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previous: IX.376C‑383F This webpage reproduces a section of The Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus published in Vol. IV of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1930 The text is in the public domain. This page has not been proofread. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: IX.399A‑403D

(Vol. IV) Athenaeus
Deipnosophistae

Book IX
(Part 3 of 5)

 p235  384The Goose. — These, as well as other birds, were brought in elaborately dressed. And someone said, "The geese are fatted." Then Ulpian asked, "In what author is 'the fatted goose' found?" Plutarch answered him: "Theopompus of Chios, in his History of Greece, and in the thirteenth book of his History of Philip,​1 said that when Agesilaus of Lacedaemon arrived in Egypt, the Egyptian sent  p237 him fatted geese and calves. And the comic poet Epigenes says in The Bacchae:​2 'But supposing that someone took and stuffed him up for me like a fatted goose.' BAnd Archestratus in his famous poem:​3 'And dress the fatted young of a goose with it, roasting that also simply.' Now you, Ulpian, are just the man to tell us, since you are the one who asks all questions of all men, where among ancient writers it is thought worth while to mention those sumptuous goose-livers. For that goose-fatteners are known Cratinus can testify when he says, in Dionysus-Alexander:​4 'Goose-fatteners, cow-tenders.' Homer​5 has the word goose both as feminine and as masculine: 'An eagle bearing a white goose.' Also:​6 C'As yonder eagle snatched away the goose that was fed in the house.' And:​7 'Twenty geese I have in my house, that each wheat from the water-trough.' As for goose-livers, which are excessively sought after in Rome, Eubulus mentions them in The Wreath-sellers, saying:​8 'Unless you have the liver or mind of a goose.' "

There were also many "half-heads" of shoats. These are mentioned by Crobylus in The False  p239 Substitute:​9 D"There came in the tender half-head of a shoat. Of that, I swear by Zeus, I didn't leave a bit." Next came the "meat-pot," as it is called. This is composed of meats chopped fine, with the blood and the fat, in sweetened gravy. "Aristophanes the grammarian says​10 that the people of Achaea give it this name." So spoke Myrtilus, and he added: "Anticleides in the eighth book of his Returns​11 says that E'the Chians were once on the point of being massacred at a feast by the Erythraeans as the result of a concerted plot; someone perceived what was on foot and recited: "O ye Chians, since mighty violence has the Erythraeans for its own, flee after ye have feasted on swine's flesh, but stay not for the ox." ' Boiled meat is mentioned by Aristomenes in Quacks​12 thus: . . . They also ate testicles, which they called kidneys; Philippides in The Fountain of Youth, dilating on the gluttony of the courtesan Gnathaena, says:​13 'Then after all these viands a slave came bearing heaps of testicles. FNow all the other females tittered with embarrassment, but that bloodthirsty Gnathaena, with a loud laugh cried out at the same time, "These are indeed fine kidneys, by the dear Demeter." Then she snatched two of them and gulped them down, so that we tumbled on our backs with laughter.' "

Another speaker remarked that a very nice dish was  p241 capon with vinegar-oil​14 sauce. Whereupon Ulpian, who is so fond of criticizing others, and who lay on the couch alone, 385eating but little and watching the speakers, said: "What is vinegar-oil sauce? Unless, to be sure, you are trying to tell us of what we call 'poll-fish' and 'sweet-fish,'​15 the viands which are well known in my native land." To which the other said: "The comic poet Timocles mentions vinegar-oil sauce in The Ring,​16 saying: 'Dogfish and rays, and all the kinds of fish which are dressed with vinegar-oil sauce.' BAnd some men were called 'oil-tops' by Alexis in The Lovelorn Lass,​17 thus: 'Oil-tops they, though the rest of their bodies is wooden.' " When a large fish was served once in an oil-pickle, someone said that any fish was very nice if served in an oil pickle; but Ulpian, who likes to collect thorny questions,​18 contracted his brows and said: "Where is 'oil-pickle' to be found? As for your word for fish (opsarion),​19 I know that that is not used in any author alive." Now most of the company told him to mind his own business, and went on eating; but Cynulcus shouted the lines from The Breezes of Metagenes:​20 C"Nay, my good sir, let us dine first, and after that you may ask me anything you like; for just now I am hungry, and somehow have an awfully poor memory." And Myrtilus spoke up quite sweetly, enlisting in Ulpian's cause, that he might not have a share in any food, but might spend all his time in talking; so he said:  p243 "Cratinus in The Odysseis has the word 'oil-pickle' in these lines:​21 'In return for this, I am going to seize all you trusty companions and toast, roast, and broil you on the brazier; Dand dipping you into pickle, oil-pickle, and after that garlic-pickle hot, I shall eat up that man among you all, O ye troopers, who looks to me the most nicely done.' And Aristophanes in The Wasps:​22 Blow me away and hurl me into a hot oil-pickle.' As for opsarion, we use the word, and we are among 'authors who are alive.' But even Plato has it of fish in Peisander:​23 E'A. Have you ever, as sometimes happens, eaten a bit of fish (opsarion) and been sick, and it has disagreed with you? B. Indeed I have; last year, when I ate a crayfish.' Pherecrates in The Deserters:​24 'Somebody placed before us this fish.' Philemon in The Treasure:​25 'You can't cheat me, damn you, when you have rotten fish before my very eyes.' Menander in The Carthaginian:​26 'Although I offered a bit of incense to Boreas, yet I have caught never a fish; I shall have to make lentil-soup.' FAnd in The Ephesian:​27 'I got a fish for my luncheon.'  p245 Then he proceeds to add: 'One of the fishmongers was just now offering his gobies for sale at four shillings.' Anaxilas in Hyacinthus the Pimp:​28 'I'll got to market and buy you a fish (opsarion)'; and a little farther on: 'Dress the fish (opsarion) for us, slave!' But in the line from Aristophanes' Anagyrus,​29 'Unless you console me always with opsaria,' we understand opsaria here of tasty side-dishes. So, indeed, Alexis in The Vigil, 386when he gives this speech to a cook:​30 'A. Would you like your relishes (opsaria) served rather hot, or middling, or lower? B. Lower? What do you mean? A. (Aside) Where can this fellow come from? (To B.) You don't understand how to live. Am I to serve all your dishes cold? B. Please don't. A. Then boiling hot? B. Heaven defend us! A. Then let them be middling? B. Of course. A. No other man in my guild does that. BB. No, I fancy not, nor anything else you are doing now! A. But I will explain: I give the guests at dinner their choice of temperature. B. (vexed with his loud boasting). In the gods' name, you've slaughtered the kid, I believe, not me. Don't chop me up, but rather the meat. A. All right. Slaves, line up! Have you a kitchen? B. Yes. A. With a smoke-pipe? B. Why, of course. A. No "of course" about it, if you please. But has  p247 it a smoke-pipe? CB. It has. A. It's no good if it smokes. B. This fellow will be the death of me!'

