Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 3).djvu/230

 Here my excellent cross-examiner, Ulpian, you have authorities for [Greek: koptê]; and so now I advise you [Greek: apesthiein] some. And he, without any delay, took and ate some. And when they all laughed, Democritus said;—But, my fine word-catcher, I did not desire you to eat, but not to eat; for the word [Greek: apesthiô] is used in the sense of abstaining from eating by Theopompus the comic poet, in his Phineus, where he says—

Cease gambling with the dice, my boy, and now Feed for the future more on herbs. Your stomach Is hard with indigestion; give up eating ([Greek: apesthie]) Those fish that cling to the rocks; the lees of wine Will make your head and senses clear, and thus You'll find your health, and your estate too, better.

Men do, however, use [Greek: apesthiô] for to eat a portion of anything, as Hermippus does, in his Soldiers—

Alas! alas! he bites me now, he bites, And quite devours ([Greek: apesthiei]) my ears.

61. The Syrian being convicted by these arguments, and being a good deal annoyed, said—But I see here on the table some pistachio nuts ([Greek: psittakia]); and if you can tell me what author has ever spoken of them, I will give you, not ten golden staters, as that Pontic trifler has it, but this goblet. And as Democritus made no reply, he said, But since you cannot answer me, I will tell you; Nicander of Colophon, in his Theriacans, mentions them, and says—

Pistachio nuts ([Greek: psittakia]) upon the highest branches, Like almonds to the sight.

The word is also written [Greek: bistakia], in the line—

And almond-looking [Greek: bistakia] were there.

And Posidonius the Stoic, in the third book of his History, writes thus: "But both Arabia and Syria produce the peach, and the nut which is called [Greek: bistakion]; which bears a fruit in bunches like bunches of grapes, of a sort of tawny white, long shaped, like tears, and the nuts lie on one another like berries. But the kernel is of a light green, and it is less juicy than the pine-cone, but it has a more pleasant smell. And the brothers who together composed the Georgics, write thus, in the third book—"There is also the ash, and the turpentine tree, which the Syrians call [Greek: pistakia]." And these people spell the word [Greek: pistakia] with a [Greek: p], but Nicander writes it [Greek: phittakia], and Posidonius [Greek: bistakia].

62 And when he had said this, looking round on all those