sting time over such trifles, and I need time to deal with other
charges. Meanwhile read out my translation into Latin of the few names
I have just given you. (_The translation is read. The Latin names are
lost._)

39. What think you? Is it disgraceful for a philosopher who is no rude
and unlearned person of the reckless Cynic type, but who remembers
that he is a disciple of Plato, is it disgraceful for such an one to
know and care for such learning or to be ignorant and indifferent? to
know how far such things reveal the workings of providence, or to
swallow all the tales his father and mother told him of the immortal
gods? Quintus Ennius wrote a poem on dainties: he there enumerates
countless species of fish, which of course he had carefully studied. I
remember a few lines and will recite them:

_Clipea's sea-weasels are of all the best,
For 'mice' the place is Aenus; oysters rough
In greatest plenty from Abydos come.
The sea-comb's found at Mitylene and
Ambracian Charadrus, and I praise
Brundisian sargus: take him, if he's big.
Know that Tarentum's small sea-boar is prime;
The sword-fish at Surrentum thou shouldst buy;
Blue fish at Cumae. What! have I passed by
Scarus? the brain of Jove is not less sweet.
You catch them large and good off Nestor's home.
Have I passed by the black-tail and the 'thrush',
The sea-merle and the shadow of the sea?
Best to Corcyra go for cuttlefish,
For the acarne and the fat sea-skull
The purple-fish, the little murex too,
Mice of the sea and the sea-urchin sweet._

He glorified many fish in other verses, stating where each was to be
found and whether they were best fried or stewed, and yet he is not
blamed for it by the learned. Spare then to blame me, who describe
things known to few under elegant and appropriate names both in Greek
and Latin.

40. Enough of this! I call your attention to another point. What if I
take such interest and possess such skill in medicine as to search for
certain remedies in fish? For assuredly as nature with impartial
munificence has distributed and implanted many remedies throughout all
other created things, so also similar remedies are to be found in
fish. Now, do you think it more the business of a magician than of a
doctor, or indeed of a philosopher, to know and seek out remedies? For
the philosopher will use them not to win money for his purse, but to
give as