The History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece, Volume 2 (of 3)

The reader by this time will, probably, be willing to escape from fish, though it would be easy to treat him to many new kinds, and along with us take a slice of Greek pheasant, or the breast of an Egyptian quail. In other words, he will hear what we have to say on Hellenic poultry. Chrysippos, in his treatise on things desirable in themselves, appears to have reckoned Athenian cocks and hens among the number, and reprehends the people of Attica for importing, at great expense, barn-door fowls from the shores of the Adriatic, though of smaller size, and much inferior to their own; while the inhabitants of those countries, on the other hand, were anxious to possess Attic poultry.^[621] Matron, the parodist, who furnishes an amusing description of an Athenian repast, observes, that excellent wild ducks were brought to town from Salamis, where they grew fat in great numbers on the borders of the sacred Lake.^[622]

The thrush,^[623] reckoned among the greatest delicacies of the ancients, generally at grand entertainments formed part of the propoma, or first course, and was eaten with little cakes, called ametiskoi. If we may credit Epicharmos, a decided preference was given to such as fed on the olive. Aristotle divides the thrush into three species, the first and largest of which he denominates Ixophagos, or the “mistletoe-eater;” it was of the size of a magpie. The second, equal in bigness to the black bird, he calls Trichas,^[624] and the third, and smallest kind, which was named Ilas or Tulas, according to Alexander, the Myndian, went in flocks, and built its nest like the swallow.^[625] Next in excellence to the thrush was a bird known by a variety of names, elaios, pirias, sycalis,^[626] the beccafico of the moderns, which was thought to be in season when the figs were ripe. They likewise ate the turtle and the ringdove,^[627] which are excellent in Egypt; the chaffinch, to whose qualities I cannot bear testimony; and the blackbird. Nor did they spare the starling, the jackdaw, or the strouthanion, a small bird for which modern languages cannot afford a name. Brains were thought by the ancient philosophers an odious and cannibal-like food, because they are the fountain of all sensation; but this did not prevent the gourmands from converting pigs’ brains into a dainty dish,^[628] and their taste has maintained its ground in Italy. Partridges, wood-pigeons, geese, quails, jays, are also enumerated among the materials of an Hellenic banquet.

Goose’s liver was in extreme request both at Rome and Athens.^[629] Another dainty was a cock served up with a rich sauce, containing much vinegar. Aristophanes speaks of the pheasant in his comedy of the Birds; and, again, in the Clouds, Athenæus rightly supposes him to mean this bird, where others imagine he alludes to the horses of the Phasis. Mnesilochos, a writer of the middle comedy, classes a plucked pheasant with hen’s milk, among things equally difficult to be met with, which shows that the bird had not then become common. It obtained its name from being found in immense numbers about the embouchure of the Phasis, and the bird was evidently propagated very slowly in Greece and Egypt, since we find Ptolemy Philadelphos, in a grand public festival at Alexandria, exhibiting it, among other rarities, such as parroquets, peacocks, guinea-fowl, and Ethiopian birds in cages.^[630]

Among the favourite game of the Athenian gourmands was the Attagas,^[631] or francolin, a little larger than the partridge, variegated with numerous spots, and of common tile colour, somewhat inclining to red. It is said to have been introduced from Lydia into Greece, and was found in extraordinary abundance in the Megaris. Another of their favourites was the porphyrion, a bird which might with great advantage be introduced into many countries of modern Europe, since it was exceedingly domestic, and kept strict watch over the married women, whose faux pas it immediately detected and revealed to their husbands, after which, knowing the revengeful spirit of ladies so situated, it very prudently hung itself. It is no wonder, therefore, that the breed has long been extinct, or that the remnant surviving has taken refuge in some remote region, where wives require no such vigilant guardians. In the matter of eating it agreed exactly with Lord Byron, loving to feast alone, and in retired nooks, where none could observe. Aristotle describes this half fabulous bird as unwebfooted, of blue colour, with long legs, and red beak. The porphyrion was about the size of a cock, and originally a native of Libya, where it was esteemed sacred.^[632]

Another bird common in Greece, but now no longer known, was the porphyris, by some confounded with the foregoing. Of the partridge, common throughout Europe, we need merely remark, that both the gray and the red (the bartavelle of the French) were common in Greece.

