FISH.
- cleon the Ephesian has said much the same thing; and so has
Philotimus, in his Cookery Book. But that the saperdas and the coracinus are both called the platistacus is affirmed by Parmeno the Rhodian, in the first book of his Culinary Doctrine. But Aristophanes, in his Telmessians, uses the expression "black-finned coracini."
Pherecrates also uses the word in its diminutive form, in his Forgetful Man, where he says—
Being with your [Greek: korakinidia] and [Greek: mainidia].
And Amphis says, in his Ialemus—
Whoever eats a sea-born coracinus
When he may have a grayling, is a fool.
But the coracini of the Nile are very sweet and delicious in their flesh, as those who have tried them know; and they have got their name from continually moving their eyes ([Greek: dia to tas koras kinein]), and never ceasing. But the Alexandrians call them plataces, which is, more correctly speaking, the name of the whole genus.
82. There is also a fish called the cyprinus, or carp. He also, as Aristotle tells us, is a carnivorous and gregarious fish; and he has his tongue, not in the lower part of the mouth, but in the upper part. But Dorion, mentioning him in his list among the lake and river fish, writes thus: "A scaly fish, whom some people call the cyprinus."
83. There is also the tench. "The tench is very juicy," as Icesius says, "exceedingly attractive to the palate, very easily secreted, not very nutritious, nor is the juice which they give very wholesome. But, in delicacy of flavour, the white kind is superior to the black. But the flesh of the green tench is more dry, and devoid of fat; and they give a much smaller quantity of juice, and what they do give is thinner. Still they are more nutritious, on account of their size." Diocles says that those which are found in rocky situations are very tender. But Numenius, in his treatise on Fishing, calls them, not [Greek: kôbioi], but [Greek: kôthoi].
A char or tench ([Greek: kôthos]) of mighty size and bold.
And Sophron, in his Countryman, speaks of "The cothons, who bathe in mud;" and perhaps it was from the name of this fish that he called the son of his Tunny-catcher, in the play, Cothonias. But it is the Sicilians who call the tench [Greek: kôthôn], as Nicander the Colophonian tells us, in his book on
