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

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There is also the phagrus. Speusippus, in the second book of his Things resembling one another, says that the phagrus, the erythrinus, and the hepatus, are very much [p. 516] alike. And Numenius also has mentioned it in the lines which have been quoted not long ago. But Aristotle says that he is a carnivorous and solitary fish; and that he has a heart of a triangular shape, and that he is in season in the spring. And Epicharmus, in his Hebe's Wedding, speaks of the

Aones, and the phagri, and the pikes.

And Metagenes also mentions them in his Thurio-Persæ. And Ameipsias says in his Connus—

A food for orphi and selachia,
And for the greedy phagri.

And Icesius says—“The phagrus, and the chromis, and the anthias, and the acharnanes, and the orphi, and the synodons, and the synagrides, are all very nearly akin to one another; for they are sweet and astringent, and nutritious, but in the same proportion they are hard of digestion. And those of them which are fleshy, and which are caught nearer land, are the most nutritious, and those also which have the least fat.” But Archestratus says—

'Tis when the dogstar rises in the sky
That you should eat the phagrus; specially
If you in Delos or Eretria are,
Or other favouring harbours of the sea;
But, if you can, purchase his head alone,
And tail; and bring no more within your doors.

Strattis also mentions the phagrus in his Lemnomeda—

Eating a number of large phagri.

And in his Philoctetes he says—

Then, going to the market, they will buy
A great abundance of large phagri, and
Slices of tender round Copaic eel.

There is also a kind of stone called the phagrus. For the whetstone is called so among the Cretans, as Simmias testifies.