After all this conversation it seemed good to go to supper. And when the Uraeum was carried round, Leonidas said, “Euthydemus the Athenian, my friends, in his treatise on Pickles, says that Hesiod has said with respect to every kind of pickle— * * * * * * *1
Some sorrily-clad fishermen did seekNow these verses appear to me to be the work of some cook rather than of that most accomplished Hesiod; for how is it possible for him to have spoken of Parium or Byzantium, and still more of Tarentum and the Bruttii and the Campanians, when he was many years more ancient than any of these places or tribes? So it seems to me that they are the verses of Euthydemus himself.” And Dionysiocles said, "Whoever wrote the verses, my good Leonidas, is a matter which you all, as being grammarians of the highest reputation, are very capable of deciding. But since the discussion is turning upon pickles and salt fish, concerning which I recollect a proverb which was thought deserving of being quoted by Charchus the Solensian,—
To catch a lamprey; men who love to haunt
The Bosporus's narrow strait, well stored
With fish for pickling fit. They cut their prey
In large square portions, and then plunge them deep
Into the briny tub: nor is the oxyrhyncus
A kind to be despised by mortal man;
Which the bold sons of ocean bring to market
Whole and in pieces. Of the noble tunny
The fair Byzantium the mother is,
And of the scombrus lurking in the deep,
And of the well-fed ray. The snow-white Paros
Nurses the colius for human food;
And citizens from Bruttium or Campania,
Fleeing along the broad Ionian sea,
Will bring the orcys, which shall potted be,
And placed in layers in the briny cask,
Till honour'd as the banquet's earliest course.
For old salt-fish is fond of marjoram.[p. 193] I too myself will say a word on the subject, which is not unconnected with my own art.