If we pass from the poultry to puddings and soups,^[633] we shall find that the Athenians were not ill-provided with these dainties. They even converted gruel into a delicacy,^[634] and it is said, that the best was made at Megara. They had bean soup, flour soup, ptisans made with pearl-barley or groats.^[635] We hear, also, of a delicately-powdered dish or soup which was sprinkled over with fine flour and olives. The polphos, evidently soupe à la julienne, is said, by some, to have been composed of scraped roots, vegetables, and flour. Others take it to mean a sort of made-dish, resembling macaroni or vermicelli. Another kind of soup was the kidron, which, according to Pollux,^[636] they made of green wheat, roasted and reduced to powder.

There was one dish fashionable among the ancient Greeks mistaken by our neighbours, the French, for plum-pudding, which is still found in perfection in the Levant, where I have many times eaten of it. Julius Pollux^[637] has preserved the recipe for making it, and we can assure our gourmands, that nothing more exquisite was ever tasted, even in the best café of the Palais Royal. They took a certain quantity of the finest clarified lard, and, mixing it up with milk until it was quite thick, added an equal portion of new cheese, yolks of eggs, and the finest flour. The whole rolled up tight in a fragrant fig-leaf, was then cooked in chicken-broth, or soup made with kid’s flesh. When they considered it well done, the leaf was removed and the pudding soused in boiling honey. It was then served up hissing-hot. All the ingredients were used in equal proportions, excepting the yolks of eggs, of which there was somewhat more than of anything else, in order to give firmness and consistency to the whole.^[638]

Black puddings, made with blood, suet, and the other materials now used were also common at Athens.^[639] Mushrooms and snails were great favourites; and Poliochos speaks of going out in the dewy mornings in search of these luxuries.^[640] In spring, before the arrival of the swallow, the nettle was collected and eaten, it being then young and tender.^[641] Leeks, onions, garlic, were in much request, the last particularly, which grew in great plenty in the Megarean territory, and hence, perhaps, the inhabitants were accounted hot and quarrelsome, garlic being supposed to inspire game, even in fighting cocks, to which it was accordingly given in great quantities.^[642]

Among the herbs eaten by his countrymen, Hesiod enumerates the mallow,^[643] and the asphodel, which are likewise said by Aristophanes to have constituted a great part of the food of the early Greeks. Gœttling, therefore, not without reason, wonders that Pythagoras should have prohibited the use of the mallow. Lupines, pomegranates, horse-radish, the dregs of grapes and olives, all of which entered into the material of an Attic entertainment, were commonly cried about the streets of Athens.^[644] But these edible lupines, (θέρμοι) still eaten by the Egyptian peasantry and the poor generally throughout the Levant, must be distinguished from the common species. An anecdote of Zeno, of Cittion, will illustrate the character of this kind of pulse, with which the philosopher was evidently familiar. Being one day asked why, though naturally morose, he became quite affable when half-seas-over: “I am like the lupine,” he replied, “which, when dry, is very bitter, but perfectly sweet and agreeable after it has been well soaked.”^[645] Kidney-beans, too, were in much request, and pickled olives, slightly flavoured with fennel.

