means to be deprived, and [Greek: ops] means voice.[1] And are you ignorant of this, when you are an [Greek: ellops] yourself? But I, as the wise Epicharmus says, when this dog makes me no answer,—
Am by myself enough well to reply
To what two men have lately said before me.
And I say that they are called [Greek: ellopes] from being covered with scales, [the word coming from the same root, and being equivalent to [Greek: lepidôtos]]. But I will tell you (though that is not a question which has been asked) why the Pythagoreans, who do touch other living creatures, though sparingly, and who allow themselves even to sacrifice some, absolutely abstain altogether from fish alone. Is it because of their silence? for they think silence a very divine quality. Since, then, you, O you Molossian dogs, are always silent, but are still not Pythagoreans, we will now go on to the rest of the discussion about fish.
81. There is a fish called the coracinus. The coracini, which are caught at sea, says Icesius, contain but little nourishment; but they are easily secreted, and have a moderate supply of good juice. But Aristotle, in the fifth book of his Parts of Animals, says that "it happens to nearly all fish to have a rapid growth, and this is the case, in no small degree, with the coracinus; and he lays his eggs close to the land, in places full of weeds and moss." But Speusippus, in the second book of his treatise on Similitudes, says that the black-*tail and the coracinus are much alike. But Numenius, in his Treatise on the Art of Fishing, says—
It easily would attract the spotted coracinus.
And perhaps the æoliæ mentioned by Epicharmus, in his Muses, may be the same as coracini. For Epicharmus says—
Æoliæ, plotes, cynoglossi too.
But, in his Hebe's Marriage, he speaks of the æoliæ as a different fish; for he says—
There there were mussels, and the alphastic fish,
And coracini like to coriander seed,
Æoliæ, plotes too, and the cynoglossi.
But Euthydemus, in his essay on Cured Fish, says that the coracinus is by many people called the saperda. And Hera-*
- ↑ Schweighaeuser thinks that something has dropped out of the text here; and proposes to insert, "And Ulpian said."
