Footnote 667:
Athen. iii. 6.
Footnote 668:
Fragm. Γεωργ. iv. t. ii. p. 268. Bekk.
Footnote 669:
Athen. iii. 7.
Footnote 670:
See Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 707.
-----
According to the ancients, there were certain sorts of fig-trees that
bore twice, thrice, and even four times, in the year. Sosibios, the
Laconian, attributing the discovery of the fig to Bacchos, observes,
that for this reason the god was, at Sparta, worshiped under the name of
_Sukites_. Andriscos, however, and Agasthenes, relate that this divinity
obtained the name of Meilichios, “the gracious,” among the Naxians
because he taught them the use of figs. To eat figs at noon was regarded
as unwholesome; and they were at all times supposed to be highly
prejudicial to the voice, for which reason singers should carefully
eschew them.[671]
-----
Footnote 671:
Athen. iii. 19.
-----
The apples of Delphi enjoyed great celebrity, and probably, therefore,
were mild, since these were thought superior, or at least more
wholesome, than sharp ones. Quinces they esteemed still more salubrious
than apples, and, during certain public rejoicings, this fruit, handfuls
of myrtle-leaves, crowns of roses and violets, were cast before the cars
of their princes and other great men.[672] The Greeks loved to connect
something of the marvellous with whatever they admired. To the quince
they attributed the honour of being a powerful antidote, observing that
even the Phariac poison, though of extremely rapid operation, lost its
virulence if poured into any vessel which had held quinces and retained
their odour.[673] According to Hermon, in his Cretic Glossaries, the
quince was called Kodumala, in Crete. Sidoüs, a village of Corinthia,
was famous for its fine apples; and even Corinth itself, the “windy
Ephyrè” of Homer, produced them in great perfection.
“O where is the maiden, sweeter far
Than the ruddy fruits of Ephyrè are?
When the winds of summer have o’er them blown,
And their cheeks with autumn’s gold have been strown!”[674]
-----
Footnote 672:
Stesich. ap. Athen. iii. 20.
Footnote 673:
Athen. iii. 21.
Footnote 674:
Antigonos Carystios, ap. Athen. iii. 22.
-----
Another favourite fruit was the peach, introduced from Persia into
Greece.[675] The citron, too, though supposed by some not to have been
known to the ancient inhabitants of Hellas, perfumed in later ages the
tables of the Greeks with its delicious fragrance. This is the fruit
which, according to King Juba, was called in Africa “the apple of the
Hesperides,” a name bestowed by Timachidas on a rich and fragrant kind
of pear called _epimelis_. The oldest Greek writer who has described the
citron tree is Theophrastus,[676] who says it was found in Persia and
Media. Its leaf, he observes, resembled that of the laurel, the
strawberry tree, or the walnut. Like the wild pear tree, and the
oxyacanthos, it has sharp, smooth, and very strong prickles. The fruit
is not eaten, but together with the leaves exhales a sweet odour, and
laid with cloths in coffers protects them from the moth. The citron
tree, is always covered with fruit, some ripe and fit to be gathered,
others green, with patches of gold; and, in the midst of these, are
other branches covered thick with blossoms. It now forms the fairest
ornaments of the gardens of Heliopolis, where it shades the Fountain of
the Sun.
-----
Footnote 675:
Vict. Var. Lect. p. 892.
Footnote 676:
Hist. Plantarum, iv. 4. 2. The orange attains great perfection in
Crete. Mr. Pashley speaks of twelve different kinds, and nearly as
many sorts of lemons. Travels, i. 96, seq.
-----
Antiphanes observes, in his Bœotian, that it had only recently been
introduced into Attica:
A. ’Twould be absurd to speak of what’s to eat,
As if you thought of such things; but, fair maid,
Take of these apples.
B. Oh, how beautiful!
A. They are, indeed, since hither they but lately
Have come from the great king.
B. By Phosphoros!
I could have thought them from the Hesperian bowers,
Where th’ apples are of gold.
A. There are but three.
B. The beautiful is no where plentiful.[677]
-----
Footnote 677:
Ap. Athen. iii. 27. Mitford, Hist. Greece, i. 154, note 59, misled by
Barthelemy (Anacharsis, ch. 59) confounds Antiphanes, the comic poet,
born B. C. 407 (Clinton, Fast. Hellen. ii. 81) with Antiphon, the
master of Thucydides, born B. C. 479, and who died in the year 411,
four years before the birth of Antiphanes.—Clinton, ii. 31, 37.