The radish^[646] was esteemed a great delicacy, particularly that of Thasos and Bœotia. And the seeds of the ground-pine,^[647] still eaten as a dessert in Italy, entered, in Greece, also into the list of edible fruits.^[648] The tree, I am informed, has been introduced into England, but I have nowhere seen its fruit brought among pears, walnuts, and apples, to table. Hen’s milk has already been spoken of among the good things of Hellas;^[649] but lest the reader should suspect us of amusing him with fables, it should be explained, that the white of an egg was so called by Anaxagoras.^[650] Eggs of all kinds were much esteemed. Sometimes they were boiled hard, and cut in two with a hair; but, many writers, confounding ὄα, the berries of the service-tree, with ὠὰ, eggs, have imagined that the Athenians, in the capriciousness of their culinary taste, actually ate pickled eggs, an idea which stirs to the bottom the erudite bile of David Ruhnken.^[651] Generally, eggs were eaten soft, as with us, or swallowed quite raw. Those of the pea-hen were considered the most delicate; next to these, the eggs of the chenalopex bergander, or Egyptian goose, and, lastly, those of the hen. This, at least, is the opinion of Epicrates and Heracleides, of Syracuse, in their treatises on cookery.^[652]

As when an entertainment was given the host necessarily expected his guests to make a good dinner, they usually commenced the business of the day with an antecœnium or whet, consisting of herbs of the sharpest taste. At Athens, the articles which generally composed this course were colewort, eggs, oysters, œnomel—a mixture of honey and wine—all supposed to create appetite.^[653] To these even in later times were added the mallow and the asphodel, king’s-spear or day-lily, gourds,^[654] melons, cucumbers. The melons of Greece are still delicious, and famous as ever in the Levant. Antioch was celebrated for its cucumbers, Smyrna for its lettuces. Mushrooms were always a favourite dish;^[655] and they had receipts for producing them, which even now, perhaps, may not be wholly unworthy of attention.

The use, however, of this kind of food was always attended with great danger, there being comparatively few species that could be safely eaten. Persons were frequently poisoned by them, and a pretty epigram of Euripides has been preserved, commemorating a mother and three children who had been thus cut off, in the island of Icaros:

Diodes, of Carystos, enumerates among wholesome vegetables the red beet, the mallow, the dock, the nettle, orach, the bolbos, or truffle, and the mushroom, of which the best kinds were supposed to grow at the foot of elm and pine trees.^[657]

The sion^[658] (sium latifolium), another of their vegetables, is a plant found in marshes and meadows, with the smallage.^[659]

Another plant, of far greater celebrity, was the Silphion,^[660] once extremely plentiful in Cyrenaica, as also, though of an inferior quality, in Syria, Armenia, and Media, but afterwards so rare as to be thought extinct. Besides being used in seasoning soups and sauces, and mixed with salt for giving a superior flavour to meat, its juice occupied a high place among the materia medica.^[661] A single plant was discovered in the reign of Nero, and sent to Rome as a present to the Emperor. Its seed, according to Pollux,^[662] was called magudaris, its root silphion, the stem caulos, and the leaf maspeton. Be this as it may, it communicated to the sauces in which it was infused a pungent and somewhat bitter taste, and was in no favour with Archestratos.^[663]

We come now to the fruit,^[664] and shall begin with that which was the pride of Attica, the fig.^[665] According to traditions fully credited in Athens, figs were first produced on a spot near the city, on the road to Eleusis, thence called Hiera Sukè, “the sacred fig-tree.”^[666] Like its men, the figs of Attica were esteemed the best in the world, and to secure an abundant supply for the use of the inhabitants it was forbidden to export them. As might have been expected, however, this decree was habitually contravened, and the informers against the delinquents were called sycophants, that is, “revealers of figs,”^[667] a word which has been adopted by most modern languages to signify mean-souled, dastardly persons, such as informers always are. The fig-tree of Laconia was a dwarfed species, and its fruit, according to Aristophanes,^[668] savoured of hatred and tyranny, like the people themselves.

