CHEESE. And Euripides, in his Cyclops, speaks of a harsh-tasted cheese, which he calls [Greek: opias tyros], being curdled by the juice [Greek: opos] of the fig-tree—
There is, too, [Greek: tyros opias], and Jove's milk.[1]
But since, by speaking in this way of all the things which are now put on the table before us, I am making the Tromilican cheese into the remains of the dessert, I will not continue this topic. For Eupolis calls the relics of sweetmeats ([Greek: tragêmatôn]) and confectionery [Greek: apotragêmata]. And ridiculing a man of the name of Didymias, he calls him the [Greek: apotragêma] of a fox, either because he was little in person, or as being cunning and mischievous, as Dorotheus of Ascalon says. There are also thin broad cheeses, which the Cretans call females, as Seleucus tells us, which they offer up at certain sacrifices. And Philippides, in his play called the Flutes, speaks of some called [Greek: pyriephthai] (and this is a name given to those made of cream), when he says—
Having these [Greek: pyriephthai], and these herbs.
And perhaps all such things are included in this Macedonian term [Greek: epideipnides]. For all these things are provocatives to drinking.
77. Now, while Ulpian was continuing the conversation in this way, one of the cooks, who made some pretence to learning, came in, and proclaimed [Greek: myma]. And when many of us were perplexed at this proclamation, (for the rascal did not show what it was that he had,) he said;—You seem to me, O guests, to be ignorant that Cadmus, the grandfather of Bacchus, was a cook. And, as no one made any reply to this, he said; Euhemerus the Coan, in the third book of his Sacred History, relates that the Sidonians give this account, that Cadmus was the cook of the king, and that he, having taken Harmonia, who was a female flute-player and also a slave of the king, fled away with her.—
But shall I flee, who am a freeman born?
For no one can find any mention in any comedy of a cook being a slave, except in a play of Posidippus. But the introduction of slaves as cooks took place among the Macedonians first, who adopted this custom either out of insolence, or on account of the misfortunes of some cities which had been reduced to slavery. And the ancients used to call a cook who
- ↑ Eur. Cycl. 136.
