- tree were abundant in the country, as Ister tells us, in his
treatise on the History of Greece. And that it was customary to bring up pears in water at entertainments, we learn from the Breutias of Alexis, where we read these lines—
A. Have you ne'er seen pears floating in deep water
Served up before some hungry men at dinner?
B. Indeed I have, and often; what of that?
A. Does not each guest choose for himself, and eat
The ripest of the fruit that swims before him?
B. No doubt he does.
But the fruit called [Greek: hamamêlides] are not the same as pears, as some people have fancied, but they are a different thing, sweeter, and they have no kernel. Aristomenes, in his Bacchus, says—
Know you not how the Chian garden grows
Fine medlars?
And Æschylides too, in the third book of his Georgics, shows us that it is a different fruit from the pear, and sweeter. For he is speaking of the island Ceos, and he expresses himself thus,—"The island produces the very finest pears, equal to that fruit which in Ionia is called hamamelis; for they are free from kernels, and sweet, and delicious." But Aethlius, in the fifth book of his Samian Annals, if the book be genuine, calls them homomelides. And Pamphilus, in his treatise on Dialects and Names, says, "The epimelis is a species of pear." Antipho, in his treatise on Agriculture, says that the phocides are also a kind of pear.
64. Then there are pomegranates. And of pomegranates some kinds are said to be destitute of kernels, and some to have hard ones. And those without kernels are mentioned by Aristophanes in his Farmers; and in his Anagyrus he says—
Except wheat flour and pomegranates.
He also speaks of them in the Gerytades; and Hermippus, in his Cercopes, says—
Have you e'er seen the pomegranate's kernel in snow?
And we find the diminutive form [Greek: rhoidion], like [Greek: boidion].
Antiphanes also mentions the pomegranates with the hard kernels in his Bœotia—
I bade him bring me from the farm pomegranates
Of the hard-kernell'd sort.
And Epilycus, in his Phoraliscus, says—
You are speaking of apples and pomegranates.
