Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 2).djvu/88

 There is also the scepinus; and this fish is mentioned by Dorion, in his treatise on Fish; and he says that it is also called the attageinus, or sea-woodcock.

121. There is also the sciæna. Epicharmus, in his Hebe's Wedding, says—

Æoliæ were there, and plotes too, And cynoglossi and sciathides.

But Numenius calls this fish the Sciadeus, saying—

Use then this bait, and you perhaps may catch, If such your wish, a mighty synodon, Or the quick leaping hippurus, or the phagrus Proud with his high-raised crest, or in a shoal Of trusty comrades, the fresh sciadeus.

There is also the syagris; and this fish is mentioned by Epicharmus, in his Hebe's Wedding, and also in his Earth and Sea.

122. Then there is the sphuræna, or hammer-fish; and these fish, Icesius says, are more nutritious than the congers, but very unpleasant and unpalatable to the taste; and, as to their juicy qualities, they are tolerable. But Dorion says—"The sphuræna, which they call the cestra." And Epicharmus, in his Muses, having named the cestra, does not after that mention the sphuræna, thinking them the same fish—

The chalcides, the sea-dog, and the cestra, And perch with variegated back.

And Sophron, in his Male Farces, says—"The cestræ, which eat the botis." But Speusippus, in the second book of his treatise on Things which resemble one another, puts down the cestra, the needle-fish, and the sea-lizard as very nearly like one another. And the Attic writers in general call the sphuræna the cestra, and do not so often use the name of sphuræna. Accordingly, Strattis, in his Macedonians, when some Athenian asks the question, as being ignorant of the name, and saying,

But what is the sphuræna?

The other replies,

You, O Athenians, do call it the cestra.

And Antiphanes, in his Euthydicus, says—

A. The sphuræna is a common fish. B. You should say cestra, in strict Attic Greek.

And Nicophon, in his Pandora, says—

The cestra and the pike.