Archestratus: The Ancient Greek Gourmand on the Secrets of Gastronomy

When one thinks of ancient Greece, temples and tragedies spring to mind, but not cookery. The Hedypatheia (Life of Luxury) was written in about 330 BC by the Sicilian Greek poet Archestratus. The work itself has vanished, but 62 fragments remain, about 300 lines in total, quoted in a Roman text by Athenaeus of Naucratis. In 228 AD, the writer Athenaeus still had access to the poem, and had his dinner table guests quote it in his “Philosophers at Dinner” book, The Deipnosophists.

The Life of Luxury forms "a remarkable and almost unique work", one of the earliest pieces of food writing which offers a wonderful insight into the tastes of the ancient world. Written in verse, this guide on where to find the best food in the Mediterranean world and how it should be prepared was meant to be recited during a banquet. Archestratus favoured "the nouvelle cuisine of the ancient world", as the translators of this excellent edition point out. Parrotfish should be coated in cheese, seasoned with cumin and baked whole. But fine oily fish needs only a sprinkle of salt and oil, "for they possess in themselves the fullness of delight". The best swordfish came from Byzantium and the finest wine from Lesbos, according to this Greek gourmet who, said Athenaeus, "sailed round the inhabited world for the sake of his belly".

Archestratus, an ancient Greek poet and philosopher in the mid 4th century BCE from Gela or Syracuse in Sicily, is often referred to as the Father of Gastronomy. The origin of modern day word gastronomy (meaning Rules of the Stomach) is attributed to Archestratus, Europe’s first gourmet writer, and his later readers who knew his poem by the name Gastronomia. Though probably not a cook himself, he was a gourmand and a lover of good food and eating. He must, though, having been a lover of good food, interacted with his cooks and servants a good deal because of the knowledge that comes through in his poem. The Greek homeland was considered poor compared to the rich agricultural lands of Sicily and its wealthy cities. Sicily had come to be identified with good eating and sophisticated food by the 400s BC. Plato, in fact, thought that the Greek Sicilians were obsessed with food to the point of being gluttonous.

In the poem, Archestratus shows just how cosmopolitan classical Greek food had become, drawing on food from throughout the known Mediterranean world at the time. He gives advice on how to pick out the best food, and where to travel to get it. Most of the poem seems to have been focussed on fish.

Archestratus was the first to approach cooking as an art and made extensive references on eating fish and pulses and drinking wine, which were highly appreciated by the ancient Greeks and remain to date among the typical ingredients of a healthy modern Greek diet. He advises that fish should be cooked and flavoured simply, with the use of stronger flavours reserved only for lesser quality fish. He disliked the habit people in Syracuse had of adding cheese to fish dishes (a dislike which Italians in general now share with him.)

For instance:

According to Greek archaeologist Georgia Karamitrou-Mentesidi, Archestratus presented five golden rules about cooking and eating that prove equally valuable today as they did back then.

1. Use raw food materials of good quality
2. Combine them harmoniously
3. Avoid hot sauces and spices
4. Prefer lighter sauces to enjoy the meal
5. Use spices moderately, so as to not interfere with natural flavors

Archestratus’ gastronomy advice includes that fish should be cooked and flavored simply, with the use of stronger flavors reserved only for lesser quality fish. He disliked the habit people in Syracuse had of adding cheese to fish dishes.

A sample of Archestratus gastronomy advice

“But I say to hell with saperde, a Pontic dish,
And those who praise it. For few people
Know which food is wretched and which is excellent.
But get a mackerel on the third day, before it goes into salt water
Within a transport jar as a piece of recently cured, half-salted fish.

And if you come to the holy city of famous Byzantion,
I urge you again to eat a steak of peak-season tuna; for it is very good and soft.” 
(κλεινοῦ Βυζαντίου εἰς πόλιν ἁγνήν, / ὡραίου φάγε μοι τέμαχος πάλιν· ἔστι γὰρ ἐσθλὸν/ καὶ μαλακόν.)
— Archestratus, fragment 39. Olson and Sens translation.

“Do not allow anyone come near you when you bake sea wolf neither Syracusan nor Italiote, for they do not know how to prepare them decently. But they ruin them and make a mess out of them with cheeses and sprinklings of the liquid vinegar and the silphion brine.

