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

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And my excellent friend Myrtilus,—for I have taken the words out of your mouth, Antiphanes,—in his Bœotian, has used this word παροψὶς for a vessel, where he says—

After she has invited you to supper,
She sets before you a παροψὶς full of . . . .

And Alexis, in his Hesione, says—

But when he saw two men well loaded with
The table and conveying it in-doors,
Groaning beneath a number of παροψίδες,
Looking no more at me, he said . . . .

And the man who was the author of the plays which are attributed to Magnes, says in his first Bacchus—

These things are now παροψίδες of ill to me.

And Achæus, in his Aethon, a satyric drama, says—

And let these savoury boil'd and roasted meats
On the παροψίδες be carved in pieces.

And Sotades the comic writer says, in his Man wrongly Ransomed—

I a παροψὶς seem to Crobylus.
Him he devours alone, but me he takes
But as a seasoning to something else.

But the word is used in an ambiguous sense by Xenophon, in the first book of his Cyropædia. For the philosopher says, “They brought him παροψίδας, and condiments of all sorts, and food of all kinds.” And in the works of the author of Chiron, which is usually attributed to Pherecrates, the word παροψὶς is used for seasoning; and not, as Didymus, in his treatise on Words used in a Corrupted Sense, asserts, for a vessel. For he says—

By Jove, as παροψίδες are praised or blamed
Because of the way in which they flavour meat,
So Caletas esteems these people nothing.

And Nicophon, in his Sirens, says—

Others may fight the παροψὶς for their seat.

And Aristophanes says, in his Dædalus,—

All women have one set of principles,
And have a lover, like a παροψὶς, ready.

[p. 580] And Plato says, in his Festivals,—

Whence barley-cakes may be got, and παροψίδες.

But he is speaking here of cooking and seasoning onions. But the Attic writers, O my Syri-Attic friend Ulpian, use ἔμβαμμα also in this sense; as Theopompus says, in his Peace:—

Bread's a good thing; but flattery and tricks,
When added as a seasoning (ἔμβαμμα) to bread,
Are odious as can be.