"These instances,​31 taken from us 'who are still alive,'​32 I have recalled for your benefit, Ulpian — you, who find happiness in your belly, since you plainly side with me in never eating any 'living' thing, to quote Alexis. For he says in Atthis:​33 'The first man who said that no one was a reason professor of wisdom if he ate any live creature was certainly wise himself. Take me, for instance; I have just returned without buying anything that was alive. DI bought large fish, but they were dead; boiled slice of fat lamb, but not living; for it can't be done! What else? Oh, yes; I also bought a baked liver. If anyone can show that one of these things has voice or breath, I admit I've done wrong and am transgressing the law.' This being so, do allow us to dine. For look! While I have been talking to you the pheasants also have sailed in alongside, looking on us with contempt because of your unseasonable loquacity." E"But if you will tell me, Master Myrtilus," said Ulpian, "where your word 'finding-happiness-in-the‑belly' comes from, and whether any of the ancients mentions Phasian birds, I, in my turn, without 'sailing at break of day over the Hellespont,'​34 will go to the market-place and buy a pheasant, which I will eat up with you." Myrtilus replied: "On those conditions I will speak. "finding-happiness-in-the‑belly' is a word used by Amphis in Woman-Madness.  p249 He says:​35 'You fat-licking Eurybatus, . . . you must be one who finds happiness in his belly.' FAnd 'Phasian bird' (pheasant) is mentioned by the most delightful Aristophanes in a play, The Birds. Two old men of Athens, impelled by love of quiet, are seeking a quiet city in which to settle. Life among the birds appeals to them. So they go to the home of the birds, and suddenly one bird of ferocious aspect flies toward them. They are scared, but try to encourage each other, 387saying, among other things:​36 'A. But this fellow here, what bird is he? Won't you answer? B. You mean me? I am Shitepoke, Phasian.'​37 Again, the term Phasian used in The Clouds, I, at least, understand to refer to birds and not to horses, as many authorities do:​38 'The Phasians kept by Leogoras.' For Leogoras may have kept Phasian birds as well as horses. Leogoras, in fact, is satirized as a glutton by Plato in Very Sad.​39 And Mnesimachus (he too is one of the poets of the Middle Comedy) says in Philip:​40 B'And as the saying goes, birds' milk is scarcer, or a nicely plucked pheasant.' Theophrastus of Eresus, Aristotle's disciple, mentions them in the third book of his work On Animals, and says something like this:​41 'Birds also are distinguished  p251 in classes in this way. There are first the heavy and non-flying, like the francolin, partridge, cock, pheasant, able to walk and covered with plumage as soon as hatched.' And Aristotle in the eighth book of his History of Animals writes as follows:​42 'Among the birds, some are given to dusting themselves, others to bathing, while others neither dust nor bathe. CAll that are non-flying, but keep to the ground, like to dust themselves, such as the hen, partridge, francolin, pheasant, and crested lark.' Speusippus also mentions the pheasant in the second book of Similars. All these authorities call it phasianos and not phasianikos. Agatharchides of Cnidus, discussing the Phasis river in the thirty-fourth book of his European History, writes this also:​43 'Innumerable birds, of the sort called pheasant, resort for food to the mouths of the river.' And Callixeinus of Rhodes, in the fourth book of his Alexandria, when describing the parade that occurred Din Alexandria under King Ptolemy, called Philadelphus, writes the following of these birds, which he evidently regarded as a great marvel:​44 'Then were brought, in cages, parrots, peacocks, guinea-fowls, birds from the Phasis and from Aethiopia in great quantities.' Artemidorus, the Aristophanean,​45 in his Glossary of Cookery, and Pamphilus of Alexandria, in his Onomasticon and Glossary, cite Epaenetus as saying, in his art of Cookery, that the Phasian bird is called tatyras. EBut Ptolemy Euergetes, in the second book of his Commentaries, says​46 that the name of the Phasian bird is tetaros.  p253 All this I can answer you on the subject of the Phasian birds, which I, like persons in a fever, have seen going the rounds through your machinations. If, then, remembering our stipulation, you do not pay me back to-morrow what you have promised, I will not, to be sure, sue you in the public courts for wilful deception, but I will banish you to live on the Phasis river, Fjust as the geographer Polemon wanted to consign the historian Istrus, disciple of Callimachus, to the deep waters of the like-named river."47

The Francolin.​48 — Aristophanes in The Storks:​49 "The francolin, sweetest meat to cook at the feast of victory."​50 Alexander of Myndus says​51 that it is a little larger than a partridge, entirely covered with variegated markings on its back, of clay colour tending to red. It can be caught by hunters because of its weight and the shortness of its wings. 388It likes to roll in the dust, is prolific, and feeds on seeds.​52 And Socrates, in the work On Boundaries,​53 Places, Fire, and Stones, says: "When the francolins were transported from Lydia to Egypt and let lose in the woods, they uttered for a time the note of a quail; but ever since a famine occurred as the result of the river flowing too low,​54 and many of the inhabitants died, the birds have not ceased to this very day to utter, more plainly than children who speak most distinctly could, the words 'three times evil to  p255 evil-doers.' If they are caught they not only cannot be tamed, but they do not even utter a note any more. BIf released, they become vocal again." Hipponax mentions them thus:​55 'Eating not of francolins or hares." Also Aristophanes in The Birds;​56 in The Acharnians, too, he speaks of them as being abundant in the Megarian territory.​57 Attic writers place the circumflex on the last syllable of the name (attagâs), contrary to right analogy. For words of more than two syllables ending in as with a long, when the penult contains a, are barytone; thus, akámas (untiring), Sacádas, adámas (adamant). Further, in the plural one should say attagai and not attagênes. The Purple Coot. — It is well known at the Aristophanes mentions this bird also.​58 CPolemon, in the fifth book of his Address to Antigonus and Adaeus, says​59 of the purple coot that when it is domesticated the bird keeps a sharp eye on married women and is so affected if the wife commits adultery that when it suspects this it ends its life by strangling and so gives warning to its master. Polemon adds that the bird does not take food until it has walked round and found a spot suitable to itself; after doing this it rolls in the dust and bathes, and then only does it feed. Aristotle says​60 that it has parted toes,​61 a bluish colour, Dlong legs, a beak which is red all the way from the head; it is of the size of the cock, but has a small gullet, hence it grasps its food with its feet and breaks it up into small bits; it drinks,  p257 however, in gulps. It has five toes, the middle being the largest. Alexander of Myndus in the second book of Inquiry into Birds says that this bird is Libyan and sacred to the gods which are worshipped in Libya.

The Redbird. — Callimachus, in his treatise On Birds, says​62 that the purple coot (porphyriôn) is distinct from the redbird (porphyris), classifying each separately; he further says that the purple coot eats its food burrowing in a dark place, that no one may observe it. For it hates those who approach its food. EThe redbird is mentioned also by Aristophanes in The Birds.​63 Ibycus gives the name of hiding-red" to certain birds in these lines:​64 'Here, on the topmost boughs, perch speckled guans, and hiding-redbirds with necks of sheen, and long-winged halcyons." And in other lines he says:​65 ". . . me ever, O heart of mine, as when a long-winged redbird . . ."

