But Parmeno the Byzantine, in his Iambics, speaks of the figs which come from Canæ, an Aeolian city, as the best of all: saying—
I am arrived after a long voyage, not having broughtAnd that the figs from Caunus, a city of Caria, are much praised, is known to all the world. There is another sort of fig, called the Oxalian, which Heracleon the Ephesian makes mention of, and Nicander of Thyatira, quoting what is mentioned by Apollodorus of Carystus, in his play, called the Dress-seller with a Dowry;" where he says—
A valuable freight of Canæan figs.
Moreover, all the wineFigs also grow in the island of Paros, (for those which are [p. 128] called by the Parians αἱμώνια are a different fig from the common one, and are not what I am alluding to here; for the αἱμώνια are the same with those which are called Lydian figs; and they have obtained this name on account of their red colour, since αἷμα means blood, and they are mentioned by Archilochus, who speaks in this manner:—
Was very sour and thin, so that I felt
Ashamed to see it; for all other farms
In the adjacent region bear the figs
Ycleped Oxalian; and mine bears vines.
Never mind Paros, and the figs which growBut these figs are as far superior to the ordinary run of figs which are grown in other places as the meat of the wild boar is superior to that of all other animals of the swine tribe which are not wild.
Within that marble island, and the life
Of its seafaring islanders.
