The following people, too, have all been great epicures about fish. Antagoras the poet would not allow his slave to touch his fish with oil, but made him wash it; as Hegesander tells us. And when in the army, he was once boiling a dish of congers, and had his clothes girt round him, Antigonus the king, who was standing by, said, “Tell me, Antagoras, do you think that Homer, who celebrated the exploits of Agamemnon, ever boiled congers” And it is said that he answered, not without wit, “And do you think that Agamemnon, who performed those exploits, ever busied himself about inquiring who was cooking congers in his army?” And once, when Antagoras was cooking a bird of some kind, he said that he would not go to the bath, because he was afraid that the slaves might come and suck up the gravy. And when Philocydes said that his mother would take care of that, “Shall I,” said he, “entrust the gravy of game to my mother?” And Androcydes of Cyzicus, the painter, being very fond of fish, as Polemo relates, carried his luxury to such a pitch that he even painted with great care the fish which are around Scylla.
Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists. Or Banquet Of The Learned Of Athenaeus. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1854.
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