The Partridge. — these are mentioned by many authors, including also Aristophanes. FSome shorten the middle syllable in the word; thus Archilochus:​66 "Like a partridge (perdika) cowering from fear." Similarly also in ortzzzga (quail) and choinĭka (quart), although lengthening the syllable is very common in Attic writers. Sophocles in The Camicians:​67 'There came one who bore the name of the partridge-bird (perdīkos) on the glorious hills of Athens."  p259 Pherecrates, or whoever wrote Cheiron:​68 "He will come out this way unwillingly, like a partridge (perdīkos)." 389Phrynichus in The Tragedians:​69 "also Cleombrotus, son of Partridge (perdīkos)." The name of the creature is often employed symbolically to describe salaciousness. Nicophon in Hand-to‑mouth-toilers:​70 "The boiled small fry and those partridges yonder." Epicharmus makes the penult short in Revellers:​71 "They brought cuttlefish a‑swimming and partridges (perdīkas) on the wing." Aristotle says of the creature:​72 "The partridge lives on land and has parted toes; it lives for fifteen years, but the female may even longer. For in the case of birds the females are more long-lived than the males. BIt sits on the eggs and hatches them out just as the hen does. When it becomes aware that it is being hunted, it proceeds away from the nest and hobbles along near the hunter's legs, exciting hopes of being caught, and so deceives him until the young have flown away, when it also flies out of reach. The creature is malicious and mischievous, also salacious. Hence it crushes the female's eggs in order to gratify its desires. The female, becoming aware of this, runs away and lays its eggs." The same facts are recorded by Callimachus also in his work On Birds.​73 CThose which have no mates fight against each other, and the one that is defeated is forced to mate with the victor. Aristotle says​74 that  p261 all the males mate in turn with the defeated bird. Even the tame birds mate with the wild. When one bird is beaten by the second, it is mated by the victor in secret. This happens at a certain season of the year, as Alexander of Myndus also declares. Males and females nest on the ground, each in a separate place. Against a decoy partridge the leader of the wild birds forces his way to fight him; if the leader is beaten another comes up to fight. DNow when the decoy bird is a male, this is their procedure; but when the decoy is a female, she sings until the leader comes to meet her. The other birds gather and try to chase him away from the female because he pays attention to her instead of to them. Hence it often happens, for this reason, that he approaches her silently, that no other bird may hear his call and come to fight him. Sometimes the female puts the male to silence when he approaches her. Often, too, it rises from the nest where it is brooding, whenever it sees her male approaching the decoy, and even submits to copulation in order to draw him away from the decoy. EPartridges and quails are excited to such a degree over the act of copulation that they throw themselves among the decoy birds, alighting upon their heads. They even say that the female partridges, which are led as decoys to the hunt, the moment they catch sight or smell of the males standing or flying about to windward of them, become pregnant, and some even lay immediately. And so, at the season of mating, they fly about with beak open and with tongue projecting, the females  p263 as well as the males. FClearchus says in the essay On Panic:​75 "Sparrows, partridges, cocks less, and quails emit screams not merely if they see the females, but even if they hear their call. The cause of this is the imaginative thought of union arising in their consciousness. This becomes most obvious at the season of mating, when you place a mirror directly in their path; for, deceived by the reflection, they run up to it and so are caught; they then emit semen — all, that is, excepting the barn-yard fowls. The latter are simply provoked of the fight by the sight of the reflection." So much, then, for what Clearchus says.

390Partridges are called caccabae by some writers, as, for example, Alcman when he says:​76 "Epic verses, indeed, and lyric melody Full-tongued hath Alcman invented, composing the notes of the partridge (caccabis)," thus clearly indicating that he learned to sing from the partridges. Hence also Chamaeleon of Pontus has said:​77 "The men of old devised the invention of music from the birds singing in solitary places; by way of imitating them, men instituted the art of music." But not all partridges, he adds, utter the note caccabê; Theophrastus, at any rate, in the chapter On the Difference in Voice among Congeners, says​78 that "the partridges of Athens found on this side of Corydallus in the direction of the city, cry caccabê, Bbut those on the other side cry tittybê."​79 Basilis, in the second book of the History of India,  p265 says​80 that "the dwarfs, who continually wage war with the cranes, use partridges as mounts to ride upon." But menecles, in the first part of his Collection, says​81 that "the Pygmies wage war on the partridges and the cranes." There is another kind of partridge in Italy with dark plumage and smaller in build, having a beak not of vermilion colour. The partridges from the neighbourhood of Cirrha have a flesh which is uneatable on account of their food. CThose of Boeotia either do not cross over into Attica, or if they do, they become recognizable by their note, as we have said before.​82 The partridges that are found in Paphlagonia, says Theophrastus,​83 have two hearts; those on the island of Sciathos eat snails. Partridges sometimes lay as many as fifteen or even sixteen eggs. They can fly only a short distance, as Xenophon says in the first book of his Anabasis, writing as follows:​84 'As for the bustards, if one starts them up suddenly it is possible to catch them; Dfor they can fly only a short distance, like partridges, and they soon get tired. But their flesh is of good flavour."

Plutarch says that Xenophon is quite right about the bustards. For these creatures are brought in very large numbers to Alexandria from Libya, which is adjacent, and the mode of catching them is this.​a This creature, the ôtus,​85 is given to mimicry, particularly of anything which it sees a man doing. At any rate, it does the same things that it sees the hunters doing. So the hunters take a position in plain sight of the birds and smear their eyes with an unguent after preparing other unguents which  p267 cause eyes and eyelids to stick together; Ethese they place at no great distance from themselves in small pans. The bustards, therefore, seeing the men smearing themselves, take the unguent from the pans and do the same thing, and are quickly caught. Aristotle writes thus concerning them:​86 "It belongs to the class of migrating birds, and of those which have parted toes and are three-toed; in size like a large rooster; coloured like a quail, head elongated, beak sharp, neck slender, eyes large, tongue bony; it has no crop." FAlexander of Myndus says that it is also called lagodias.​87 He says that it chews the cud and takes delight in a horse.​88 If, at any rate, one should put on a horse's hide, he would catch as many as he likes. For they will come close. In another passage, again, Aristotle says:​89 "The otus is like the owl, but is not nocturnal. It has horns at the ears (ota), whence its name, otus; it has the size of a pigeon, and imitates human beings; when it dances, at any rate, in imitation of man, it can be caught." It looks like a man in its features, and is imitative of everything that a man does. 391This is why persons who are easily deceived on any chance occasion are called owls by the comedians.​90 In catching owls, at any rate, the man who is most adept dances after he has taken his place where they can see him, and the creatures, looking at the dancer, move like marionettes.  p269 Another hunter, taking his station behind them, catches them when rapt in the pleasure of mimicry before they know it. They say that the horned owls​91 also do the same thing;​92 for it is common report that they are caught by dancing. Homer mentions them.​93 A kind of dance is called skôps from them, receiving its name from the variety of movements observed in the creature. BThese owls also delight in mimicry, and from them we give the term skôptein to the copying and hitting off of persons we ridicule, because we practise the method of the owls (skôpes). All birds which have well-developed tongues can also make articulate tones, and can imitate the sounds made by men by other birds; such are the parrot and the magpie. "Now the horned owl," as Alexander of Myndus says,​94 "is smaller than the common owl,​95 and upon a ground of lead-colour it has whitish spots; at the brow it bears feathers extending upwards beside each temple." CCallimachus says​96 that there are two kinds of horned owls (skôpes), and that the one kind utters notes, the other does not. Hence, he says, the first are called skôpes, the second aeiskôpes; their eyes are glaring.​97 Alexander of Myndus says that the word for horned owls in Homer is written without the s (kôpes), and Aristotle has called them by that name.​98 These owls​99 appear at all seasons and cannot be eaten. But those which appear one or two days in the autumn are edible. They differ from the  p271 aeiskôpes in plumpness, and are similar to the turtle-dove and the ringdove. DSpeusippus, also, in the second book of Similars, gives them the name kôpes, without the s. Epicharmus has:​100 "Horned owls (skôpes), hoopoes, common owls." Metrodorus, again, says in the treatise On Habit that horned owls are caught by their imitation of dancing.