-----
Athenæus, after quoting the testimony of poets, relates a curious
anecdote _à propos_ of citrons, which I shall here repeat: it has,
probably, some reference to the secret of the Psylli. An opinion, it
seems, prevailed in Egypt, that a citron eaten the first thing in the
morning was an antidote against all kinds of poison, whether taken into
the stomach, or introduced by puncture into the blood, and the notion
arose out of the following circumstance. A governor of Egypt, in the
time of the Emperors, had condemned two criminals to be executed, in
obedience to custom, by the bite of an asp. They were, accordingly, led
in the morning towards the place of execution, and on the way the
landlady of an inn, who happened to be eating citrons, compassionating
their condition, gave them some which they ate. Shortly afterwards they
were exposed to the hungry serpents, which immediately bit them, but
instead of exhibiting the usual symptoms followed by death, they
remained uninjured. At this the governor marvelled much, and at length
demanded of the soldier who guarded them, whether they had taken
anything previously to their arrival. Learning what had happened he put
off the execution to the following day, and ordering a citron to be
given to one and not to the other, they were once more exposed to the
bite of the asp. The wretch who had eaten nothing died soon after he was
bitten, but the other experienced no inconvenience. Similar experiments
were several times afterwards made by others, until it was at length
ascertained that this exquisite fruit is really an antidote against
poisons.[678]
-----
Footnote 678:
Athen. iii. 28.
-----
Another fruit of which great use was made, was the damascene plum,
sometimes confounded with the brabylon. The cherry,[679] introduced into
Italy by Lucullus, was known to the Greeks[680] at a much earlier
period, and is described by Theophrastus. The wild service berry,[681]
the dwarf cherry, the arbutus fruit, and the mulberry, formed part of
their dessert. Even the blackberry, when perfectly ripe, was not
disdained.[682] In fact, both the mulberry and blackberry were esteemed
a preventive of gout, and an ancient writer relates, that this kind of
fruit having failed during a period of twenty years, that disease
prevailed like an epidemic, attacking persons of both sexes and all
ages, and extending its ravages even to the sheep and cattle.
-----
Footnote 679:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 13, 1.
Footnote 680:
It was spoken of by Xenophanes in his treatise περὶ φύσεως. Poll. vi.
46. Now this philosopher was born about the 40th Olympiad, 620 B.
C.—Clinton, Fast. Hellen. ii. sub an. 477.
Footnote 681:
The berry of the cedar, about the same size as that of the myrtle, had
a pleasant taste, and was commonly eaten.—Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii.
12. 3.
Footnote 682:
Athen. ii. 33–37. A dainty of a very peculiar character is sometimes
seen on the tables of the modern Greeks. “We were served also with
some φασκομῆλια, or sage apples, the inflated tumours formed upon a
species of sage, and the effect of the puncture of a cynops.”—Sibth.
in Walp. Mem. t. i. p. 62. Cf. Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. pl. 15.
-----
Filberts, walnuts, and almonds,[683] deservedly held a high place in the
estimation of the ancients. Of almonds, the island of Naxos had the
reputation of producing very excellent ones, and those of Cypros also
enjoyed considerable reputation. These latter were longer in form than
the former; like pickled olives they were eaten at the commencement of a
repast, for the purpose of producing thirst; and bitter almonds were
considered a preservative against intoxication, as we learn from an
anecdote of Tiberius’s physician, who could encounter three bottles when
thus fortified, but easily succumbed if deprived of his almonds. This
fruit being extremely common in Greece, they had their almond-crackers,
as we have our nut-crackers, which at Sparta were called _moucerobatos_
but _amygdalocatactes_ in the rest of Greece.[684]
-----
Footnote 683:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 11. 2.
Footnote 684:
Athen. ii. 40.
-----
The larger kind of chestnut, sometimes denominated the “acorns of Zeus,”
appears to have been introduced into Greece from the countries round the
Pontos Euxinos, where they were produced in great abundance,
particularly in the environs of Heraclea. There was, likewise, a sort of
chestnut imported from Persia, and another from the neighbourhood of
Sardes, in Lydia. Both these and the walnut were considered
indigestible; but not so the almond, of which it was thought great
quantities might be eaten with impunity.[685] The best kinds were
produced in Thasos and Cypros, and, when freshly gathered, the almonds
of the south are, undoubtedly, of all fruit, the most delicate. The
walnuts and chestnuts of Eubœa, in the opinion of Mnestheos, were
difficult of digestion, but fattening; and no one can have frequented
the eastern shores of the Mediterranean without observing what an
important article of food, and how nourishing, they are.[686] The
pistachio nut, produced from a tree resembling the almond-tree, was
imported from Syria and Arabia.[687] The _persea_, now no longer known,
but supposed to be represented on the walls of the Memnonium,[688] at
Thebes, is, also, said, by Poseidonios, the stoic, to have grown in
Arabia and Syria, and I brought home a quantity of leaves, preserved in
an Egyptian coffin, which are, probably, those of this tree. Pears,
which were brought to table floating in water,[689] and service-berries,
were grown in great perfection in the island of Ceos, and Bœotia was
famous for its pomegranates.[690]
-----
Footnote 685:
Dioscorid. i. 176. Athen. ii. 42. Cf. Hippocrat. de Morb. ii. p. 484.
