Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 2).djvu/90

 *sippus, who says that the cuttle-fish and the squid are the same fish. But when Hipponax, in his Iambics, uses the words [Greek: sêpiês hyposphagma], the interpreters have explained the expression as meaning "the ink of the cuttle-fish." But the word [Greek: hyposphagma] is, properly speaking, equivalent to [Greek: hypotrimma], a dish compounded of various ingredients, as Erasistratus tells us, in his Cookery Book. And he writes as follows—"But [Greek: hyposphagma] is made with roast meat and blood stirred up and compounded with cheese, and salt, and cummin, and assafœtida; but the meat may also be boiled." And Glaucus the Locrian, in his Cookery Book, writes as follows—"[Greek: Hyposphagma] is blood boiled, and assafœtida, and boiled lees of wine; or sometimes honey and vinegar, and milk and cheese, and sweet-smelling herbs are shred and mixed together in it." And Archestratus, that man of the most varied learning, says—

The cuttle-fish of Abdera and the middle of Maronea.

And Aristophanes, in his Thesmophoriazusæ, says—

Has any fish or cuttle-fish been bought?

And in the Danaides he says—

Osmulia, mœnidea, and cuttle-fish.

Theopompus, in his Aphrodite, says—

But eat, my friend, This cuttle-fish, and this small polypus.

But concerning the boiling of the small polypus, Alexis, in his Wicked Woman, introduces a cook speaking as follows—

Now these three cuttle-fish I have just bought For one small drachma. And when I've cut off Their feelers and their fins, I then shall boil them. And cutting up the main part of their meat Into small dice, and rubbing in some salt, After the guests already are sat down, I then shall put them in the frying-pan, And serve up hot towards the end of supper.

125. The next fish is the mullet; and [Greek: triglê] is like [Greek: kichlê], ending in [Greek: ê]. For the feminine nouns which end in [Greek: la] require another [Greek: l] before the [Greek: la]; as [Greek: skylla], [Greek: Telesilla]. But all the words which have [Greek: g] united to [Greek: l] end in [Greek: ê]; as [Greek: trôglê], [Greek: aiglê], [Greek: zeuglê]. But Aristotle, in the fifth book of his Parts of Animals, says that the mullet brings forth three times in the year; and states that the fishermen have adopted this opinion from the spawn being seen three times a-year in certain localities. And perhaps it is from the word [Greek: tris] (three times) that it has its name; just as the fish called [Greek: amia] has its name