Since, in our account of partridges, we mentioned that they are very much given to copulation, let it be recorded that the bird which is also lustful is the rooster. Aristotle, at any rate, says​101 that when roosters are dedicated in sacred places, those which have been there for some time before cover the one newly dedicated until another bird is dedicated; Eand if none be dedicated, they fight against one another, and the victor continually covers the vanquished. It is also recorded that a rooster, when entering any door, raises his crest, and that he does not cede to another bird the right to cover without a battle. Theophrastus​102 declares that wild birds are more given to covering than the domestic. He even says that the males are eager to consort as soon as they rise from the nest, the females as the day advances farther. Sparrows, too, are given to copulation; hence terpsicles says that they who eat sparrows are prone to lust. FPerhaps, then, Sappho draws from a fact in nature when she makes Aphrodite ride in a car drawn by sparrows;​103 for the creature is given to "riding," and is prolific. At any rate, the sparrow lays as many as eight eggs, according to Aristotle.​104 Alexander of Myndus says that there are two kinds of sparrows, domestic and wild; the females among them are  p273 more insignificant, especially in their beak, which is more hornlike in colour, and they have faces neither very white nor very dark. 392Aristotle declares​105 that the males disappear in winter, but the females remain through the season; he draws this probable inference from their colour; for he says that this changes, as in the case of blackbirds and coots, which grow white according to the season. The people of Elis call sparrows deiretae,​106 as Nicander of Colophon says in the third book of his Glossary.107

Quails. — The question is raised in general concerning nouns which end in yx, why it is that in the genitive these nouns do not employ the same consonant in forming the last syllable (I mean nouns like onyx, nail, and ortyx, quail). Simple​108 dissyllabic masculines ending in x, Bwhen preceded by y,​109 and when they have at the beginning of the last syllable one of the unchangeable sounds,​110 or one of the sounds characteristic of what is called the first declension of barytone words,​111 are inflected in the genitive with k; thus keryx, herald, genitive kerykos; pelyx, axe, pelykos; Eryx, the mountain, Erykos; Bebryx, Bebrykos But all those which do not have this character are inflected with g: ortyx, quail, genitive ortygos; oryx, pickaxe, orygos;​112a kokkyx, cuckoo, kokkygos. Noteworthy is onyx, nail, onychos.​112b Furthermore, as a general rule, the genitive singular follows the nominative plural  p275 and employs the same consonant in forming the last syllable.​113 This is also true if the noun is inflected without a consonant.

Aristotle says:​114 "The quail belongs to the class of migrating birds, and of those which have parted toes; it does not make a nest, but a rolling-place in the dust; this it shelters with twigs, on account of the hawks, and here it broods over its eggs." CAlexander of Myndus, in the second book of his work On Animals, says:​115 "The female quail is slender-necked, and has not the black markings of male under the chin. When dissected, it is seen not to have a large crop, but it has a large heart, and this has three lobes. It has also the liver and the gall bladder tightly joined in the intestines, a spleen small and difficult to discover, and testicles under the liver, as in the case of roosters." DRespecting their origin, Phanodemus says in the second book of his Attic History:​116 "When Erysichthon perceived the island of Delos, which was called Ortygia (Quail Island) by the ancients because of the flocks of these birds, as they were borne from the sea, settled upon the island, since it offered security . . ." Eudoxus of Cnidus, in the first book of his Description of the Earth, says that the Phoenicians sacrifice quails to Heracles, because Heracles, the son of Asteria and Zeus, went into Libya and was killed by Typhon; Ebut Iolaus brought a quail to him, and having put it close to him, he smelt  p277 it and came to life again. For when he was alive, Eudoxus says, Heracles had delighted in this bird. Eupolis in The Island Towns gives a diminutive form to their name, saying:​117 "A. Have you ever at any time kept quails? B. Indeed I have; some tiny little quails (ortygia). And what of it?" Antiphanes in The Farmer has this diminutive in the singular, thus:​118 "Why! What then are you able to do, you with the heart of a quail (ortygion)?"​119 FPratinas, singularly enough, in The Dymaenae or Caryatids, calls the quail "sweet-voiced";​120 but perhaps among the Phliasians or the Laconians they may be tuneful, as the partridges are. And the designation sialis, says Didymus,​121 must be derived from this. For most birds, generally speaking, have their names from their notes. As for the land-rail (mentioned by Cratinus in The Cheirons when he says,​122 "That Ithacan land-rail"), 393Alexander of Myndus says of it that in size it is as large as a turtle-dove, but has long legs, and is of poor growth and cowardly. Concerning quail-hunting, Clearchus of Soli records a singular circumstance in the essay entitled On the Mathematical Passages in Plato's Republic. He says:​123 "In the mating season of the quails, if one places a  p279 mirror in their path and a noose in front of the mirror, they will run to meet the reflection in the mirror and will be caught in the noose." Clearchus records similar facts of the birds called koloioi (jackdaws) in these words: "So it is also with jackdaws, because of their innate love of their kind. BAlthough they beat everything else in craftiness, nevertheless when a bowl full of oil is set, those of them which stand on the brim and look down cast themselves headlong upon the reflection. Thus their wings become soaked with oil, and being glued together become the cause of their capture."

The middle syllable of the name for quail​124 is prolonged in Attic Greek, just as in doidȳka (pestle) and in kerȳka (herald); so Demetrius Ixion states in his treatise On the Alexandrian Dialect. CBut Aristophanes made it short in The Peace, for the sake of the metre:​125 "Home-bred quails (ortzzzges). The so‑called chennia (it is a small quail) are mentioned by Cleomenes in his Letter to Alexander, writing as follows: "Ten thousand smoked coots, five thousand thrushes, ten thousand smoked quails (chennia)." And Hipparchus in The Egyptian Iliad: "And I liked not the life which the Egyptians lead, for ever plucking quails (chennia) and slimy magpies."

Even swans were not often missing at our banquet; Dof them Aristotle says:​126 "The swan loves its young, and it is belligerent; the belligerent, at any rate, is inclined to mutual slaughter. It will even fight the  p281 eagle, though it will not provoke the fight. They are also given to song, especially as their end draws near. They even sing while they are crossing the deep sea. It belongs to the class of web-footed and grass-eating birds." But Alexander of Myndus says that, although he has closely followed many dying swans, he never heard them sing. Hegesianax of Alexandria, who composed the work entitled Cephalion's Trojan War, Esays​127 that the Cyenus (Swan) who fought in single combat against Achilles was reared in Leucophrys by the bird whose name he bore. According to Philochorus, Boeus, or Boeô, in the Ornithogony,​128 says that Cycnus was changed into a bird by Ares, and coming to the Sybaris river he consorted with a crane. He also says that Cycnus placed in his nest the grass that is called willow-grass. Boeus says also, of the crane, that she had been a woman eminent among the Pygmies, named Gerana. She, honoured as a god by her citizens, held the true gods in low esteem herself, especially Hera and Artemis. FHera, therefore, became angry, metamorphosed her into a bird of ugly shape, and made her an enemy and hateful to the Pygmies who had honoured her; Boeus also says that from her and Nicodanas was born the land tortoise. The author of this epic records that all the birds without exception had once been human beings.

