they are thin and four-cornered; and the dactyleis are not so thick as two fingers. But the most excellent of the cestres are those which are caught near Abdera, as Archestratus has told us; and the second-best are those which come from Sinope.
78. But the cestres are called by some writers plotes, as Polemo says, in his treatise on the Rivers in Sicily. And Epicharmus, in his Muses, gives them this name—
Æolians, and plotes, and cynoglossi.
There also were sciathides.
And Aristotle, in his treatise on the Dispositions and Way of Living of Animals, says that "the cestres live even if they are deprived of their tails. But the cestreus is eaten by the pike, and the conger is eaten by the turbot." And there is an often-quoted proverb, "The cestreus is fasting," which is applied to men who live with strict regard to justice, because the cestreus is never carnivorous. Anaxilas, in his Morose Man, attacking Maton the Sophist for his gluttony, says—
Maton seized hold of a large cestreus' head,
And ate it all. But I am quite undone.
And that beautiful writer, Archestratus, says—
Buy if you can a cestreus which has come
From the sea-girt Ægina; then you shall
For well-bred men be fitting company.
Diocles, in his Sea, says—
The cestreus leaps for joy.
79. But that the nestes are a kind of cestreus, Archippus tells us, in his Hercules Marrying:—
Nestes cestres, cephali.
And Antiphanes, in his Lampon, says—
But all the other soldiers which you have
Are hungry ([Greek: nêsteis]) cestres.
And Alexis, in his Phrygian, says—
So I a nestis cestreus now run home.
Ameipsias says, in his Men playing at the Cottabus—
A. And I will seek the forum, there to find
Some one to take my work.
B. I wish you would,
You would all have less time to follow me,
Like any hungry ([Greek: nêstis]) cestreus.
And Euphron says, in his Ugly Woman—
Midas then is a cestreus—see, he walks
Along the city fasting ([Greek: nêstis]).
