Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 3).djvu/236

 woodcock. But Philemon, in his treatise on Attic Names, says that "the most excellent dried figs are those called Ægilides; and that Ægila is the name of a borough in Attica, which derives its name from a hero called Ægilus; but that the dried figs of a reddish black colour are called Chelidonians." Theopompus also, in the Peace, praising the Tithrasian figs, speaks thus—

Barley cakes, cheesecakes, and Tithrasian figs.

But dried figs were so very much sought after by all men, (for really, as Aristophanes says—

There's really nothing nicer than dried figs;)

that even Amitrochates, the king of the Indians, wrote to Antiochus, entreating him (it is Hegesander who tells this story) to buy and send him some sweet wine, and some dried figs, and a sophist; and that Antiochus wrote to him in answer, "The dried figs and the sweet wine we will send you; but it is not lawful for a sophist to be sold in Greece. The Greeks were also in the habit of eating dried figs roasted, as Pherecrates proves by what he says in the Corianno, where we find—

But pick me out some of those roasted figs.

And a few lines later he says—

Will you not bring me here some black dried figs? Dost understand? Among the Mariandyni, That barbarous tribe, they call these black dried figs Their dishes.

I am aware, too, that Pamphilus has mentioned a kind of dried figs, which he calls [Greek: proknides].

68. That the word [Greek: botrys] is common for a bunch of grapes is known to every one; and Crates, in the second book of his Attic Dialect, uses the word [Greek: staphylê], although it appears to be a word of Asiatic origin; saying that in some of the ancient hymns the word [Greek: staphylê], is used for [Greek: botrys], as in the following line:—

Thick hanging with the dusky grapes ([Greek: staphylêsi]) themselves.

And that the word [Greek: staphylê] is used by Homer is known to every one. But Plato, in the eighth book of his Laws, uses both [Greek: botrys] and [Greek: staphylê], where he says—"Whoever tastes wild fruit, whether it be grapes ([Greek: botryôn]) or figs, before the time of the vintage arrives, which falls at the time of the rising of Arcturus, whether it be on his own farm, or on any one else's land, shall be fined fifty sacred drachmas to be paid to Bacchus, if he plucked them off his own land; but a mina