Ring-doves. — Aristotle says that the pigeons constitute a single class, with five varieties; he writes as follows:​129 394'Pigeon, rock-dove, stock-dove, ring-dove, turtle-dove." But in the fifth book of Parts of  p283 Animals​130 he does not mention the stock-dove, although Aeschylus, in the satyric drama Proteus, mentions the bird thus:​131 "The poor, unhappy stock-dove​132 feeding, its shattered sides broken in two when caught on the winnowing-fans." In Philoctetes,​133 declining the word in the genitive (plural), he has phabôn. "Now the rock-dove," Aristotle says, "is larger than the pigeon, and has a winey colour.​134 The stock-dove is intermediate between the pigeon and the rock-dove, while the ring-dove is of the size of the cock, with ashy colour; the turtle-dove is smaller than all the others, and has a grey colour. BIt appears in summer, but during the winter lives in holes. The stock-dove and the pigeon appear at all seasons, but the rock-dove only in the autumn. The ring-dove is said to be more long-lived than these others; in fact it lives thirty or forty years. Until death comes, the males do not desert the females, nor the females the males, but when one dies, whichever is left lives in solitary bereavement. The same is true also of crows, ravens, and jackdaws. In the entire pigeon class, male and female sit on the eggs in turn, and when the young are hatched the male spits on them that they may not be bewitched.​135 CIt lays two eggs, the first of which makes a male, the second a female. They lay at all seasons of the year; hence they lay as much as ten times in Tyr, in Egypt even twelve times. Having laid once, the hen conceives again the next day." Again, in the same passage,136  p285 Aristotle says that the pigeon (peristera) is different;​137 that the wild pigeon is smaller, and that it becomes tame; the pigeon, moreover, is dark and small, with red, rough feet; hence nobody keeps it as a domestic fowl.​138 DA peculiarity of the pigeon, he says,​139 is that they bill each other when they are about to couple; otherwise the females will not tolerate the male. But the older bird, he says, can mount the female first even without billing. Younger birds always cover only after they have done this. Even the females cover each other when no male is near, after billing. And though they eject nothing into each other, they lay eggs, but no chick comes from them. The Dorians use the word peleias for peristera, as, for example, Sophron, in his Mimes of Women. But Callimachus, in his book On Birds, explains​140 phassa (ring-dove), pyrallis, pigeon, and turtle-dove, as different birds. EAlexander of Myndus says that the ring-dove, does not raise its head when drinking, as does the turtle-dove, and that it makes no sound in the winter season except after a period of fair weather. It is said that if the rock-dove eats the seed of the mistletoe and then lets a dropping fall upon a tree, a new growth of mistletoe is produced. Daïmachus, in his History of India, records​141 that yellow pigeons occur in India. Charon of Lampsacus, in giving an account of Mardonius and the Persian host that was destroyed off Mount Athos, writes, in his History of  p287 Persia:​142 "On that occasion white pigeons appeared for the first time in Greece, having never occurred there before." FAristotle says​143 that when their young are hatched, pigeons open their mouths and spit into them salty earth with they have chewed, and by this means prepare them for taking their food. On Mount Eryx, in Sicily, there is a stated time, called the Festival of Embarkation, when, they say, the goddess​144 embarks for Libya. On that occasion the pigeons which flock about the place disappear as if they had joined the goddess in her journey. And after nine days, at the so‑called Festival of Debarkation, 395one pigeons flies forth out of the sea and alights upon the temple, and then all the rest appear. Thereupon all the inhabitants round about who enjoy ample means begin to feast, while the rest applaud joyfully, and the whole place smells of butter,​145 which they employ as a sign of the goddess's return. Autocrates in his Achaean History records​146 that Zeus even changed himself into a pigeon when he fell in love with a maiden of Aegium named Phthia. Attic writers have a masculine form, peristeros. Alexis in Running Mates:​147 B"For I am Aphrodite's white pigeon (peristeros).​148 After Dionysus, all he knows is getting drunk, and whether a thing be young or old, he does not care." But  p289 in Dorcis or The Woman who Smacks he has the feminine form peristera, and says that the pigeons of Sicily are particularly fine:​149 "I keep pigeons in my house, the Sicilian kinds, which are very choice." Pherecrates in Old Women has the masculine:​150 "Send the pigeon to tell the news." And in The Broad he has a neuter diminutive:​151 C"Nay, little pigeon (peristerion), soft as Cleisthenes, fly, and take me to Cythera and to Cyprus." Nicander, mentioning the pigeons of Sicily in the second book of his Georgics, says:​152 "And so thou must at least keep Dracontiad or Sicilian pigeons in thy halls; they lay two eggs at a time, and not ravening birds, and not snakes, it is said, can harm their shelly coats."153

Ducks. — Alexander of Myndus says​154 that in the case of these birds the male is larger and more varied in colour. The kind called glaucion,​155 because of the colour of its eyes, is a little smaller than the common duck. DOf those called "feeders,"​156 the male has conspicuous markings; but it is less . . .​157 than the duck. The males have beaks which are flat and proportionately smaller than the duck's. The little grebe, smallest of all aquatic birds, is a dirty black in colour,  p291 and it has a beak which is sharp and protects the eyes; it dives below frequently. There is also another kind of feeder larger than the common duck, but smaller than a Nile goose. The birds called phaskades are a little larger than the grebes; they resemble ducks in other repulses. EThe so‑called uria​158 is not much smaller than a duck; in colour it is of a dirty clay, and it has a long and narrow bill. The coot, likewise, has a narrow bill; it is rounder in appearance; its breast is ashy-coloured, its back somewhat darker. The duck (netta) and the grebe (kolymbas), from which are derived the verbs nechesthai (swim) and kolymbân (dive), are mentioned along with many other marsh birds by Aristophanes in The Acharnians, in these lines:​159 "Ducks, jackdaws, francolins, coots, Fsandpipers, grebes." Callimachus, too, mentions them in his work On Birds.160

We often had, also the so‑called parastatai,​161 which are mentioned by Epaenetus in The Art of Cookery, and by Simaristus in the third and fourth books of his Synonyms. The testes are called by this name.

