Book 4
10
The ancients used food calculated to provoke the appetite, as for instance salt olives, which they call colymbades: and accordingly Aristophanes says, in his Old Age— Old man, do you like flabby courtesans, Or tender maidens, firm as well-cured olives? And Philemon, in his Follower, or Sauce, says— A. What did you think, I pray, of that boiled fish? B. He was but small; do'st hear me? And the pickle Was white, and much too thick; there was no smell Of any spice or seasoning at all, So that the guests cried out,—How pure your brine is! They also eat common grasshoppers and the monkey grasshopper as procreatives of the appetite. Aristophanes says, in his Anagyrus— How can you, in God's name, like grasshoppers, Catching them with a reed, and cercopes?The cercope, or monkey-grasshopper, was so called from having a long tail like a monkey (κέρκωψ). But the cercope is a little animal like a grasshopper or prickly roach, as Speusippus tells us in the fourth book of his Similitudes; and Epilycus mentions them in his Coraliscus. And Alexis says in his Thrason— I never saw, not even a cercope A greater chatterer than you, O woman, Nor jay, or nightingale, or dove, or grasshopper. And Nicostratus says, in his Abra— The first, a mighty dish shall lead the way, Holding an urchin, and some sauce and capers, A cheesecake, fish, and onions in rich stuffing.
