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      Fish, Sex and Revolution in Athens

      The Classical Quarterly
      Cambridge University Press (CUP)

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          Abstract

          Anyone who picks up a collection of fragments of comic poetry is likely to be struck by the large number of references to eating fish. There are shopping-lists for fish, menus for fish and recipes for fish-dishes, with the ingredients and method of preparation graphically described. Aristophanes and others dwell in several places on the charms of eel wrapped in beet-leaves. Other writers describe preparations for a great fish-soup, or the dancing movements of fish as they are fried. Undoubtedly Athenaeus is responsible for this preponderance among the fragments of Comedy of passages concerned primarily with food, especially fish, but some of the fragments are rather long in themselves and indicate, at the very least, that cooks were important characters in many plays, and that dinner-parties must have figured significantly in many plots. Outside Comedy, references to fish-consumption are somewhat fewer in number, but perhaps even more surprising when they do occur. It seems strange that Demosthenes, in discussing Philocrates' betrayal of his city, should think it at all relevant to state that he spent his ill-gotten gains on fish, or that Aeschines, attacking Timarchus on a capital charge, should dwell on his fondness for fish. Moreover, references to fish occur also in philosophy and the Hippocratic corpus. In fact, the frequency with which ancient authors seem to have written about fish reveals almost a preoccupation. The consumption offish clearly held a significance for the Athenians which needs to be uncovered and explained.

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          Most cited references6

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          Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener :

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            Menander: A Commentary : A Commentary A Commentary

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              The Compleat Angler: Observations on the Rise of Peisistratos in Herodotos (1.59–64)

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                The Classical Quarterly
                The Class. Q.
                Cambridge University Press (CUP)
                0009-8388
                1471-6844
                May 1993
                February 11 2009
                May 1993
                : 43
                : 1
                : 53-66
                Article
                10.1017/S0009838800044177
                8bc61798-b9ef-43f9-9b1b-90af6f2260ce
                © 1993

                https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms

                History

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