Certain meats were brought in which had been stewed together in a broth, and someone said, 396"Give me some 'choked'​162 bits of meat"; whereupon that word-architect, Ulpian, said: "I shall choke myself to death unless you tell where you could have deified such meat as that! I certainly will never use the  p293 word until I have found out." He replied: "Strattis used it in The Macedonians or Pausanias:​163 'Be sure you have something smothered as a delicacy, — a lot of that kind of thing.' And Eubulus in Glued Together:​164 'And Sicilian smothered meats in heaps of stewpans.' So Aristophanes in The Wasps:​165 'Smothered in casserole.' And Cratinus in Women of Delos:​166 B'Rub a little portion in it and smother it tidily.' Antiphanes in The Farmer:​167 'A. And first of all I take the wished-for barley cake, which life-bringing Deô lavishes as a dear joy upon mortals; then the smothered, tender limbs of kids' flesh newly born, clad in green herbs. B. What's that you say? A. I'm just reciting a play of Sophocles.' "168

On one occasion sucking-pigs (galathena) were served all round, Cand our men of Dinnerville asked whether the word is actually found. Someone replied: 'Pherecrates in Slave-Teacher has:​169 'They stole some sucking-pigs, not full-grown.' And in The Deserters:​170 'You are not going to sacrifice a sucking-pig after all.' Alcaeus in Palaestra:​171 'Here he comes himself. If I utter, of what I am telling you, so much as the grunt of a sucking — mouse!' Herodotus says in the first book​172 that 'on the golden altar at Babylon it is not permitted to  p295 sacrifice any but sucking-pigs.' Antiphanes in A True Friend:​173 D'Choice indeed is this little sucking-pigling here.' Heniochus in Polyeuctus:​174 'The Bronze Bull could have been stewed a very long time by now; but he has probably taken our sucking-pig and butchered it.' Anacreon, also, says:​175 'Even as a new-born sucking fawn, which has been left behind in the forest by its horned dam and is affrighted.' Crates in Neighbours:​176 'For the present we've had enough of childish things, just as we've had enough of lambs and pigs, suckling or full grown.' ESimonides makes Danaë say of Perseus:​177 'Oh, my babe, what woe is mine! Yet thou dost sleep, and in thy tender​178a heart hast slumber.' And in another poem he says of Archemorus:​179 'They wept for the tender​178b babe of the violet-crowned mother,​180 as it breathed out its sweet soul.' Clearchus, in his work On the Lives, says​181 that the tyrant Phalaris pursued his cruelty so far that he feasted on sucking babes. The verb thêsthai (whence gala-thena) means to suck milk (gala). Homer:​182 F'For Hector was but mortal, and was suckled  p297 at a woman's breast.' It is related to tithesthai (place), because place the nipples in their mouths; and the nipple (titthos) is so called because the nipples (thelai) are placed therein.​183 (Homer also has the word galathenos (unweaned)​184: 'A doe has put to sleep her new-born fawns unweaned.)' "

397On one occasion, also, gazelles (dorkades) were served, and Palamedes, the Eleatic lexicographer, said: "Not unpleasing is the flesh of roes (dorkônes)." In answer to him Myrtilus said: "Only the form dorkades is used, not dorkônes. Thus Xenophon in the first book of the Anabasis:​185 'There were in the desert also bustards and gazelles.' "

The Peacock. — Antiphanes, in The Soldier or Tychon, shows that this bird was rare when he says:​186 "When anyone imported just a pair of peacocks, it was a rare thing; but to‑day they are more numerous than quails." So Eubulus in Phoenix.​187 For in fact the peacock is an object of wonder because of its rarity. B"The peacock," says Aristotle,​188 "has parted toes, is graminivorous, and lays eggs when it is three years old; in this period it also acquires the varied colours of its plumage. It sits on its eggs for about thirty days. Once a year it lays twelve eggs; these are laid not all at once, but at intervals of two days. Yet the birds which lay for the first time lay only eight eggs. It also lays wind eggs, like the hen, but not more than two to the clutch. It hatches and broods like the hen." Eupolis in Out of the Service:189  p299 C"lest haply I keep such a peacock in the House of Persephone,​190 waking up the sleepers there." There is a speech written by the orator Antiphon​b with the title On Peacocks, and in the course of the speech there occurs no mention whatever of their name; in it he calls them "spangled birds," and says that they were kept by Demus, the son of Pyrilampes, and that many persons, in eager desire for a sight of the birds, came from Lacedaemon and Thessaly, and bent every effort to get some of the eggs. Describing their appearance he writes:​191 D"Should anyone desire to establish these birds in town, they would fly up and be off. Yet if one clips their wings, they will be robbed of their beauty; for their plumage, not their body, is their beauty." And that the sight of them was eagerly desired he shows again in the same speech: "Any who wished could enter on the first day of the month, but if anyone came wishing to see them on the other days, in no case was he successful. And all this is not a matter of recent times,​192 but has been going on for more than thirty years." E"The word for peacock (tahôs), says Tryphon,​193 "is pronounced by the Athenians with circumflex accent and the rough breathing on the last syllable. And it is in this way that the reading occurs in Eupolis, Out of the Service (the testimony has been given above), and in The Birds of Aristophanes:​194 'What! You are really Tereus? Are you a bird or a peacock (tahôs)?' And again:​195 'It's a bird, of course. What in the world is it? It can't be a peacock (tahôs), can it?' They also use the dative  p301 form tahoni, as Aristophanes in the same play.​196 But it is difficult for Athenians and Ionians, in words of more than one syllable, to put the rough breathing on the last syllable beginning with a vowel. FIn any case consistency requires that the last syllable have the smooth breathing, like neôs (temple),​197 leôs (people), Tyndareôs, Meneleôs, leiponeôs (deserting the ship), euneôs (supplied with ships), Neileôs, praos (mild), hyios (son), Ceios (Cean), Chios) (Chian), dios (divine), chreios (useful), pleios (full), leios (smooth), laios (left), baios (little), phaios (grey), pêos (kinsman), goos (mourning), thoos (quick), rhoos (stream), zoos (alive). For by its very nature, the rough breathing is fond of the first position​198 and likes to take the lead, 398and so it cannot in any way be imprisoned in the last parts of a word. The bird is called tahôs from the extend (tasis)ing of its feathers." Seleucus, in the fifth book of his work On hec Greek, says: "Tahôs; contrary to the rule, Attic writers aspirate and circumflex. In the simple pronunciation no words, the rough breathing is wont to be pronounced in connexion with the initial vowel, and in that position it speeds forward and hurries faster and so extends over the whole word. Hence the Athenians, recognizing also the true nature of this accent by its position, do not put it directly over the vowels as they do the other marks of accent, but pl it in front of them. I believe also that the ancients expressed the rough breathing by the letter jjj. BHence, too, the Romans write H before all aspirated words, thus marking clearly its quality of leader­ship. If, then, that is the nature of the rough  p303 breathing, perhaps its addition on the last syllable of the word taos by Attic writers is irrational."

