34. And Hedylus, in his Epigrams, giving a list of epicures in fish, mentions a man named Phædo, in these lines:—
But Phædo, that great harpist, praises phyces,
And sausages, he's such an epicure.
And he mentions Agisoto, in these lines:—
The fish is boil'd, now firmly bar the doors,
Lest Agis, Proteus of the dishes, enter;
For he'll be fire, water,—what he likes;
But bar the door . . .
For he, transform'd, like Jupiter, to gold
Will hasten to this rich Acrisian dish.
He also speaks of a woman named Clio, on a similar account, saying—
Clio's an epicure. Let's shut our eyes.
I beg you, Clio, by yourself to feed.
This conger costs a drachma; leave a pledge,
A band, an earring, or some ornament.
But we cannot endure the sight of you;
You're our Medusa; and we're turn'd to stone,
Not by the Gorgon, but by that whole conger.
35. And Aristodemus, in his Catalogue of Laughable Sayings, says that Euphranor the epicure, having heard that another epicure in fish was dead from having eaten a hot slice of fish, cried out, "What a sacrilegious death!" And Cindon the fish-eater, and Demylus (and he also was an epicure in fish), when a sea-grayling was set before them, and nothing else, the former took one eye of the fish, and then Demylus seized hold of Cindon's eye, crying, "Let his eye go, and I will let your's go." And once at a feast, when a fine dish of fish was served up, Demylus, not being able to contrive any way by which he might get the whole of it to himself, spat upon it. And Zeno the Cittiæan, the founder of the Stoic school, when he had lived a long time with a great epicure in fish, (as Antigonus the Carystian tells us, in his life of Zeno,) once, when a very large fish was by chance served up to them, and when no other food was provided, took the whole fish from the platter, pretending to be about to eat it all himself; and, when the other looked at him, said—"What do you think, then, that those who live with you must suffer every day, if you cannot endure my being a glutton for a single day?" And Ister says that Chœrilus the poet used to receive four minæ every day from Archelaus, and that he spent them all on fish, of which he was so exceedingly fond.
