Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 3).djvu/235

 *

the Nicolaan dates, which are imported from Syria, I can give you this information; that they received this name from Augustus the emperor, because he was exceedingly fond of the fruit, and because Nicolaus of Damascus, who was his friend, was constantly sending him presents of it. And this Nicolaus was a philosopher of the Peripatetic School, and wrote a very voluminous history.

67. Now with respect to dried figs. Those which came from Attica were always considered a great deal the best. Accordingly Dinon, in his History of Persia, says—"And they used to serve up at the royal table all the fruits which the earth produces as far as the king's dominions extend, being brought to him from every district as a sort of first-fruits. And the first king did not think it becoming for the kings either to eat or drink anything which came from any foreign country; and this idea gradually acquired the force of a law. For once, when one of the eunuchs brought the king, among the rest of the dishes at dessert, some Athenian dried figs, the king asked where they came from. And when he heard that they came from Athens, he forbade those who had bought them to buy them for him any more, until it should be in his power to take them whenever he chose, and not to buy them. And it is said that the eunuch did this on purpose, with a view to remind him of the expedition against Attica." And Alexis, in his Pilot, says—

Then came in figs, the emblem of fair Athens, And bunches of sweet thyme.

And Lynceus, in his epistle to the comic poet, Posidippus, says—"In the delineation of the tragic passions, I do not think that Euripides is at all superior to Sophocles, but in dried figs, I do think that Attica is superior to every other country on earth." And in his letter to Diagoras, he writes thus:—"But this country opposes to the Chelidonian dried figs those which are called Brigindaridæ, which in their name indeed are barbarous, but which in delicious flavour are not at all less Attic than the others. And Phœnicides, in his Hated Woman, says—

They celebrate the praise of myrtle-berries, Of honey, of the Propylæa, and of figs; Now these I tasted when I first arrived, And saw the Propylæa; yet have I found nothing Which to a woodcock can for taste compare.

In which lines we must take notice of the mention of the