THE THESSALIANS. entrails, and pounding the blood, and seasoning it with vinegar, and roasted cheese, and assafœtida, and cummin-seed, and thyme (both green and dry), and savory, and coriander-seed (both green and dry), and leeks, and onions (cleaned and toasted), and poppy-seed, and grapes, and honey, and the pips of an unripe pomegranate. You may also make this [Greek: myma] of fish."
83. And when this man had thus hammered on not only this dish but our ears also, another slave came in, bringing in a dish called [Greek: mattyê]. And when a discussion arose about this, and when Ulpian had quoted a statement out of the Dictionary of Cookery by the before-mentioned Artemidorus relating to it, Æmilianus said that a book had been published by Dorotheus of Ascalon, entitled, On Antiphanes, and on the dish called Mattya by the Poets of the New Comedy, which he says is a Thessalian invention, and that it became naturalized at Athens during the supremacy of the Macedonians. And the Thessalians are admitted to be the most extravagant of all the Greeks in their manner of dressing and living; and this was the reason why they brought the Persians down upon the Greeks, because they were desirous to imitate their luxury and extravagance. And Cratinus speaks of their extravagant habits in his treatise on the Thessalian Constitution. But the dish was called [Greek: mattyê] (as Apollodorus the Athenian affirms in the first book of his treatise on Etymologies), from the verb [Greek: masaomai] (to eat); as also are the words [Greek: mastichê] (mastich) and [Greek: maza] (barley-cake). But our own opinion is that the word is derived from [Greek: mattô], and that this is the verb from which [Greek: maza] itself is derived, and also the cheese-pudding called by the Cyprians [Greek: magis]; and from this, too, comes the verb [Greek: hypermazaô], meaning to be extravagantly luxurious. Originally they used to call this common ordinary food made of barley-meal [Greek: maza], and preparing it they called [Greek: mattô]. And afterwards, varying the necessary food in a luxurious and superfluous manner, they derived a word with a slight change from the form [Greek: maza], and called every very costly kind of dish [Greek: mattyê]; and preparing such dishes they called [Greek: mattyazô], whether it were fish, or poultry, or herbs, or beasts, or sweetmeats. And this is plain from the testimony of Alexis, quoted by Artemidorus; for Alexis, wishing to show the great luxuriousness of the way in which this dish was prepared, added the verb [Greek: lepomai]. And the whole extract runs thus, being
