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

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There is a fish, too, called the chalcis; and others which resemble it, namely, the thrissa, the trichis, and the eritimus. Icesius says, the fish called the chalcis, ad the sea-goat, and the needle-fish, and the thrissa, are like chaff destitute alike of fat and of juice. And Epicharmus, in his Hebe's Wedding, says—

The chalcides, the sea-pig too,
The sea-hawk, and the fat sea-dog.

But Dorion calls it the chalcidice. And Numenius says,—

But you would thus harpoon, in the same way,
That chalcis and the little tiny sprat.

[p. 518] But the χαλκεὺς is different from the χαλκὶς; and the χαλκεὺς is mentioned by Heraclides, in his Cookery Book; and by Euthydemus, in his book on Cured Fish, who says that they are bred in the country of the Cyzicenes, being a round and circular fish.

But the thrissa is mentioned by Aristotle in his book on Animals and Fishes, in these words—“The following are stationary fish: the thrissa, the encrasicholus, the membras anchovy, the coracinus, the erythrinus, and the trichis.” And Eupolis mentions the trichis in his Flatterers;—

He was a stingy man, who once in his life
Before the war did buy some trichides;
But in the Samian war, a ha'p'orth of meat.

And Aristophanes, in his Knights, says—

If trichides were to be a penny a hundred.

But Dorion, in his treatise on Fishes, speaks also of the river Thrissa; and calls the trichis trichias. Nicochares, in his Lemnian Women, says—

The trichias, and the premas tunny too,
Placed in enormous quantities for supper.

(But there was a kind of tunny which they used to call premnas. Plato, in his Europa, has these lines—

He once, when fishing, saw one of such size
A man could scarcely carry it, in a shoal
Of premnades, and then he let it go,
Because it was a boax.)

And Aristotle, in the fifth book of his Parts of Animals, calls it a trichias also, but in the book which is entitled ζωϊκὸν, he calls it trichis. And it is said that this fish is delighted with dancing and singing, and that when it hears music it leaps up out of the sea.

Dorion also mentions the eritimi, saying, that they are much the same as the chalcides, and that they are very nice in forced meat. And Epænetus, in his book upon Fishes, says—“The sea-weasel; the smaris, which some call the dog'sbed; the chalcides, which they also call sardini; the eritimi, the sea-hawk, and the sea-swallow.” And Aristotle, in the fifth book of his Parts of Animals, calls them sardines. And Callimachus, in his Names used by different Nations, writes thus—“The encrasicholus, the eritimus, are names used by the Chalcedonians; the trichidia, the chalcis, the ictar, the [p. 519] atherina.” And in another part, giving a list of the names of fishes, he says—“The ozæna, the osmylnion, are names used by the Thurians; the iopes, the eritimi, are names used by the Athenians.” And Nicander mentions the iopes in his Bœotian,—

But as when round a shoal of newly born
lopes, phagri, or fierce scopes roam,
Or the large orphus.

And Aristophanes, in his Ships of Burden, says—

O wretched fish, the first of trichides
To be immersed in pickle.

For they used to steep in pickle all the fish which were proper to be dressed on the coals. And they called pickle, Thasian brine; as also the same poet says in his Wasps,—

For before that it twice drank in the brine.