Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists
C. D. Yonge, B.A., Ed.

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Vegetables also were set before the ancient heroes when they supped. And that they were acquainted with the use of vegetables is plain from the expression,

He went down to the furthest bed
In the well-order'd garden.

And they used onions too, though they have a very disagreeable smell:—

There was the onion, too, to season wine.

Homer represents his heroes also as fond of the fruit of trees:—

Figs after figs grow old, pears after pears.

[p. 41] On which account also he calls those trees which bear fruit beauteous:—

There many a beauteous tree appears—
Pomegranates, apples, figs, and pears.

And those which are adapted for being cut down for timber he calls tall, distinguishing the epithets which h applies to each by their respective uses:—

There tall trees adorn the grove,
The ash, and pine that towers above.

And the use of these trees was older than the Trojan war. And Tantalus, even after he is dead, is not cured of his fancy for these fruits; as the god, to punish him, waves such before his eyes (just as men lead on irrational animals by holding branches in front of them), and then prevents him from enjoying them, the moment he begins to entertain a hope of doing so. And Ulysses reminds Laertes of what he gave him when he was a child: “You gave me thirteen pears” —and so on.