Aristophanes, in Athenæus, speaking of fruit, couples myrtle-berries with Phibaleian figs.^[670]

According to the ancients, there were certain sorts of fig-trees that bore twice, thrice, and even four times, in the year. Sosibios, the Laconian, attributing the discovery of the fig to Bacchos, observes, that for this reason the god was, at Sparta, worshiped under the name of Sukites. Andriscos, however, and Agasthenes, relate that this divinity obtained the name of Meilichios, “the gracious,” among the Naxians because he taught them the use of figs. To eat figs at noon was regarded as unwholesome; and they were at all times supposed to be highly prejudicial to the voice, for which reason singers should carefully eschew them.^[671]

The apples of Delphi enjoyed great celebrity, and probably, therefore, were mild, since these were thought superior, or at least more wholesome, than sharp ones. Quinces they esteemed still more salubrious than apples, and, during certain public rejoicings, this fruit, handfuls of myrtle-leaves, crowns of roses and violets, were cast before the cars of their princes and other great men.^[672] The Greeks loved to connect something of the marvellous with whatever they admired. To the quince they attributed the honour of being a powerful antidote, observing that even the Phariac poison, though of extremely rapid operation, lost its virulence if poured into any vessel which had held quinces and retained their odour.^[673] According to Hermon, in his Cretic Glossaries, the quince was called Kodumala, in Crete. Sidoüs, a village of Corinthia, was famous for its fine apples; and even Corinth itself, the “windy Ephyrè” of Homer, produced them in great perfection.

Another favourite fruit was the peach, introduced from Persia into Greece.^[675] The citron, too, though supposed by some not to have been known to the ancient inhabitants of Hellas, perfumed in later ages the tables of the Greeks with its delicious fragrance. This is the fruit which, according to King Juba, was called in Africa “the apple of the Hesperides,” a name bestowed by Timachidas on a rich and fragrant kind of pear called epimelis. The oldest Greek writer who has described the citron tree is Theophrastus,^[676] who says it was found in Persia and Media. Its leaf, he observes, resembled that of the laurel, the strawberry tree, or the walnut. Like the wild pear tree, and the oxyacanthos, it has sharp, smooth, and very strong prickles. The fruit is not eaten, but together with the leaves exhales a sweet odour, and laid with cloths in coffers protects them from the moth. The citron tree, is always covered with fruit, some ripe and fit to be gathered, others green, with patches of gold; and, in the midst of these, are other branches covered thick with blossoms. It now forms the fairest ornaments of the gardens of Heliopolis, where it shades the Fountain of the Sun.

Antiphanes observes, in his Bœotian, that it had only recently been introduced into Attica:

Athenæus, after quoting the testimony of poets, relates a curious anecdote à propos of citrons, which I shall here repeat: it has, probably, some reference to the secret of the Psylli. An opinion, it seems, prevailed in Egypt, that a citron eaten the first thing in the morning was an antidote against all kinds of poison, whether taken into the stomach, or introduced by puncture into the blood, and the notion arose out of the following circumstance. A governor of Egypt, in the time of the Emperors, had condemned two criminals to be executed, in obedience to custom, by the bite of an asp. They were, accordingly, led in the morning towards the place of execution, and on the way the landlady of an inn, who happened to be eating citrons, compassionating their condition, gave them some which they ate. Shortly afterwards they were exposed to the hungry serpents, which immediately bit them, but instead of exhibiting the usual symptoms followed by death, they remained uninjured. At this the governor marvelled much, and at length demanded of the soldier who guarded them, whether they had taken anything previously to their arrival. Learning what had happened he put off the execution to the following day, and ordering a citron to be given to one and not to the other, they were once more exposed to the bite of the asp. The wretch who had eaten nothing died soon after he was bitten, but the other experienced no inconvenience. Similar experiments were several times afterwards made by others, until it was at length ascertained that this exquisite fruit is really an antidote against poisons.^[678]

Another fruit of which great use was made, was the damascene plum, sometimes confounded with the brabylon. The cherry,^[679] introduced into Italy by Lucullus, was known to the Greeks^[680] at a much earlier period, and is described by Theophrastus. The wild service berry,^[681] the dwarf cherry, the arbutus fruit, and the mulberry, formed part of their dessert. Even the blackberry, when perfectly ripe, was not disdained.^[682] In fact, both the mulberry and blackberry were esteemed a preventive of gout, and an ancient writer relates, that this kind of fruit having failed during a period of twenty years, that disease prevailed like an epidemic, attacking persons of both sexes and all ages, and extending its ravages even to the sheep and cattle.