Many other remarks were made in the course of the symposium concerning each of the dishes brought in; and Larensis then said: "Well, even I myself, like the altogether noble Ulpian, have something to propound to you; for we feed on questions. What do you think the tetrax is?" CSomeone replied, "A kind of bird." Now it is the fashion among grammarians to say to their pupils, concerning all kinds of problems, "That's a kind of plant," or "A kind of bird," or "A kind of stone." Larensis said: "Even I know, good sir, that the witty Aristophanes mentions it in these words, in The Birds:​199 'To the purple coot and the pelican, to the pelicinus​200a and the phlexis,​200b to the tetrax​201 and the peacock.' I am anxious to learn from you whether any mention of it occurs in any other author. For Alexander of Myndus, in the second book of his work On Winged Animals, makes no mention of the large bird called tetrax, but of one which is very small. DHe says, namely: 'The tetrax is equal in size to the francolin;​202 in colour it is like clay, varied with dusky spots and large lines; it is a fruit-eater. When it lays an egg, it utters a cackling sound.'​203 And Epicharmus in The Marriage of Hebe:​204 'For they take quails and sparrows, and crested larks that love to roll in the dust, seed-picking pheasants too, and shining fig-peckers.'  p305 And in other verses he says:​205 "there were also many herons with long curving necks and seed-licking pheasants.' Now, since you have nothing to add (for you are silent), I will exhibit the bird to you. EFor being procurator of the Lord Emperor​206 in Moesia and having charge of the administration of that province, I have seen the bird in that country. Learning that that was the name given to the bird among the Moesians and the Paeonians, I recalled it in the verse of Aristophanes. I thought, too, that the creature must have been deemed worthy of mention by the learned Aristotle in that costly treatise of his; for the story goes that the Stagirite received eight hundred talents from Alexander to further his research on animals; but I could not find anything said about it, Fand I was glad to have the witty Aristophanes as a most trustworthy witness." As he said these words, someone came in bringing the pheasant in its cage. In size it was larger than the largest cock, in appearance it resembled a purple coot; from its ears, on each side of the head, hung the wattles, like those of cocks; its voice was of low pitch. 399When we had admired the brilliant colours of the bird, it was dressed and served not long afterward, and its flesh resembled that of the ostrich, on which, also, we have often feasted.

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The Loeb Editor's Notes:

1 F. H. G. I.281, cf. Nepos, Ages. 8. Agesilaus was not used to such luxuries, Athen. 657b.

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2 Kock II.417.

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3 Frag. 58 Ribbeck, 58 Brandt.

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4 Kock I.26. For the argument of this play see Ox. Paphlagonia. IV.69.

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5 Od. XV.161, example of jjj feminine.

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6 Od. XV.174.

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7 Od. XIX.536. The only example of the word in the masculine in Homer (Od. XIX.552) has dropped from our text.

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8 Kock II.199.

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9 Kock III.380; cf. Athen. 368e.

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10 P219 Nauck.

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11 Frag. 8 Müller.

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12 Kock I.691. The quotation is lost: for an example see Aristoph. Ran. 553.

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13 Kock III.302; the name of the girl is derived from jjj, "away." On the euphemism see Eustath. 1231.41; so in America "lamb fries" are called sweetbreads or mountain oysters.

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14 A kind of mayonnaise or Tartar sauce, since it was beaten (jjj).

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15 Athen. 119b.

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16 Kock II.451; Athen. 295b.

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17 Kock II.368.

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18 See Athen. 97d, 228c, 347c.

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19 Often in papyri and later literature; hence Modern Greek jjj "fish."

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20 Kock I.705.

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21 Kock I.58.

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22 330 ff.

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23 Kock I.627.

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24 Ibid. 153.

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25 Kock II.487; I have accepted Kock's very doubtful conjecture. The reading in A is unmetrical and nonsensical.

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26 Kock III.75, Allinson 268; see critical note. This play may be the proto­type of Plautus's Poenulus.

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27 Kock III.57; cf. Athen. 309e.

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28 Kock II.273.

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29 Kock I.403.

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30 Kock II.361.

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31 Sc. of the use of the word opsarion.

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32 In allusion to Ulpian's challenge, 385b, d.

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33 Kock II.308.

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34 Il. IX.360. Ulpian apparently means that in his time it was no longer necessary to sail to the East to get pheasants.

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35 Kock II.238.

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36 Av. 67; the first speaker (a) is the servant of the hoopoe; Peithetaerus (B) answers.

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37 From the river Phasis, whence pheasants originally came. But the word also alludes to the sycophant, or informer.

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38 Nub. 109, where the Scholiast, besides giving both these interpretations, adds a third, that the horses were branded with the design of a pheasant.

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39 Kock I.629. The title takes the form of a proper name; Mr. J. Fuller Gloom would be the English equivalent.

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40 Kock II.442.

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41 Frag. 180 Wimmer.

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42 Hist. An. 633a29.

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43 F. H. G. III.194.

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44 Ibid. 65; cf. Athen. 201b (vol. II p410).

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45 See fifth book and note a (vol. I p21).

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46 F. H. G. III.186; cf. Athen. 654c.

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47 The Danube (Istrus or Ister).

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48 A kind of partridge; but some identify the attagas with the godwit, which Ben Jonson mentions with the pheasant in The Devil is an Ass, III.3.

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49 Kock I.504.

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50 Celebrating a dramatic success.

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51 Aristot. ps. p293 Rose; Wellmann, Hermes XXVI, K. Mengis, Philol. XXXII pp403 ff.

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52 See 44c and note c (p61); below, 398d.

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53 For jjj (boundaries) Casaubon's jjj (seasons) or jjj (airs) seems more appropriate.

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54 Lit. "hollow."

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55 P. L. G.4 frag. 36; cf. Athen. 645c.

❦

56 Vs. 249, 761, where the markings on the bird are noted.

❦

57 Vs. 875; but the poet is speaking of Boeotia.

❦

58 Av. 707.

❦

59 Frag. 59 Preller.

❦

60 P290 Rose.

❦

61 i.e. it is not web-footed.

❦

62 Frag. 100c 2 Schneider.

❦

63 Vs. 304.

❦

64 P. L. G.4 frag. •, Diehl frag. 9.

❦

65 Ibid. frag. 4.

❦

66 P. L. G.4 frag. 106; the shortened syllable is the penultima in the oblique cases.

❦

67 T. G. F.2 201.

❦

68 Kock I.192; not a good example, since the penultima may also be short in this position in the verse.

❦

69 Kock I.384.

❦

70 Ibid. 779; on hepseti see 301A‑C (vol. III p348).

❦

71 Kaibel 106.

❦

72 287 Rose.

❦

73 Frag. 100c 3 Schneider.

❦

74 Hist. An. 614a2.

❦

75 F. H. G. II.324.

❦

76 P. L. G.4 frag. 25.

❦

77 Frag. 24 Koepke.

❦

78 Frag. 181 Wimmer.

❦

79 Cf. Aristoph. Av. 235 jjj, "twitter so lightly with pleasant note about the clod."

❦

80 F. H. G. IV.346.

❦

81 Ibid. 450.

❦

82 Above, 290a.

❦

83 Frag. 182 Wimmer.

❦

84 I.5.3.

❦

85 ôtus, long-eared owl, is here confused with ôtis, bustard.

❦

86 292 Rose.

❦

87 The word is apparently made like jjj (hare-foot), a kind of grouse, from jjj, hare, and so named because of the feathered feet. Lobeck's jjj would refer to its large eyes.

❦

88 On delight of bustards in the companion­ship of horses see Plutarch 981b.

❦

89 293 Rose.

❦

90 So Aelius Dionysius apud Eustath. 561.7, after describing the jjj, says: "Hence they used to call vain and silly persons owls (jjj)."

❦

91 Apparently a small horned owl is meant in skôps.

❦

92 Cf. Aelian N. A. XV.28.

❦

93 Od. V.66.

❦

94 Cf. Aristot. ps. 924 Rose.

❦

95 jjj, the generic term for owl in Greek, may here be specifically Athene noctua.

