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

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And while Ulpian was thinking this over with himself, Myrtilus, anticipating him, said,—Cratinus, in his Dionysalexander, has— I will my basket fill with Pontic pickles, (where he uses τάριχοι as masculine;) and Plato, in his Jupiter Illtreated, says— [p. 197]

All that I have amounts to this,
And I shall lose my pickled fish (ταρίχους).

And Aristophanes says, in his Daitaleis—

I'm not ashamed to wash this fine salt-fish (τὺν τάριχον τουτονὶ),
From all the evils which I know he has.

And Crates says, in his Beasts—

And you must boil some greens, and roast some fish
And pickled fish likewise, (τοὺς ταρίχους,) and keep your hands
From doing any injury to us.

But the noun is formed in a very singular manner by Hermippus, in his Female Bread-Sellers—

And fat pickled fish (τάριχος πίονα).

And Sophocles says, in his Phineus—

A pickled corpse (νεκρὸς τάριχος) Egyptian to behold.

Aristophanes has also treated us to a diminutive form of the word, in his Peace—

Bring us some good ταρίχιον to the fields

And Cephisodorus says, in his Pig—

Some middling meat, or some ταρίχιον.

And Pherecrates, in his Deserters, has—

The woman boil'd some pulse porridge, and lentils,
And so awaited each of us, and roasted
Besides an orphan small ταρίχιον.

Epicharmus also uses the word in the masculine gender, ὁ τάριχος. And Herodotus does the same in his ninth book; where he says—“The salt-fish (οἱ τάριχοι) lying on the fire, leaped about and quivered.” And the proverbs, too, in which the word occurs, have it in the masculine gender:—

Salt-fish (τάριχος) is done if it but see the fire.
Salt-fish (τάριχος) when too long kept loves marjoram.
Salt-fish (τάριχος) does never get its due from men.

But the Attic writers often use it as a neuter word; and the genitive case, as they use it, is τοῦ ταρίχους. Chionids says, in his Beggars—

Will you then eat some pickled fish (τοῦ ταρίχους), ye ods!

And the dative is ταρίχει, like ξίφει—

Beat therefore now upon this pickled fish (τῷ ταρίχει τῷδε).

And Menander uses it τάριχος, in the accusative case, in his Man selecting an Arbitrator—

I spread some salt upon the pickled fish (ἐπὶ τὸ τάριχος).

[p. 198] But when the word is masculine the genitive case does not end with ς.