Foës.
Footnote 686:
Athen. ii. 43.
Footnote 687:
Athen. xiv. 61.
Footnote 688:
We find that the Persea grew, likewise, in the island of Rhodes, but
there, though flowers came, it produced no fruit.—Theoph. Hist. Plant.
iii. 3, 5. For a full description of the tree see iv. 2, 5, and Cf.
Caus. Plant. ii. 3, 7.—In its original country, Persia, the fruit of
this tree is said to have been poisonous, for which reason the
companions of Cambyses carried along with them numerous young trees,
which they planted in various parts of Egypt, that the inhabitants,
eating of the fruit, might perish. But, through the influence of soil
and climate, the nature of the Persea was wholly changed, and, instead
of a harsh and fatal berry, produced delicious fruit.—Ælian. de Nat.
Animal. ap. Schneid. ad Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 2, 5. t. iii. p.
284.—Cf. Athen. xiv. 61.—Schweigh. Animadv. t. xii. p. 585. Plin. xv.
13. xvi. 46.
Footnote 689:
Athen. xiv. 63.
Footnote 690:
The best pomegranates, however, were grown in Egypt and
Cilicia.—Theoph. Caus. Plant. ii. 13. 4.
-----
Speaking of this fruit, which the Bœotians call _sidè_, Agatharchides
relates the following anecdote: A dispute arising between the Athenians
and Bœotians, respecting a spot called _Sidè_, situated on the
borders, Epaminondas, in order to decide the question, took out a
pomegranate from under his robe, and demanded of the Athenians, what
they called it. “_Rhoa_” they replied. “Very good,” said Epaminondas;
“but we call it _Sidè_, and, as the place derives its name from the
fruit which grows there in abundance, it is clear the land must belong
to us.” And it was decided in favour of the Bœotians.[691]
-----
Footnote 691:
Athen. xiv. 64.
-----
We have already observed, that the palm-tree flourished and produced
dates in Greece, particularly in Attica and Delos;[692] but it is clear,
from a remark of Xenophon, that these dates were small and of an
inferior quality; for, speaking of the productions of Mesopotamia, he
says, that they set aside for the slaves such dates as resembled those
produced in Greece, while the larger and finer kinds,[693] which were
like amber in colour, they selected for their own use. They were also
dried, as they still are in the East, to be eaten as a dessert, at other
seasons of the year. From which we learn, that the black date, which is
larger and finer than the yellow, was not then cultivated in Persia. But
neither dates, nor any other fruit, could compare with the grape, which
is found in perfection in almost every part of Greece, where, as in
Burgundy and, I presume, in the rest of France, the law regulated the
period of the vintage, prohibiting individuals from gathering their
grapes earlier under a heavy penalty.[694] The best kind of grape in
Attica, like that of the _Clos Vougeot_ in Burgundy, was the
_Nikostrateios_, supposed to be unrivalled for excellence, though the
Rhodians pretended, in their _Hipponion_, to possess its equal.[695]
-----
Footnote 692:
Theoph. Char. pp. 33, 233. Casaub. A very fine palm-tree is at present
growing in one of the principal streets of Athens.—Blackwood’s
Magazine, April, 1838.
Footnote 693:
Pollux, i. 73. Herod. i. 28, 172, 193. ii. 156. iv. 172, 183.
Footnote 694:
Plato de Legg. t. viii. p. 106. Bekk. Athen. xiv. 68.
Footnote 695:
Athen. xiv. 68. Cf. Bruyerin. de Re Cibaria, xi. 447, sqq.