“First I shall recall the gifts to humankind and fair-haired Demeter, friend Moschus: take them to your heart. The best one can get, the finest of all, cleanly hulled from good ripe ears, is the barley from the sea-washed breast of famous Eresus in Lesbos – whiter than airborne snow. If the gods eat barley, this is where Hermes goes shopping for it.

“But if you go to the prosperous land of Ambracia and happen to see the boar-fish, buy it! Even if it costs its weight in gold, don’t leave without it, lest the dread vengeance of the deathless ones breathe down on you; for this fish is the flower of nectar…

It [Ed. Rhodian dogfish] could mean your death, but if they won’t sell it to you, take it by force… afterwards you can submit patiently to your fate.

“There you have the advantage over all the rest of us mortals, citizen of Messina, as you put such fare to your lips. The eels of the Strymon river, on the other hand, and those of lake Copais have a formidable reputation for excellence thanks to their large size and wondrous girth. All in all I think the eel rules over everything else at the feast and commands the field of pleasure, despite being the only fish with no backbone.

“The bonito [Ed. tuna], in autumn when the Pleiades set, you can prepare in any way you please. . . . But here is the very best way for you to deal with this fish. You need fig leaves and oregano (not very much), no cheese, no nonsense. Just wrap it up nicely in fig leaves fastened with string, then hide it under hot ashes and keep a watch on the time: don’t overcook it. Get it from Byzantium, if you want it to be good. . . .”
— Archestratus, fragments 59 to 62. Olson and Sens translation.

“And then the thunna's tail, which I call thunnis,
That mighty fish, whose home's Byzantium.
Cut it in slices, and then roast it all
With accurate care, strewing on nought but salt,
Most thinly spread; then sprinkle a little oil;
Then eat it hot, first dipping it in brine. (pungent brine (drimeian es halmen))
Or if you like to eat them dry they're good;
Like the immortal gods in character,
And figure too; but if you once forget,
And vinegar add to them, then you spoil them.” (Athen. Deipn. 7.303e)

“It is no wonder, my friends, that among all the specially prepared dishes which we call an opson, the fish is the only one which has won its way, on account of its excellent eating qualities, to be called by this name, because people are so mad for this kind of food…” and “We give the name “relish eaters,” opsophagoi rather to people who gad about among the fishmongers’ (276f7)

The following analysis of Archestratus is from John Wilkins & Shaun Hill’s book Archestratus Fragments from The Life of Luxury, A Modern English Translation with Introduction and Commentary.

“A striking feature of The Life of Luxury is that it is written in verse. At the time of composition (fourth century BC), prose-writing had been known in the Greek world for over a century. Archestratus had the option to write in prose, as technical and scientific and philosophical writers in the sixth and early fifth centuries had not. This raises questions about his audience and the purpose of the poem. It was almost certainly not a hands-on cookery book but a volume to be enjoyed at a rich man’s banquet and symposium.

“People rarely read in private in the Greek world: rather, they – if they were the upper-class people regularly associated with literature in antiquity – heard literature recited to them at banquets, in particular at the drinking session (symposium) after the meal. This was an occasion for men: they were apart from their wives and enjoyed the ministrations of women of low status, as well as literature, while other entertainments might include dancers or drunken games [Athenaeus, Book 15; Lissarrague (1990); fragment 3]. Such literature might be lyrical poems, songs, recited epic or drama or history, or sub-literary forms based on dance and mime.

“Archestratus’ poem, then, is literature. The category of literature it falls into is parody, poetry with inappropriate characters or subject-matter. It is a parody of epic, the poetry of Homer and Hesiod about heroes and gods in hexameter verse. So one day at the symposium the entertainment might be a recitation of Hesiod’s Theogony, the story of the family history of the Olympian gods; the next day it might be the poem of Archestratus. He provides a pleasing contrast, and urbanely focuses on the very activity that the audience was enjoying. As they bit into their olive relishes, or took a mouthful of tuna, the hexameters celebrated the best kind of tuna that could be found and the best way in which it could be prepared. . .

“It is a poem which may have amusing touches but is first and foremost a work of instruction for the acquisition and preparation of good food.

“We conclude with two further stylistic considerations. Many of the fragments concern fish, which, as Athenaeus observes at the beginning of his work, are virtually absent from Homer. This may be due to the selection made by Athenaeus, but is probably not, and is a subtle way in which Archestratus can please his audience by taking over the Homeric verse-form and filling it with decidedly un-Homeric fish. Equally, if we compare Archestratus with Hesiod, as Athenaeus does [fragment 23], we can see a pleasing contrast between Hesiod’s insistence on the grinding hard work of the peasant in his Works and Days and Archestratus’ advice for good and elegant living.

