Athenaeus - Deipnosophists Book VIII
Book VIII. 334 a - b
I know that Phylarchus also speaks somewhere of large fish, and green figs sent to them, by Patroclus, Ptolemy’s general, to King Antigonus by way of hinting what would happen to him, just as the Scythians did to Darius when he was invading their country. For the Scythians, Herodotus tells us, sent a bird, an arrow, and a frog; Patroclus, however, as Phylarchus says in the third book of his Histories, sent the aforesaid figs and fishes. Now it happened that the king was then drinking deeply, and when all the company were puzzled at these gifts, Antigonus burst out laughing and declared to his friends that he understood what the friendly offerings meant: ‘Either,’ says Patroclus, ‘we must be masters of the sea, or else we must eat figs.’
Book VIII. 334 e – f
I know, too, of the ‘broiler’ as it is called, in Lake Bolbe, concerning which Hegesander says in his Commentaries: ‘Round Apollonia*, in the Chalcidic peninsula, flow two rivers, the Sandy and the Olynthiac. Both empty into Lake Bolbe. On the Olynthiac is a monument to Olynthus, the son of Heracles and Bolbe. In the months Anthesterion and Elaphebolion, so say the inhabitants, Bolbe sends the broiler to Olynthus, and at this time a limitless quantity of fish go up from the lake into the Olynthiac river. Now it is a stream so shallow that it hardly covers the ankle, nevertheless such a quantity of fish comes that all the inhabitants round about can put up preserved fish sufficient for their needs. The strange part of it is that the fish do not pass beyond the monument of Olynthus. They say, to be sure, that in earlier times the people of Apollonia brought the customary offerings to the dead in the month of Elaphebolion; but today they bring them in Anthesterion. For this reason, therefore, the fish make the ascent only in these months, being those in which people are in the habit of honouring the dead.’
* Apollonia is a town in the northern part of the Chalcidic peninsula. Bolbe is a large lake in Macedonia, north of the Chalcidic peninsula; also eponymous nymph of the lake.
Book VIII. 341 e – 342 a
The orator Hypereides was another epicure, according to the comic poet Timocles in Delos. Relating the story of the men who took bribes from Harpalus, he writes: ‘A. Demosthenes has got fifty talents. B. Happy man, provided he doesn’t give anybody a share! A. And Moerocles has received a lot of gold. B. Whoever gave it was a simpleton, but he who got it is in luck. A. Demon and Callisthenes also have something. B. They were poor men, so that I pardon them. A. Yes, and Hypereides of the glib tongue has something. B. Well, he will make our fishmongers rich. For he’s a fish-eater and will make Syrians of all the sea-gulls.’
Book VIII. 348 e – f
And Machon records these reminiscences of him: ‘Once on a time Stratonicus journeyed to Pella, having previously heard from several sources that the baths there usually made people splenetic. Well, observing several lads exercising in the bath beside the fire, all of them with bodies and complexions at the top of their form, he said that his informants had made a mistake. But when he came out again, he noticed a man who had a spleen twice as large as his belly. (He remarked) “The door-keeper who sits here and receives the cloaks of patrons as they enter must plainly have an eye on their spleens as well, to make sure immediately that the people inside are not crowded” ’
Book VIII. 350 c
When King Ptolemy was discussing with him,* rather too contentiously, the art of harp-playing, he said, ‘O King, a scepter is one thing, a plectrum is another. This is told by the epic poet Capito in the fourth book of his Notes addressed to Philopappus.
* the harp-player Stratonicus.