-----
From the grape we pass naturally to wine, which has of itself formed the
subject of many treatises. It will not, therefore, be expected that we
should enter into very minute details; though, if we are sparing, it
will certainly not be for want of materials. D’Herbelot[696] relates an
oriental tradition which attributes the invention of wine to the ancient
Persian monarch Giamshid; and Bochart, with some show of ingenuity,
attributes to Bacchos, the Grecian inventor and god of wine, an origin
which would confound him with the founder of Babylon.[697] A very
celebrated wine, called _nectar_, is said to have been produced in the
neighbourhood of that city.[698] But, according to Theopompos, it was
the inhabitants of Chios who first planted and cultivated the vine, and
from them the knowledge was transmitted to the other Greeks.[699]
-----
Footnote 696:
Biliothèque Orientale, Article Giamschid.
Footnote 697:
Geog. Sacr. I. ii. 13.
Footnote 698:
Chæreas. ap. Athen. i. 58.
Footnote 699:
Athen. i. 47.
-----
Theophrastus[700] relates that, in the territory of Heraclea, in
Arcadia, there was a wine which rendered men insane and women
prolific.[701] In the environs of Cerynia, in Achaia, grew a vine, the
wine of which blasted the fruit of the womb, nay, the very grapes were
said to possess a similar quality.[702] At Thasos were two kinds of
wine, of which the one caused stupefaction, while the other was in the
highest degree exhilarating.[703] The wine called anthosmias,[704]
according to Phanias of Eresos, was produced by mixing one part of
salt-water with fifty parts of wine, and it was considered best when
made with the grapes of young vines. The comic poets are eloquent in
praise of the wines of Thasos, particularly of that mixed sort, of most
agreeable flavour, which was drunk in their Prytaneion.
Theophrastus[705] gives the recipe for making it. They threw, he says,
into the jars, a small quantity of flour kneaded with honey, the latter
to impart a sweet odour to the wine, the former mildness. A similar
effect was produced by mixing up hard inodorous wine with one which was
oily and fragrant.[706]
-----
Footnote 700:
Hist. Plant. ix. 18. 10, seq. In Athenæus, instead of Heraclea, we
find Heræa, i. 57. Cf. Ælian. Var. Hist. xiii. 6.
Footnote 701:
The same effect was attributed to the waters of a fountain flowing
near a temple of Aphrodite upon Mount Hymettos.—Chandler, ii. 164.
Footnote 702:
Plin. Hist. Nat. xiv. 18.
Footnote 703:
Athen. i. 57.
Footnote 704:
Ὁ ἀνθέων ὀσμὴν ἔχων οἶνος.—Etym. Mag. 108. 41. Cf. Suid. v. ἀνθοσμίας.
t. i. p. 289. b. Aristoph. Plut. 808. Ran. 1181.
Footnote 705:
De Odor. 51.
Footnote 706:
Athen. i. 56.—Cydonia, in Crete, is conjectured, by Mr. Pashley, to
have produced a good wine.—Travels in Crete, i. 23, seq.
-----
The wines of Cos, Myndos, and Halicarnassos, being thought to temper the
crudity of rain and well-water, were, therefore, like all others
containing a quantity of salt-water, in great request at Athens and
Sicyon, where the springs were harsh. The Mareotic wine[707] was made
from vineyards on the banks of the lake Mareotis, where the present
Pasha has his gardens, in the vicinity of Marea, once a place of
considerable importance, but now a small village. Attempts, however,
have been made by M. Abro, an Armenian, once more to cover the ancient
sites with vineyards, several acres of ground being planted with
cuttings imported from the great nursery grounds at Chambéry, in Savoy.
-----
Footnote 707:
Athen. i. 59.
-----
The town of Marea derived its name, according to tradition, from
Maron,[708] a person who accompanied Bacchos in his military expedition,
and, in honour of its founder, surrounded itself with the fruit-tree
most agreeable to that god. The grapes here produced were delicious, and
the wine, slightly astringent and aromatic, had an exquisite flavour.
The Mareotic was white, of delicate taste, light, sparkling, and by no
means heady. The best sort was the Tæniotic, so called from the _tænia_,
“sandy eminences,” on which the vineyards were situated. This wine, in
its pure state, had a greenish tinge, like the Johanisberg, and was rich
and unctuous; but, mingled with water, it assumed the colour of Attic
honey. By degrees the vine grew to be cultivated along the whole course
of the Nile,[709] but its produce differed greatly in different places,
both in colour and quality. Among the best was that of Antylla, a city
near Alexandria, the revenues arising from which the ancient kings of
Egypt, and afterwards those of Persia, settled on their queens for their
girdle. The wines of the Thebaid, particularly those made about Koptos,
were so extremely light as to be given even in fevers, as, moreover,
they passed quickly, and greatly promoted digestion.[710]
-----
Footnote 708:
Idem, i. 60. Horat. Carm. i. 37. 14.