Filberts, walnuts, and almonds,^[683] deservedly held a high place in the estimation of the ancients. Of almonds, the island of Naxos had the reputation of producing very excellent ones, and those of Cypros also enjoyed considerable reputation. These latter were longer in form than the former; like pickled olives they were eaten at the commencement of a repast, for the purpose of producing thirst; and bitter almonds were considered a preservative against intoxication, as we learn from an anecdote of Tiberius’s physician, who could encounter three bottles when thus fortified, but easily succumbed if deprived of his almonds. This fruit being extremely common in Greece, they had their almond-crackers, as we have our nut-crackers, which at Sparta were called moucerobatos but amygdalocatactes in the rest of Greece.^[684]

The larger kind of chestnut, sometimes denominated the “acorns of Zeus,” appears to have been introduced into Greece from the countries round the Pontos Euxinos, where they were produced in great abundance, particularly in the environs of Heraclea. There was, likewise, a sort of chestnut imported from Persia, and another from the neighbourhood of Sardes, in Lydia. Both these and the walnut were considered indigestible; but not so the almond, of which it was thought great quantities might be eaten with impunity.^[685] The best kinds were produced in Thasos and Cypros, and, when freshly gathered, the almonds of the south are, undoubtedly, of all fruit, the most delicate. The walnuts andand chestnuts of Eubœa, in the opinion of Mnestheos, were difficult of digestion, but fattening; and no one can have frequented the eastern shores of the Mediterranean without observing what an important article of food, and how nourishing, they are.^[686] The pistachio nut, produced from a tree resembling the almond-tree, was imported from Syria and Arabia.^[687] The persea, now no longer known, but supposed to be represented on the walls of the Memnonium,^[688] at Thebes, is, also, said, by Poseidonios, the stoic, to have grown in Arabia and Syria, and I brought home a quantity of leaves, preserved in an Egyptian coffin, which are, probably, those of this tree. Pears, which were brought to table floating in water,^[689] and service-berries, were grown in great perfection in the island of Ceos, and Bœotia was famous for its pomegranates.^[690]

Speaking of this fruit, which the Bœotians call sidè, Agatharchides relates the following anecdote: A dispute arising between the Athenians and Bœotians, respecting a spot called Sidè, situated on the borders, Epaminondas, in order to decide the question, took out a pomegranate from under his robe, and demanded of the Athenians, what they called it. “Rhoa” they replied. “Very good,” said Epaminondas; “but“but we call it Sidè, and, as the place derives its name from the fruit which grows there in abundance, it is clear the land must belong to us.” And it was decided in favour of the Bœotians.^[691]

We have already observed, that the palm-tree flourished and produced dates in Greece, particularly in Attica and Delos;^[692] but it is clear, from a remark of Xenophon, that these dates were small and of an inferior quality; for, speaking of the productions of Mesopotamia, he says, that they set aside for the slaves such dates as resembled those produced in Greece, while the larger and finer kinds,^[693] which were like amber in colour, they selected for their own use. They were also dried, as they still are in the East, to be eaten as a dessert, at other seasons of the year. From which we learn, that the black date, which is larger and finer than the yellow, was not then cultivated in Persia. But neither dates, nor any other fruit, could compare with the grape, which is found in perfection in almost every part of Greece, where, as in Burgundy and, I presume, in the rest of France, the law regulated the period of the vintage, prohibiting individuals from gathering their grapes earlier under a heavy penalty.^[694] The best kind of grape in Attica, like that of the Clos Vougeot in Burgundy, was the Nikostrateios, supposed to be unrivalled for excellence, though the Rhodians pretended, in their Hipponion, to possess its equal.^[695]