❦

96 Frag. 100c 7 Schneider.

❦

97 jjj: hence the name jjj.

❦

98 Hist. An. 617b31, from which this account is taken, has the form with s (skôpes).

❦

99 The aeiskôpes, here etymologized (from jjj "ever") as being non-migrating.

❦

100 Kaibel 121.

❦

101 Hist. An. 614a7.

❦

102 Frag. 183 Wimmer.

❦

103 Frag. 1.

❦

104 291 Rose.

❦

105 291 Rose. The connexion of thought is obscure. Apparently Aristotle was able to note seasonal changes in the colours of the female, but not of the male.

❦

106 Quarrellers? cf. Hesych. jjj.

❦

107 Frag. 123 Schneider.

❦

108 Not compounds; yet jjj, "not yoked," and jjj, "united," which are compounds, conform to the rule here stated for words not compounded.

❦

109 Or, "when (in the genitive) the penultima contains y."

❦

110 These, in the ancient nomenclature, were the liquids (l, r) and the nasals (m, n); they did not "change" in inflections, as k, g, ch, p, th, t, d, th,º and p, b, ph, seemed to do.

❦

111 More lit., "sounds by which (is formed that declension) which is called the first declension of barytones"; but no example of this latter is given.

❦

112a 112b Neither oryx nor onyx conforms to this rule, since they have r and n as the initial sound in the last syllable. To onyx might have been added monyx, "single-hoofed," which is a compound (cf. preceding note).

❦

113 The rule, in conformity with most ancient grammarians, should have been stated in the other way: "The nominative plural follows the genitive singular, in having the same consonant"; thus, ortygos, ortyges, kerykos, kerykes.

❦

114 P287 Rose.

❦

115 Aristot. ps. p294.

❦

116 F. H. G. I.366; the sentence is incomplete, and the legend has been lost.

❦

117 Kock I.317; the second speaker appears to be Demos.

❦

118 Kock II.14.

❦

119 Quails were not regarded as timid; hence the expression appears to refer to the bellicose nature of the person addressed.

❦

120 P. L. G.4 III.559. Pratinas was a Phliasian.

❦

121 P76 Schmidt. The word ought to men "spittle-bird," but the writer evidently takes it to mean "whistler."

❦

122 Kock I.88, cf. Aristoph. Av. 870; the bird was supposed to lead the quails in migrating, and the reference here may be to Odysseus.

❦

123 F. H. G. II.316.

❦

124 In the oblique cases, ortzzzgas, etc.

❦

125 Vs. 788.

❦

126 285 Rose.

❦

127 F. H. G. III.69.

❦

128 Formed like Theogony, but narrating Metamorphoses into Birds; F. H. G. I.417.

❦

129 288 Rose.

❦

130 Hist. An. V.544b.

❦

131 T. G. F.2.71.

❦

132 Phaba, accus. sing.

❦

133 T. G. F.2.82.

❦

134 Hence its name, oinas, from oinos, wine.

❦

135 The word jjj is used of the malignant power of the evil eye. Cf. Theocr. VI.39 jjj, "I spat thrice, that I might not be bewitched." On saliva superstition see Harvard Studies in Class. Phil. VIII pp23 ff.

❦

136 Cf. Aristot. Hist. An. 544b.

❦

137 From the wild pigeon (peleias).

❦

138 See crit. note. The true statement is that the pigeon (peristera) is more easily tamed than the wild pigeon (peleias), and the wild pigeon is dark and small, and cannot be domesticated.

❦

139 Hist. An. 560b25.

❦

140 Frag. 100c 4 Schneider. The word pyrallis, to‑day used of a genus of moths, here refers to a bird unknown; it may have been a pigeon.

❦

141 F. H. G. II.440.

❦

142 F. H. G. I.32.

❦

143 Hist. An. 513a2.

❦

144 Aphrodite. The name of the authority for this statement has been lost.

❦

145 Here a kind of plant; Hesych. s. jjj.

❦

146 F. H. G. IV.346.

❦

147 Kock II.375.

❦

148 i.e. I am still young.

❦

149 Kock II.316.

❦

150 Kock I.154.

❦

151 Ibid. 185.

❦

152 Frag. 73 Schneider.

❦

153 If the adjective is right (see critical note) it must refer to their glossy colour.

❦

154 Cf. Aristot. ps. 293 Rose.

❦

155 Little owl: perhaps the white-eyed duck.

❦

156 Perhaps the teal.

❦

157 In the lacuna may possibly be supplied, "conspicuously marked."

❦

158 Probably a guillemot or murre, of the autocratic freedman.

❦

159 Achaea. 875.

❦

160 Frag. 100c 5 Schneider.

❦

161 Comrades, witnesses, explained in what follows.

❦

162 i.e. "smothered." But Ulpian disapproves of such a word for "stewed."

❦

163 Kock I.719.

❦

164 Kock II.180.

❦

165 Vs. 511.

❦

166 Kock I.21.

❦

167 Kock II.12.

❦

168 Nauck, T. G. F.2 294, thinks this flowery language borrowed directly from Sophocles. It may be a parody.

❦

169 Kock I.157.

❦

170 Ibid. 153.

❦

171 Ibid. 761; the sentence is interrupted by the approach of the new-comer. The name Palaestra (lit. wrestling-school), of a courtesan, recurs in Plautus's Rudens.

❦

172 Ch. 183.

❦

173 Kock II.104. See critical note.

❦

174 Ibid. 432. The Bronze Bull was on the Athenian Acropolis, Hesych. s.v. jjj.

❦

175 P. L. G.4 frag. 51.

❦

176 Kock I.130.

❦

177 P. L. G.4 frag. 37.

❦

178a 178b Lit. "suckling."

❦

179 Frag. 52.

❦

180 Eurydice.

❦

181 F. H. G. II.309; the title is usually jjj simply, "Biographies."

❦

182 Il. XXIV.58.

❦

183 It is hardly necessary to point out the absurdity of this etymology.

❦

184 Od. IV.336.

❦

185 Ch. 5.2.

❦

186 Kock II.99, Athen. 654 c.

❦

187 The quotation is lost; Kock II.205.

❦

188 P291 Rose.

❦

189 Kock I.266.

❦

190 i.e. in the underworld.

❦

191 Frag. 58 Blass.

❦

192 Lit. "yesterday or the day before."

❦

193 Frag. 5 Velsen.

❦

194 l. 101.

❦

195 l. 269.

❦

196 l. 884.

❦

197 i.e. not nehôs, lehôs, etc.

❦

198 A fair description of the "glottal catch," which is not our h.

❦

199 Vs. 994; the priest is sacrificing to the bird-gods.

❦

200a 200b Unknown.

❦

201 A kind of pheasant.

❦

202 See p61 note c, also 388a.

❦

203 jjj, showing that the bird's name, jjj, is onomatopoetic.

❦

204 Kaibel 99, Athen. 65b.

❦

205 Kaibel 99, Athen. 65b.

❦

206 Commodus.

---

Thayer's Notes:

a The same story is told by Strabo — of apes (XV.1.29); surely no truer, but at least less unlikely.

❦

b The life and works of Antiphon are very thoroughly treated in Dobson's Greek Orators, chapter II.

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