14
Ardalus then joined in and said, Well, then, is there some law which commands that comrade of all of you, Solon’s foreign friend, Epimenides, to abstain from all other kinds of food, and by taking into his mouth a bit of the potent no-hunger, A recipe (probably forged) for making this compound may be found in Tzetzes’ scholium on Hesiod, Works and Days, 41. which he himself compounds, to go all day without luncheon and dinner?
14
This remark arrested the attention of the whole company, and Thales said jestingly that Epimenides showed good sense in not wishing to have the trouble of grinding his grain and cooking for himself like Pittacus. For, said he, when I was at Eresus, I heard the woman at whose house I stayed singing at the mill: Grind, mill, grind; Yes, for Pittacus used to grind King of great Mytilene. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p. 673.
14
Solon said that he was surprised at Ardalus if he had not read the regulations governing the manner of living of the man in question, which are given in writing in Hesiod’s verses. For Hesiod is the one who first sowed in the mind of Epimenides the seeds of this form of nourishment, inasmuch as it was he who taught that one should seek to find How in mallow and asphodel lies an immense advantage.Hesiod, Works and Days, 41.
