Book 2
19
But Aristobulus of Cassandra says that there is a fountain in Miletus called the Achillean, the stream of which is very sweet, while the sediment is brackish: this is the water in which the Milesians say that their hero bathed when he had slain Trambelus the king of the Leleges. And they say, too, that the water in Cappadocia never becomes putrid, but there is a great deal in that district, of an admirable quality, though it has no outlet unless it flows underground. And Ptolemy the king, in the Seventh Book of his Commentaries, says that as you go to Corinth through the district called Contoporia, when you have got to the top of the mountain there is a fountain whose waters are colder than snow, so that many people are afraid to drink of it lest they should be frozen; but he says that he drank of it himself. And Phylarchus states that at Cleitor there is a spring which gives those who drink of it a distaste for the smell of wine. And Clearchus tells us that water is called white, like milk; and that wine is called red, like nectar; and that honey and oil are called yellow, and that the juice which is extracted from the myrtle-berry is black. Eubulus says that "water makes those who drink nothing else very ingenious, But wine obscures and clouds the mind;" and Philetas borrows not only the thought, but the lines.
20
Athenæus then, having delivered this lecture on water, like a rhetorician, stopped awhile, and then began again.
20
Amphis, the comic writer, says somewhere or other— There is, I take it, often sense in wine, And those are stupid who on water dine. And Antiphanes says— Take the hair, it well is written, Of the dog by whom you're bitten. Work off one wine by his brother, And one labour with another; Horns with horns, and noise with noise, One crier with his fellow's voice Insult with insult, war with war, Faction with faction, care with care; Cook with cook, and strife with strife, Business with business, wife with wife.
