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

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Presently when the tunnies called Amiæ were put on the table, some one said,—Aristotle speaks of this fish, and says that they have gills out of sight, and that they have very sharp teeth, and that they belong to the gregarious and carnivorous class of fishes: and that they have a gall of equal extent with their whole intestines, and a spleen of corresponding proportions. It is said also that when they are hooked, they leap up towards the fisherman, and bite through the line and so escape. And Archippus mentions them in his play entitled the Fishes, where he says—

But when you were eating the fat amiæ.

And Epicharmus in his Sirens says—

A. In the morning early, at the break of day,
We roasted plump anchovies,
Cutlets of well-fed pork, and polypi;
And then we drank sweet wine.
B. Alack! alack! my silly wife detain'd me,
Chattering near the monument.
A. I'm sorry for you. Then, too, there were mullets
And large plump amiæ—
A noble pair i' the middle of the table,
And eke a pair of pigeons,
A scorpion and a lobster.

And Aristotle, inquiring into the etymology of the name, says that they were called amiæ, παρὰ τὸ ἅμα ἰέναι ταῖς παρα- [p. 437] πλησίαις (from their going in shoals with their companions of the same kind). But Icesius, in his treatise on the Materials of Food, says that they are full of a wholesome juice, and tender, but only of moderate excellency as far as their digestible properties go, and not very nutritious.