Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 2).djvu/173

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

PIGS. But he has given the name of [Greek: petalides] by a metaphor from heifers. For they are called [Greek: petêloi], or spreading, from their horns, when they have spreading horns. And Eratosthenes has spoken of pigs in the same way as Achæus has in his Anterinnys, and has called them [Greek: larinoi], using this word metaphorically, which properly belongs to fatted oxen; which were called so from the verb [Greek: larineuomai], which is a word of the same meaning as [Greek: sitizomai], to be fed up. And Sophron uses the word—

[Greek: boes de larineuontai;]

or perhaps it comes from Larina, a small town of Epirus, or from the name of the herdsman, which may have been Larinus.

19. And once when a pig was served up before us, the half of which was being carefully roasted, and the other half boiled gently, as if it had been steamed, and when all marvelled at the cleverness of the cook, he being very proud of his skill, said—And, indeed, there is not one of you who can point out the place where he received the death wound; or where his belly was cut so as to be stuffed with all sorts of dainties. For it has thrushes in it, and other birds; and it has also in it parts of the abdomens of pigs, and slices of a sow's womb, and the yolks of eggs, and moreover the entrails of birds, with their ovaries, those also being full of delicate seasoning, and also pieces of meat shred into thin shavings and seasoned with pepper. For I am afraid to use the word [Greek: isikia] before Ulpian, although I know that he himself is very fond of the thing. And, indeed, my favourite author Paxamus speaks of it by this name, and I myself do not care much about using no words but such as are strictly Attic. Do you, therefore, show me now how this pig was killed, and how I contrived to roast half of him and to boil the other side.—And as we kept on examining him, the cook said,—But do you think that I know less about my business than the ancient cooks, of whom the comic poets speak? for Posidippus, in his Dancing Women, speaks as follows—and it is a cook who is represented as making the following speech to his pupils—

20. My pupil Leucon, and the rest of you,
    You fellow servants—for there is no place
    Unfit to lecture upon science in;