Footnote 709:
The cultivation of the vine appears to have flourished in Egypt down
to the reign of the Caliph Beamrillah, who commanded all the vineyards
both in the valley of the Nile and in Syria to be utterly destroyed.
Maured Allatafet Jemaleddini, p. 7.
Footnote 710:
Athen. i. 60.
-----
According to Nicander of Colophon, the word οἶνος, “wine,” was derived
from the name of _Oineus_, who having squeezed out the juice of the
grape into vases, called it, after his own name, _wine_. Diphilos,[711]
the comic poet, gives us, however, something better than etymologies in
that burst of Bacchic enthusiasm in which, in verses fragrant as
Burgundy, he celebrates the praises of the gift of Dionysos:
“Oh! friend to the wise, to the children of song,
Take me with thee, thou wisest and sweetest, along;
To the humble, the lowly, proud thoughts dost thou bring,
For the wretch who has thee is as blythe as a king:
From the brows of the sage, in thy humorous play,
Thou dost smooth every furrow, every wrinkle away;
To the weak thou giv’st strength, to the mendicant gold,
And a slave warmed by thee as a lion is bold.”
-----
Footnote 711:
Idem, ii. 1, where are collected many other etymologies and curious
fables.
-----
Nectar, the poetical drink of the gods, was a sort of wine made near
Olympos in Lydia, by mingling with the juice of the grape a little pure
honey and flowers of delicate fragrance. Anaxandrides, indeed, regards
the nectar as the food of the immortals, and ambrosia as their wine; in
which opinion he is upheld by Alcman and Sappho. But Homer and Ibycos
take an opposite view of the matter.[712]
-----
Footnote 712:
Athen. ii. 8.
-----
Alexis speaks of those who are half-seas-over as much addicted to
reasoning. Nicænetus[713] considers wine as the Pegasus of a poet,
mounted on the wings of which like Trygæos on his beetle he soars “to
the bright heaven of invention.” At the port of Munychia, too, good wine
was held in high estimation; indeed, the honest folks of this borough,
with small respect for the water nymphs, paid particular honour to the
hero _Acratopotes_, that is, in plain English, “one who drinks unmixed
wine.” Even among the Spartans,[714] in spite of their cothons, and
black broth, certain culinary artistes set up in the Phydition, or
common dining-hall, statues in honour of the heroes _Matton_ and
_Keraon_, that is, the genii of eating and drinking. In Achaia, too,
much reverence was paid to _Deipneus_, or the god who presides over good
suppers.[715]
-----
Footnote 713:
Or Nicarchos. Anthol. Græc. xiii. 29. Athen. ii. 9.
Footnote 714:
Athen. ii. 9.
Footnote 715:
Athen. ii. 9. Cf. x. 9.
-----
As the Greeks had a marvellous respect for wine they, like the German
paper enthusiast, almost appeared to imagine it could be made out of a
stone. They had, accordingly, fig wine,[716] root wine, palm wine, and
so on; and their made or mixed wines were without number. There was
scarcely an island or city in the Mediterranean that did not export its
wines to Athens: they had the Lesbian, the Eubœan, the Peparethian,
the Chalybonian, the Thasian, the Pramnian, and the Port wine. We have
already observed, that wine was drunk mixed with flour,[717] and in the
island of Theræ it was thickened with the yolk of an egg. In the Megaris
they prepared with raisins or dried grapes[718] a wine called _passon_,
in taste resembling the Ægosthenic sweet wine, or the Cretan malmsey.
But, however exquisite the wines themselves, it was not thought enough
in the summer months unless they were brought to table cooled with ice
or snow,[719] which was accordingly the practice.
-----
Footnote 716:
Damm. 2224. βρύτον. Athen. x. 67. Plato de Rep. t. vi. p. 144. Xenoph.
Anab. p. 54. 138. Cyrop. p. 522. Plin. Hist. Nat. xiii. 4. Diod. Sic.
ii. 136. On the οἶνος συκίτης vid. Foës. Œcon. Hip. in v. Dioscorid.
v. 40. Lotus wine. Theoph. Hist. Plant, iv. 3. 1. Herod, iv. 177.
Athen. vii. 9–13.
Footnote 717:
Plato de Repub. t. vi. p. 144. Bekk. Athen. viii. 1. On the Pramnian
cf. Athen. 1, 17.
Footnote 718:
Athen. x. 41.
Footnote 719:
Athen. x. 56.
-----