“The second point is that Archestratus might have been more credible if he had written in prose. Why this flirting with parody? Flirtation is the right word, for the quantity of Homeric and Hesiodic phraseology is small compared with Matro or Hegemon. A prose work may have convinced us that this was a book for chefs, not a pleasing poem for their dilettante employers. Equally, it would probably have condemned the work to oblivion, for it was the versification and playfulness that caught the eye of Athenaeus and seduced him into quoting 62 fragments. . .

“The comic poets thought it desirable to have a comic chef as a stock character in their plays. The comic chef has to be recognizable in his comic guise, a caricature of his counterpart in the real world. As well as cooking methods, there are extravagant claims to reading, knowledge and excellence in the competitive world of the commercial chef. We offer two extracts.

A: Sophon of Acarnania and Damoxenus of Rhodes were fellow pupils of each other in the chef’s art, and Labdacus of Sicily was their teacher. These two wiped away the clichéd old seasonings from the cook books and did away with the mortar: no cumin, vinegar, silphium, cheese, coriander – seasonings which old Kronos used to have. They did away with all these and said the man who used them was only a tradesman. All they asked for, boss, were oil and a new pot and a fire that was hot and not blown too often. With such an arrangement every meal is straightforward. They were the first to do away with tears and sneezing and a running nose at the table: they cleared out the tubes of the eaters. Well, the Rhodian died from drinking a salt pickle, for such a drink was unnatural.
B: Quite so.
A: Sophon now runs things in Ionia, and has become my teacher, boss. I myself philosophize, and I’m keen to leave behind me new books on the art of cooking.
B: O God! It’s me you’ll be butchering, not the animal you’re about to sacrifice.
A: First thing in the morning you’ll see me, books in hand, researching into food ways, in no way different from Diodorus of Aspendus.
Anaxippus, Behind the Veil, fragment 1.1–26KA [Athenaeus 403e–f: this is Athenian comedy of the fourth/third century BC]

Anyone can prepare dishes, carve, boil up sauces and blow on the fire, even a mere commis. But the chef is something else. To understand the place, the season, the man giving the meal, the guest, when and what fish to buy, that is not a job for just anyone. You will get the same kind of thing just about all the time, but you will not get the same perfection in the dishes or the same flavour. Archestratus has written his book and is held in esteem by some, as if he has said something useful. But he is ignorant of most things and tells us nothing.
Dionysius, The Law Maker, fragment 2.15–26KA [Athenaeus 405a–b: this is Athenian comedy of the fourth century BC]

“In these comic passages we have a rejection of earlier techniques, consideration of location and season, an air of authority, all redolent of Archestratus. The first passage refers to Diodorus of Aspendus [see fragment 23]; Sophon of Acarnania is an influential chef mentioned elsewhere in Athenaeus; Archestratus himself appears in the second passage. These comedies and The Life of Luxury appear to draw on the same world of food preparation and writing about cooking. . .

The Greeks at Table

“Upper-class Greeks ate while they reclined on couches, putting food to their lips with one hand and leaning on the other arm. This has implications for the style of food. If it was eaten one-handed, then it needed to be presented on the plate in bite-sized portions. Even if it was a fish head [cf. fragments 18 and 20], it should be prepared for one-handed consumption. Knives were available, though almost certainly not spoons and certainly not forks. If the reclining posture were to be maintained, the easiest tool to supplement the human hand was bread; and if the bread was to act as a kind of scoop, then a flat bread like modern pitta appears eminently suitable, while a raised bread might be better for absorbing soups. We do not hear a great deal about raised breads in Athens at this period (we do at least hear about them, though), and the need for pittastyle scoops may account for Archestratus’ praise of barley, discussed in the note on fragment 4. (He may of course be speaking in ignorance or in jest, but that is not our interpretation.)

“They ate two sets of courses, all the while reclining on couches. In the first set, identified as the dinner (deipnon), appetizers with strong flavours [fragments 6–7] were followed by dishes based on fish and meat [fragments 8–58]. These dishes might be served several at a time. The second set of dishes accompanied the drinking session (symposium) [fragment 62]. This order of foods may be seen in Matro’s Attic Banquet [quoted by Athenaeus 134d–137 c], and is adopted for the fragments of Archestratus, down to the provision of breads for the meal at the outset.

