Kitap 3
64
But the taste of the crab is one which many people have been very much devoted to; as may be shown by many passages in different comedies; but at present Aristophanes will suffice, who in the Thesmophoriazusæ speaks as follows— A. Has any fish been bought? a cuttle-fish, Or a broad squill, or else a polypus; Or roasted mullet, or perhaps some beet-root? B. Indeed there was not. A. Or a roach or dace? B. Nothing of such a sort? A. Was there no black-pudding, Nor tripe, nor sausage, nor boar's liver fried, No honeycomb, no paunch of pig, no eel, No mighty crab, with which you might recruit The strength of women wearied with long toil But by broad squills he must have meant what we call astaci, a kind of crab which Philyllius mentions in his Cities. And Archestratus, in that famous poem of his where he never once mentions the crab by the name of κάραβος, does speak of the ἄστακος. As he does also in the following passage— But passing over trifles, buy an astacus, Which has long hands and heavy too, but feet Of delicate smallness, and which slowly walks Over the earth's face. A goodly troop there are Of such, and those of finest flavour, where The isles of Lipara do gem the ocean: And many lie in the broad Hellespont. And Epicharmus, in his Hebe's Marriage, shows plainly that the ἄστακος spoken of by Archestratus is the same as the κάραβος, speaking as follows— There are astaci and colybdaenæ, both equipp'd With little feet and long hands, both coming under The name of κάραβος.
65
But the carabi, and astaci, and also carides or squills, are each a distinct genus. But the Athenians spell the name ἄστακος with an ο, ὄστακος, just as they also write ὀσταφίδας. But Epicharmus in his Earth and Sea says— κᾀστακοὶ γαμψώνυχοι.
