FISH. And Philemon says, in his Men dying together—
I bought me now a nestis cestreus roasted
Of no great size.
Aristophanes, in his Gerytades, says—
Is there within a colony of man cestres?
For that they all are [Greek: nêstides] you know.
Anaxandrides says, in his Ulysses—
He usually goes supperless about,
Like a cestrinus nestis.
And Eubulus, in his Nausicaa, says—
Who has been drown'd 'tis now four days ago,
Leading the life of a sad nestis cestreus.
80. When all this had been said about this nice dish of fish, one of the cynics coming late in the evening said, "My friends, are we, too, keeping a fast, as if this were the middle day of the Thesmophoria, since we are now fasting like cestres? For, as Diphilus says, in his Lemnian Women—
These men have supp'd, but I, wretch that I am,
Shall be a cestreus through th' extreme of fasting.
And Myrtilus answering, said—
But stand in order—
as the Hedychares of Theopompus says—
hungry band of cestres,
You who are fed, like geese, on vegetables.
For you shall not take a share of any of these things before either you, or your fellow-pupil Ulpian, tell me why the cestreus is the only fish which is called the faster. And Ulpian said,—It is because he never takes any living bait; and when he is caught, it is neither effected by any meat nor by any living animal; as Aristotle tells us, when he says "perhaps his being hungry makes him lazy;" and also that "when he is frightened he hides his head, as if by so doing he concealed his whole body." But Plato, in his Holidays, says—
As I was going out I met a fisherman,
And he was bringing me some cestres, and
He brought me all those worthless starving fish.
But do you tell me, O you Thessalian wrestler, Myrtilus! why it is that fish are called by the poets [Greek: ellopes]? And he said,—It is because they are voiceless; but some insist upon it that, by strict analogy, the word ought to be [Greek: illopes], because they are deprived of voice: for the verb [Greek: illesthai;]