“Courses were based on a carbohydrate element (sitos) – stomach-filling barley and wheat – with strong flavours (opsa) to provide extra proteins and vitamins and interest for the palate. These opsa ranged from best sea bass to a salad of bitter herbs or cheese and onions. Greedy people might eat too much carbohydrate, luxurious people too many opsa, particularly highly prized fish. After the food, the diners went into the drinking session (symposium) and were entertained.

“The fragments, as we have seen, concentrate on fish-cooking (49 out of 62 fragments). It is our belief that fish was more highly valued by chefs than meat because meat was closely connected with other rituals, rituals of worship and sacrifice. The slaughter of animals in sacrifice and the butchering of the meat was the task of the mageiros (the Greek word for chef, butcher and sacrificer of animals): he divided the meat between the worshippers. It was possible to incorporate such worship with a banquet, but meat cookery appears only occasionally in cookery books. In Archestratus meat is represented only by hare (not a sacrificial animal) [fragment 57], goose [fragment 58] and sow’s womb as a relish [fragment 62]. There may well have been more meat in the full poem and Athenaeus may have distorted the picture by his own lack of interest in meat; Greek culture nevertheless associated fish-eating (quality fish as opposed to small fry) with luxury and meat-eating with the gods. The full poem of Matro confirms the bias towards fish. . .

“Archestratus cooks the fish simply, boiling, roasting or grilling, with light seasoning and oil added if it is quality fish, stronger flavours if poor quality [see fragments 13, 3, 45, 49]. Freshness and quality are his watchwords, and these features must not be damaged by strong sauces based on cheese and pungent herbs [fragment 45]. An earlier (or possibly alternative) style of cooking is deprecated [fragment 45] and a light, elegant style recommended. There is much interest in texture, both in parts of the fish, for instance head meat [fragments 18, 20, 22, 26, 33], fin [fragment 22], tail [fragments 26, 37, 40], and belly [fragment 23] as well as in varieties of fish.

“Archestratus’ favourite fish tend to have firm-textured and strongly flavoured meat rather than mild-tasting flesh like the white fish which are now used in France and Britain as the vehicles for sauces. And of course, he shows much interest in eels, the common eel, the conger and the moray [fragments 8, 16, 19]. He emphasizes flavour and the oil/fat of the fish where flavour is to be found [fragments 8, 12, 17, 18, 19, 30, 36, 45, 49]. . .

“Sauces of cheese or herb pickles are added to inferior fish, but in general this is not sauce-based cooking, the preference being for additions of oil and light herbs to the fish juices. This is striking, and to be contrasted with the strong flavours added to Roman foods (though our principal informant is ‘Apicius’ from the fourth century AD) and the meat-based sauces from Asia Minor which appeared in most other Greek cookery books: Athenaeus [516c–d] gives a list of books with one such recipe, and Archestratus’ is notable for the absence of such sauces.

“Meats are prepared with equal simplicity [fragments 57, 58] and an eye to essential juices. There is no interest (in the fragments at least) in comparatively new introductions to the Mediterranean such as pheasant and chicken.

“Strong flavours are recommended at the beginning and end of the meal, in the form of olives, barley breads, small birds and pickled sow’s womb. Vegetable dishes are deprecated in fragment 7 (whether as starters or in generalis unclear). We do not have enough information on the presence of vegetables in the poem, but they may not have figured largely if associations with poverty, found elsewhere, were thought important by Archestratus. His views on chick peas and other desserts [fragment 62] lend some support to this suggestion, as does a dismissive remark at the end of fragment 23.

“There is little more to say about the flavours in the poem for it relies principally on fresh produce, from the sea, which has changed less since antiquity than other products, certainly than farmed animals and plants. The product is cooked with little flavouring, and apart from the salt fish of fragment 38 and the occasional reference to silphium (the relative of the sulphurous asafoetida) there is little evidence of the predominate flavour we have found in ancient Greek food, that is a rank, slightly rotting quality. Often this is balanced with the sweetness of honey or olive oil to provide an equivalent harmony to more familiar couplings such as Stilton and sweet port wine or roast mutton and red currant jelly [Wilkins & Hill (1993)]. Anyone in the modern world who cooked from Archestratus would not find the flavours as strange as much ancient Greek food.

