Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 2).djvu/239

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

VORACITY OF THE TEMPERANCE. such a system as that, abandoned their alliance, and joined themselves to the Achæans.

12. The people of Pharsalus also are ridiculed by the comic poets as being enormous eaters; accordingly Mnesimachus, in his Philip, says—

A. Has any man of the Pharsalians come,
     That he may eat up e'en our very tables?
B. There's no one come at all.
                                 A. So much the better;
     Perhaps they have all gone somewhere else to eat
     Some city of Achaïa ready roasted.

And that it was a general imputation on all the Thessalians, that they were great eaters, Crates tells us in his Lamia, saying—

  Great words three cubits long,
Cut into huge Thessalian slices thus:—

and he by this alludes to the Thessalians as cutting their meat into overgrown pieces. And Philetærus, in his Lampbearers, says also—

And a huge piece of pork, enough to break
One's arm, cut in the coarse Thessalian fashion.

They used to speak also of a Thessalian mouthful, as something enormous. Hermippus says in his Fates—

But Jupiter, considering nought of this,
Wink'd, and made up a huge Thessalian mouthful.

And such great bits of meat Aristophanes, in his Men Frying, calls Capanic, saying—

                        What is all this
To the great Lydian and Thessalian banquets?

And presently he says—

More splendid ([Greek: kapanikôtera]) far than the Thessalian:

meaning big enough to load a wagon. For the Thessalians use the word [Greek: kapanê] as equivalent to [Greek: apênê]. Xenarchus, in his Scythians, says—

A. They kept to seven Capanæ for the games
     At Pisa.
              B. What do you mean?
                                     A. In Thessaly
     They call their carts Capanæ.
                                   B. I understand.

13. And Hecatæus says that the Egyptians were great bread-eaters, eating loaves of rye, called [Greek: kyllêsties], and