And Alexis, in his Men running together, ridiculing the Attic banquets, says— [p. 223]
I wish that I could get a brace of cooks,And the Thessalians are truly fond of eating; as Eriphus says in his Light-armed Soldier, thus—
The cleverest in their art in all the city.
For he who a Thessalian would invite,
Lust never stint his fare in Attic fashion,
Nor practise over strict economy;
But have in all things a well-order'd feast.
It is not Corinth now, nor Lais here,And the author, whoever he was, of the play called The Beggars, which is ascribed to Chionides, says that the Athenians, when they place a banquet for Castor and Pollux in their Prytaneum, serve up on the tables cheese and barley-cakes, and olives which have fallen, and leeks, for the sake of reminding people of the ancient manner of living. And Solon enjoins them to serve up barley-cakes to those who eat in the prytaneum: and besides that, to place bread on the table at festivals, in imitation of Homer; for he, too, when collecting the chiefs around Agamemnon, says—
Nor any feast of sumptuous Thessalians,
Whose habits well I know.
The cakes were baked.And Chrysippus, in the fourth book of his treatise on Beauty and Pleasure, says—“But at Athens they say that two festivals are celebrated there (neither of them of great antiquity), one at the Lyceum and one in the Academy, and when the confectioner had brought into the Academy a dish for some other purpose, all those who were offering sacrifice at once broke the dish, because something had been introduced which did not belong to the city, and everything which came from afar ought to have been kept away. And that the cook at the Lyceum having prepared some Salt-fish in order to serve up a dish of it, was scourged as a man who used his invention in a very wicked manner.” And Plato, in the second book of his Republic, represents his new citizens as feasting, and writes—“You make your men feast without any second course, says he. You say the truth, I replied; I forgot that they will have a second course-namely, salt, and olives, and cheese, and onions; and besides, they will boil such vegetables as are found in the fields; and moreover, we shall serve up some sweetmeats to them,—figs, and beans, and vetches. They shall roast myrtle-berries too and beechc [p. 224] acorns at the fire, drinking moderately all the time. And in this manner they shall pass their lives in peace, growing old, as it is probable they will, in the enjoyment of good health, and transmit a good constitution to their posterity.”