“A comment on silphium is in order. It was the prestige flavour of antiquity. It was eaten more rarely than the strong Mediterranean herbs such as thyme, but was a much-desired flavour. It grew in North Africa in the area around Cyrene and there is little evidence for its growth elsewhere. The plant is one of the giant fennels which needed special conditions for its cultivation [Theophrastus History of Plants 6.3.1–7]. The root was eaten, but the main products were two juices, one derived from the root, the other from the stem. The export of silphium was an important part of Cyrene’s trade in some periods. By the time of Nero the production was said by Pliny to be extinct, and the flavour thereafter was provided by asafoetida, another giant fennel, from Persia. Ancient sources on the enigmatic but pungent silphium have been discussed recently by Alice Arndt and Andrew Dalby in their papers listed in the bibliography.” . . .

“Athenaeus and Archestratus

“The attitude of Athenaeus himself is an interesting one, and for this reason we have quoted the context of each citation as well as Archestratus’ words themselves. Athenaeus’ work, like Archestratus’, is modelled on the banquet and symposium, and it explicitly introduces foods and rituals of the banquet as diners progress through their meal [1b]. The ultimate literary model for a work of art based on the banquet and symposium is, Athenaeus tells us [2a], Plato (he means Plato’s Symposium). . .

“Archestratus appears among a mass of quotation from poets and philosophers, and before the account of the extraordinary diet of Homer’s heroes, given near the beginning because the Iliad and Odyssey are considered the earliest recording of eating in Greece and purveyors of meals consisting almost entirely of meat.

“There is an important ambivalence in Athenaeus, a belief that in a sense Archestratus is worth quoting because he has something to say about food, but that at the same time something disreputable is creeping into the text from which Athenaeus must distance himself. Archestratus seems treated as authoritative at one moment, only to be disparaged later [fragments 2, 3, 38, 44].

“Athenaeus is at times even hostile. He needs to use the poem for its detailed discussion of foods, particularly of fish, but at the same time deprecates the luxurious associations the foods carry in Greek culture, and especially in the philosophical tradition of the Stoics exemplified in fragment 3. A recurring criticism is Archestratus’ excessive eye for detail, exemplified in fragment 2 or in the term kimbix, ‘penny-pincher’ or ‘stickler for detail’ in the introduction to fragment 37.

“Athenaeus is not always negative. We said above that Archestratus was writing in the tradition of Hesiod [cf. fragment 23] but without the miserable peasant lifestyle portrayed by that poet. As in Hesiod, there is much knowledgeable detail; but by contrast, poverty is absent, as is a moralising tone in the style of Theognis, another early poet with whom Archestratus is ironically compared in the introduction to fragment 23. Comparison with these poets makes clear what Archestratus’ poem is not. But in the following passage [101f], it is debatable whether Athenaeus’ tone is sincere or sardonic. ‘We may well admire Archestratus, who gave us the excellent advice above [fragment 62]. He was a guide in pleasure for Epicurus the wise, and give his advice memorably, like the poet from Ascra [Hesiod], and tells us not to listen to some, but to attend to him himself, and tells us not to eat this and this, leaving out nothing that the cook has in Damoxenus the comic poet’. The passage is sardonic when judged in context of the places where Archestratus is criticised for offering pleasure [fragments 2, 3, 16].

“Pleasure is the key. Archestratus’ poem is after all called The Life of Luxury [fragment1], and the sensual areas of luxury and pleasure had for centuries before Athenaeus been condemned by most philosophical systems as indicators of the uncontrolled and non-philosophical mind. Athenaeus dwells at length on this subject at 510a to 554f. When setting up the dietary system in his ideal state, Plato prescribes a simple vegetarian diet [Republic 372-3]; when it is objected that this food fit for pigs, and that meat and couches to recline on are required, the response is ‘Ah! It seems we are not describing how to establish a city, but how to establish a luxurious city’. Dancing girls, sweet cakes and other ‘luxuries’ are then added, with grave fears for justice in the city. In his dialogue Gorgias, Plato sets up a structure of genuine and false skills with cooking as the lowest and most meretricious [463e5-466a3]. Ideas such as these pervade later thought, of which Athenaeus is an undistinguished example. Further examples can be seen in Macrobius, Saturnalia (fourth / fifth century AD), where in one passage Plato and Aristotle are quoted on the dangers of pleasure [2.8.7-15], and in another a doctor considers whether drinking or eating is more pleasurable [7.12.20]. Medical texts are of course very different from philosophical texts on ethics. The body clearly does experience pleasure: it is a scientific and medical fact. Galen, the most eminent of the ancient doctors, sometimes notes without comment a food as giving pleasure, while at others advises nutrition in preference to pleasure. (This latter attitude would have pleased Plato who in the Gorgias passage sees the doctor as prescribing the nasty medicines required and the cook offering sweet tastes which do no good.) [For an accessible analysis of Greek concepts of pleasure see Foucault (1985).] Archestratus alludes slyly to the moral debate about pleasure in fragments 23 and 31.

