COOKS.
Quick! a libation. That will do; now pour.
First let us pray to the Olympian gods,
And now to all the Olympian goddesses:
Meantime address them; pray them all to give
Us safety, health, and all good things in future,
And full enjoyment of all present happiness.
Such shall be now our prayers.
And another cook, in Simonides, says—
And how I roasted, how I carved the meat,
You know: what is there that I can't do well?
And the letter of Olympias to Alexander mentions the great experience of cooks in these matters. For, his mother having been entreated by him to buy him a cook who had experience in sacrifices, proceeds to say, "Accept the cook Pelignas from your mother; for he is thoroughly acquainted with the manner in which all your ancestral sacrifices, and all the mysterious rites, and all the sacred mysteries connected with the worship of Bacchus are performed, and every other sacrifice which Olympias practises he knows. Do not then disregard him, but accept him, and send him back again to me at as early a period as possible."
79. And that in those days the cook's profession was a respectable one, we may learn from the Heralds at Athens. "For these men used to perform the duties of cooks and also of sacrifices of victims," as Clidemus tells us, in the first book of his Protogony; and Homer uses the verb [Greek: rhezô], as we use [Greek: thyô]; but he uses [Greek: thyô] as we do [Greek: thymiaô], for burning cakes and incense after supper. And the ancients used also to employ the verb [Greek: draô] for to sacrifice; accordingly Clidemus says, "The heralds used to sacrifice ([Greek: edrôn]) for a long time, slaying the oxen, and preparing them, and cutting them up, and pouring wine over them. And they were called [Greek: kêrykes] from the hero Ceryx; and there is nowhere any record of any reward being given to a cook, but only to a herald." For Agamemnon in Homer, although he is king, performs sacrifices himself; for the poet says—
With that the chief the tender victims slew,
And in the dust their bleeding bodies threw;
The vital spirit issued at the wound,
And left the members quivering on the ground.[1]
And Thrasymedes the son of Nestor, having taken an axe, slays the ox which was to be sacrificed, because Nestor himself was not able to do so, by reason of his old age; and his other
- ↑ Homer, Iliad, iii. 292.
