CABBAGE. And Ananius says—
And, by the cabbage do I swear, I love thee
By far the most of mortal men. . . .
And Teleclides, in his Prytanes, uses the oath, "Yes, by the cabbages!" and Epicharmus has the same exclamation in his Earth and Sea; and so has Eupolis, in his Dyers; and it appears to have been an Ionian oath: and there is nothing very strange in the fact of some people having sworn by the cabbage, since Zeno the Cittiæan, the founder of the sect of the Stoics, imitating the oath of Socrates, "by the bitch," was used himself to swear "by the caper," as Empodus relates in his Memorabilia.
10. And at Athens the cabbage used to be given to women who had just been delivered, as a sort of medicine, having a tendency to add to their nourishment. Accordingly, Ephippus, in his Geryones, says—
What shall next be done?
There is no garland now before the doors,
No savoury smell strikes on my nostril's edge
From Amphidromian festival, in which
The custom is to roast large bits of cheese,
Such as the Chersonesus furnishes,
And then to boil a radish bright with oil,
And fry the breasts of well-fed household lamb,
And to pluck pigeons, thrushes too, and finches,
And to eat squids and cuttle-fish together,
And many polypi with wondrous curls,
And to quaff many goblets of pure wine.
And Antiphanes, in his Parasite, speaks of the cabbage as an economical food, in the following lines, where he says—
And what these things are, you, my wife, know well;
Garlic, and cheese, and cheese-cakes, dainty dishes
Fit for a gentleman; no fish cured and salted,
No joints of lamb well stuff'd with seasoning,
No forced meat of all kinds of ingredients;
No high made dishes, fit to kill a man;
But they will boil some cabbage sweet, ye gods!
And in the dish with it some pulse of pease.
And Diphilus says, in his Insatiable Man,—
All sorts of dainties now come round us here,
All of their own accord. There's cabbage fresh,
Well boil'd in oil; and many paunches, and
Dishes of tender meat. No . . . by Jove,
Nor are they like my platters of bruised olives.