From the grape we pass naturally to wine, which has of itself formed the subject of many treatises. It will not, therefore, be expected that we should enter into very minute details; though, if we are sparing, it will certainly not be for want of materials. D’Herbelot^[696] relates an oriental tradition which attributes the invention of wine to the ancient Persian monarch Giamshid; and Bochart, with some show of ingenuity, attributes to Bacchos, the Grecian inventor and god of wine, an origin which would confound him with the founder of Babylon.^[697] A very celebrated wine, called nectar, is said to have been produced in the neighbourhood of that city.^[698] But, according to Theopompos, it was the inhabitants of Chios who first planted and cultivated the vine, and from them the knowledge was transmitted to the other Greeks.^[699]

Theophrastus^[700] relates that, in the territory of Heraclea, in Arcadia, there was a wine which rendered men insane and women prolific.^[701] In the environs of Cerynia, in Achaia, grew a vine, the wine of which blasted the fruit of the womb, nay, the very grapes were said to possess a similar quality.^[702] At Thasos were two kinds of wine, of which the one caused stupefaction, while the other was in the highest degree exhilarating.^[703] The wine called anthosmias,^[704] according to Phanias of Eresos, was produced by mixing one part of salt-water with fifty parts of wine, and it was considered best when made with the grapes of young vines. The comic poets are eloquent in praise of the wines of Thasos, particularly of that mixed sort, of most agreeable flavour, which was drunk in their Prytaneion. Theophrastus^[705] gives the recipe for making it. They threw, he says, into the jars, a small quantity of flour kneaded with honey, the latter to impart a sweet odour to the wine, the former mildness. A similar effect was produced by mixing up hard inodorous wine with one which was oily and fragrant.^[706]

The wines of Cos, Myndos, and Halicarnassos, being thought to temper the crudity of rain and well-water, were, therefore, like all others containing a quantity of salt-water, in great request at Athens and Sicyon, where the springs were harsh. The Mareotic wine^[707] was made from vineyards on the banks of the lake Mareotis, where the present Pasha has his gardens, in the vicinity of Marea, once a place of considerable importance, but now a small village. Attempts, however, have been made by M. Abro, an Armenian, once more to cover the ancient sites with vineyards, several acres of ground being planted with cuttings imported from the great nursery grounds at Chambéry, in Savoy.

The town of Marea derived its name, according to tradition, from Maron,^[708] a person who accompanied Bacchos in his military expedition, and, in honour of its founder, surrounded itself with the fruit-tree most agreeable to that god. The grapes here produced were delicious, and the wine, slightly astringent and aromatic, had an exquisite flavour. The Mareotic was white, of delicate taste, light, sparkling, and by no means heady. The best sort was the Tæniotic, so called from the tænia, “sandy eminences,” on which the vineyards were situated. This wine, in its pure state, had a greenish tinge, like the Johanisberg, and was rich and unctuous; but, mingled with water, it assumed the colour of Attic honey. By degrees the vine grew to be cultivated along the whole course of the Nile,^[709] but its produce differed greatly in different places, both in colour and quality. Among the best was that of Antylla, a city near Alexandria, the revenues arising from which the ancient kings of Egypt, and afterwards those of Persia, settled on their queens for their girdle. The wines of the Thebaid, particularly those made about Koptos, were so extremely light as to be given even in fevers, as, moreover, they passed quickly, and greatly promoted digestion.^[710]

According to Nicander of Colophon, the word οἶνος, “wine,” was derived from the name of Oineus, who having squeezed out the juice of the grape into vases, called it, after his own name, wine. Diphilos,^[711] the comic poet, gives us, however, something better than etymologies in that burst of Bacchic enthusiasm in which, in verses fragrant as Burgundy, he celebrates the praises of the gift of Dionysos: