Hermonax, in his book on the Cretan Languages, gives a catalogue of the different kinds of figs, and speaks of some as ἁμάδεα and as νικύλεα; and Philemon, in his book on Attic Dialects, says, that some figs are called royals, from which also the dried figs are called βασιλίδες, or royal; stating besides, that the ripe figs are called κόλυτρα. Seleucus, too, in his Book on Dialects, says that there is a fruit called γλυκυσίδη, being exceedingly like a fig in shape: and that women guard against eating them, because of their evil effects; as also Plato the comic writer says, in his Cleophon. And Pamphilus says, that the winter figs are called Cydonæa by the Achæans, saying, that Aristophanes said the very same thing in his Lacedæmonian Dialects. Hermippus, in his Soldiers, says that there is a kind of fig called Coracean, using these words—
Either Phibalean figs, or Coracean.Theophrastus, in the second book of his treatise on Plants, says that there is a sort of fig called Charitian Aratean. And in his third book he says, that in the district around the Trojan Ida, there is a sort of fig growing in a low bush, having a leaf like that of the linden-tree; and that it bears red figs, about the size of an olive, but rounder, and in its taste like a medlar. And concerning the fig which is called in Crete the Cyprian fig, the same Theophrastus, in his fourth book of his History of Plants, writes as follows:— "The fig called in Crete the Cyprian fig, bears fruit from its stalk, and from its stoutest branches; and it sends forth a small leafless shoot, like a little root, attached to which is the fruit. The trunk is large, and very like that of the white poplar, and its leaf is like that of the elm. And it produces four fruits, according to the number of the shoots which it puts forth. Its sweetness resembles that of the common fig; and within it resembles the wild fig: but in size it is about equal to the cuckoo-apple.
