[Essays and Miscellanies by Plutarch]@TWC D-Link book
Essays and Miscellanies

BOOK V
13/34

My friend Antipater said that years were anciently called [Greek omitted], and that the particle [Greek omitted] in composition signified greatness; and therefore old wine, that had been kept for many years, was called by Achilles [Greek omitted].
I put them in mind that some imagine that [Greek omitted], hot, is signified by [Greek omitted], and that hotter means really faster, as when we command servants to move themselves more hotly or in hotter haste.

But I must confess, your dispute is frivolous, since it is raised upon this supposition that if [Greek omitted], signifies more pure wine, Achilles's command would be absurd, as Zoilus of Amphipolis imagined.
For first he did not consider that Achilles saw Phoenix and Ulysses to be old men, who are not pleased with diluted wine, and upon that account forbade any mixture.

Besides, he having been Chiron's scholar, and from him having learned the rules of diet, he considered that weaker and more diluted liquors were fittest for those bodies that lay at ease, and were not employed in their customary exercise or labor.

Thus with the other provender he gave his horses smallage, and this upon very good reason; for horses that lie still grow sore in their feet, and smallage is the best remedy in the world against that.

And you will not find smallage or anything of the same nature given to any other horses in the whole "Iliad." Thus Achilles, being experienced in physic, provided suitable provender for his horses, and used the lightest diet himself, as the fittest whilst he lay at ease.


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