Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists
C. D. Yonge, B.A., Ed.

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The next thing to be mentioned is the pig, under the name of δέλφαξ. Epicharmus calls the male pig δέλφαξ in his Ulysses the Deserter, saying—

I lost by an unhappy chance
A pig (δέλφακα) belonging to the neighbours,
Which I was keeping for Eleusis
And Ceres's mysterious feast.
Much was I grieved; and now he says
That I did give it to th' Achæans,
Some kind of pledge; and swears that I
'Betray'd the pig (τὸν δέλφακα) designedly.

And Anaxilus also, in his Circe, has used the word δέλφαξ in the masculine gender; and moreover has used it of a full-grown pig, saying—

Some of you that dread goddess will transform
To pigs (δέλφακας), who range the mountains and the woods.
Some she will panthers make; some savage wolves,
And terrible lions.

But Aristophanes, in his Fryers, applies the word to female pigs; and says—

The paunch, too, of a sow in autumn born (δέλφακος ὀπωρίνης).

[p. 591] And in his Acharnians he says—

For she is young (νέα), but when she is a sow (δελφακουμένα),
You'll see she'll have a large, fat, ruddy tail;
And if you keep her she'll be a noble pig (χοῖρος καλά).

And Eupolis, in his Golden Age, uses it as feminine; and Hipponax wrote—

῾ως ῾εφεσίη δέλφαξ.

And, indeed, it is the female pig which is more correctly called by this name, as having δελφύας, for that world δελφὺς means a womb. And it is the word from which ἀδελφὸς is derived. But respecting the age of these animals, Cratinus speaks in his Archilochi, saying—

These men have δέλφακες, the others χοῖροι.

And Aristophanes the grammarian, in his treatise on Ages, says—“Those pigs which are now come to a compact form, are called δέλφακες;; but those which are tender, and are full of juice, are called χοῖροι;” and this makes that line of Homer intelligible—

The servants all have little pigs (χοίρεα) to eat,
But on fat hogs (σύες) the dainty suitors feast.¹

And Plato the comic poet, in his Poet, uses the word in the masculine gender, and says—

He led away the pig (τόν δέλφακα) in silence.

But there was ancient custom, as Androtion tells us, for the sake of the produce of the herds, never to slay a sheep which had not been shorn, or which had never had young, oh which account they always ate full-grown animals:

But on fat hogs the dainty suitors feast.

And even to this day the priest of Minerva never sacrifices a lamb, and never tastes cheese. And when, on one occasion, there was a want of oxen, Philochorus says, that a law was passed that they should abstain from slaying them on account of their scarcity, wishing to get a greater number, an to increase the stock by not slaying them. But the Ionians use the word χοῖρος also of the female pig, as Hipponax does, where he says—

With pure libations and the offer'd paunch
Of a wild sow (ἀγρίας χοίρου).

And Sophocles, in his Tænarus, a satyric drama, says—

Should you then guard her, like a chain'd up sow (χοῖρον δεσμίαν)?

[p. 592] And Ptolemy, the king of Egypt, in the ninth book of his Commentaries, says—“When I was at Assus, the Assians brought me a pig (χοῖρον) two cubits and a half in height, and the whole of his body corresponding in length to that height; and of a colour as white as snow: and they said that King Eumenes had been very diligent in buying all such animals of them, and that he had given as much as four thousand drachmæ a piece for one.” And Aeschylus says—

But I will place this carefully fed pig
Within the crackling oven; and, I pray,
What nicer dish can e'er be given to man?

And in another place he says—

A. Is he a white one?
B. Aye, indeed he is
A snow white pig (χοῖρος), and singed most carefully.
A. Now boil him, and take care he is not burnt.

And again in another place he says—

But having kill'd this pig (χοῖρον τόνδε), of the same litter
Which has wrought so much mischief in the house,
Pushing and turning everything upside down.

And these lines have all been quoted by Chamæleon, in his Commentary on Aeschylus.