FISH. was very difficult to please when making his purchases, says, "But it is not a useless plan, with reference to men who are obstinate, and who will not abate their price, when you are standing by to disparage their fish, quoting Archestratus (who wrote the book called The voluptuous Life), or some other poet, and repeating this verse:—
The mormyrus that haunts the pebbly shore,
Is a bad, good-for-nothing, worthless fish.
And again you may quote—
Buy an amia in the autumn. . . .
'But now 'tis spring.' And again you may proceed, if it should be the proper season—
How good the cestreus is when winter comes.
'But now,' you will say, 'it is summer.' And you will go on in this way for some time; and in this way you will drive away a good many of those who are standing about, and who might become purchasers. So when you have done this, you will by this means compel the man to take whatever price you choose to give."
95. There is also the torpedo. Plato, or Cantharus, says, in the Alliance—
A boil'd torpedo is delicious food.
But Plato the Philosopher says, in the Meno, "You seem very much to resemble the sea-torpedo; for that fish causes any one who comes near it to become torpid." And an allusion to the name occurs also in Homer, where he says—
His hand was torpid ([Greek: narkêse]) at the wrist.
But Menander, in his Phanus, uses the termination [Greek: a], and says—
A certain torpor ([Greek: narka]) creeps o'er all my skin;
though no one of the ancient writers ever used this form of the word. But Icesius says that it is a fish without much nutriment or much juice in it, but that it has some cartilaginous sort of substance diffused all over it, very good for the stomach. And Theophrastus, in his book on Animals which live in Holes, says that the torpedo works its way underground because of the cold. But in his treatise on Poisonous Animals, and on Animals which sting, he says that the torpedo can send the power which proceeds from it through wood, and through harpoons, so as to produce torpor in those