“Archestratus, then, is a kind of figurehead, an Escoffier as it were, who, in Athenaeus’ survey of Greek cooking epitomizes and represents all aspects of it. If he has a certain austerity, then that can be used against him as easily as if he were a boaster or led a dissipated life. It is always possible of course that the world had moved on by the time of Athenaeus, and Archestratus was considered noteworthy but laughably old-fashioned. . .

“Archestratus and the Greek

“World Archestratus comes from Gela. His provenance is significant. In the fifth and fourth centuries the Greek mainland was generally considered by its inhabitants to be agriculturally poor (Greece proper did not include the more fertile plains of Thrace and Macedonia); envious – and disapproving – eyes were cast to east and west, to the Greek cities on the Aegean coast of Turkey where there was the influence from the oriental empires of Persians and others, and to the fertile lands of Sicily and southern Italy. In this rich western location with good land, wealthy monarchs in some cities, and a perceived higher standard of living, good cooking developed.

“Gela is a good example of a city in a fertile plain which became influential in the century before Archestratus (though monarchical government proved a mixed blessing). The ingredients of sufficient produce, sufficient interest and sufficient wealth to allow choice combined to create an inventive experimentation with food, comparable perhaps with France in certain periods. Sicily is often referred to in poetry as an island of many fruits; Sybaris, Croton and Tarentum were cities of legendary luxury; local agriculture was fertile [Varro On Agriculture 1.4.4, Strabo Geography 6.1.12]. Epicharmus the Syracusan comic poet of the early fifth century had long lists of foods in some of his plays, fragments of which survive. In the best-preserved, The Marriage of Hebe, dozens of fish are listed. Aristophanes in the late fifth century identifies Sicily with good eating; we hear of Sicon (a Sicilian?), either a chef or a food writer; Plato [Epistle 7] deplores Sicily as a gluttonous place where men eat two banquets a day and never sleep alone at night [for the moralizing combination of food and sex see fragment 3]. Plato cites the Sicilian Mithaicos as an early writer of a cookery book and Sicily as a place obsessed with food [Gorgias 518b]; at Republic 404d, Socrates speaks of ‘those refinements of Sicilian cookery for which the tables of Syracuse are famous’. All this before Archestratus. . .

“It is very clear that much of the poem concerns not the cooking and the recipes but the selecting and purchase of the best produce that could be found. The imagined audience for the poem takes a gastronomic tour, like Egon Ronay or the editor of the Good Food Guide. In this situation, the gastronome does not stay at home and hire the best chef in town; rather he – the intended recipients of this advice are almost certainly men – travels to whichever city offers the best of a desired produce, and there ensures that the produce is prepared in the correct way.”

Ancient Criticism

“Archestratus has written his book and is held in esteem by some, as if he has said something useful. But he is ignorant of most things and tells us nothing.” 
— Dionysius The Law Maker, fragment 2.15 to 26KA, written sometime in the 4th century BC, preserved in Thenaeus 405a-b.

This savory sauce, μυσσωτός/μυττωτός, greatly complemented the tuna. Sometimes translated as olio, mussotos was a mess of cheese, honey, and garlic beaten together, a type of mince meat (LSJ). One ancient Greek food writer says the following about this delicious combination: “And then from the sea there is tuna, no mean food (οὐ κακὸν βρῶμα), but one that stands out among all fish in a savory sauce [(ἐμπρεπὴς ἐν μυσσωτῷ)” Ananius, in Athen. Deipn. 7.282b].

120. There is also the saurus, or lizard. Alexis mentions this fish, in his Leuce. It is a cook who is speaking:—

A. Do you know how you ought to dress a lizard?
B. I shall, when you have taught me.
A. First of all
Take off the gills, then wash him, then cut off
The spines all round, and split him open neatly;
Then when you've laid him flat, anoint him well
And thoroughly with assafœtida;
Sprinkle him then with cheese, and salt, and marjoram.