But it may be said they cultivated the plant themselves; that is, in other words, that the Helots raised it for them.  If so, how happens it that all mention of the berry is omitted in the catalogue of their monthly contributions to the Phiditia, which are said to have consisted of meal, wine, cheese, figs, and a very little money?[8] and when the king of Pontus[9] indulged in the expensive fancy of buying to himself (not hiring, let it be recollected) a cook, to make that famous broth which Dionysius found so detestable, how came he not at the same time to think of buying a pound of coffee also?  Moreover, if we consider its universal popularity at present, it is hardly to be supposed that, in ancient times, coffee would have suited no palate except that of a Lacedaemonian.

With respect to the colour of the broth, I am reminded of my own reference to Pollux, lib. vi. who is represented by your correspondent to say that the [Greek:  melas zomos] was also called [Greek:  aimatia], a word which Messrs. Scott and Liddell interpret to {301} denote “blood broth,” and go on to state, upon the authority of Manso, that blood was a principal ingredient in this celebrated Lacedaemonian dish.  Certainly, if the case were really so, the German writer would have succeeded in preparing for us a most disagreeable and warlike kind of food; but my astonishment has not been small, upon turning to the passage, to find that “R.O.’s” authorities had misled him, and that Pollux really says nothing of the kind.  His words (I quote from the edition 2 vols. folio, Amst. 1706) are these,

[Greek:  “O de melas kaloumenos zomos Lakonikon men hos epi to poly to edesma. esti de hae kaloumenae haimatia. to de thrion hode eskeuazon, k.t.l.”]

The general subject of the section is the different kinds of flesh used by man for food, and incidentally the good things which may be made from these; which leads the writer to mention by name many kinds of broth, amongst which he says towards the end, is that called [Greek:  melas zomos] which might be considered almost as a Lacedaemonian dish; adding further, that there was a something called haematia (and this might have been a black pudding or sausage for anything that appears to the contrary); also the thrium, which was prepared in a manner he proceeds to describe.  Now the three parts of the sentence which has been given above in the original do, to the best of my judgment, clearly refer to three different species of food; and I would appeal to the candid opinion of any competent Greek scholar, whether, according to the idiom of that language, the second part of it is so expressed, as to connect it with, and make it explanatory of, the first.  We want, for this purpose, a relative, either with or without [Greek:  esti]; and the change of gender in haematia seems perfectly unaccountable if it is intended to have any reference to [Greek:  zomos].

It may not be unimportant to add that the significant silence of Meursius, (an author surely not to be lightly thought of) who in his Miscellanea Laconica says nothing of blood broth at the Phiditia, implies that he understood the passage of Pollux as intended to convey the meaning expressed above.