According to legend, the ancient Greek poet Philoxenus wished for a throat as long as that of a crane so he could protract the time he spent swallowing. Another formulation of this desire, writes literary critic and historian of ancient Greek literature Pauline LeVen, comes from the third-century BCE poet Machon, who claimed Philoxenus wished “he had a four-foot long throat so as to be able to enjoy food and drink all at the same time.” This gluttony was deadly, writes classical philologist Ioannis M. Konstantakos: Philoxenus caused his own death by devouring a gigantic octopus. Before he had quite finished his meal, he began to perish. With the doctor called to his bedside, he expressed himself with Stoic resignation—all his affairs were in order, his life’s work complete, and his last wish was to polish off the final bite of octopus so that he could take it with him to the Underworld.

Whatever he may have been in life, in memory Philoxenus was transformed into a stock character out of Athenian comedy: the opsophagos. The root of the word is opson, which originally referred to anything that might accompany a starchy, grain-based staple dish, but came more and more to signify fish. An opsophagos, then, is a fish addict—someone whose desire for seafood becomes a self-destructive obsession. Unable to wait for their dainties, they suck down fish sizzling hot, without a care for burning themselves. Some were even said to have developed a kind of heat-resistance in their fingertips.

Part of the story here is that, as social and cultural historian James Davidson argues in “Fish, Sex and Revolution in Athens,” fresh fish was expensive, so opson enjoyment was a form of conspicuous consumption. In the great public square of the fish market, it was easy to see who was shelling out for fine seafood and who couldn’t afford it. In this context, the opsophagos became a figure of moral panic: perhaps a wealthy person squandering their riches in momentary pleasure, a fool living above their means, or a selfish dinner guest, monopolizing all the best dishes.

Even Socrates concerned himself with the issue. The philosopher and historian Xenophon recounts a dinner at which Socrates notices one guest hogging the sides and neglecting his bread, and he accuses the man of being an opsophagos and urges the other guests to “keep an eye” on him. Notably, in Plato’s Republic, when Socrates lays out his vision of a perfect society, he pays careful attention to the citizens’ diet, allowing them only the plainest of relishes—in contrast to the “luxurious State” with its “sauces and sweets in the modern style” and its unrestrained, feverish, greedy, and war-mongering ways.

In this way, being an opsophagos is seen as more than a personal problem; it becomes linked to all kinds of social ills. As Davidson notes, excessive fondness for fish became a stock accusation for unpopular public figures; one corrupt politician was said to have spent all of his bribe money on fish. An opsophagos was a kind of tyrant of the dinner table, brutal, self-absorbed, and unrestrained—with those qualities threatening to spill over into other aspects of life.

But hunger for fish was also more than plain appetite; it was even seen as a form of lust and closely allied to sexual vices, as scholar of ancient Greek language and literature Carl A. Shaw notes. Expanding on Davidson’s work, Shaw argues that “the metaphorical connection between fish and sexual organs is much more prevalent than previously observed” and that this connection played an important role in ancient Greek comedies. Moreover, this connection transcended the play and sexual pun to shape the perception of common sexual transactions. Courtesans, he writes, “were linked metonymically with their genitalia and their genitalia were linked metaphorically with seafood.”

Davidson quotes Anaxandrides’s play Odysseus (c. 370–360 BCE), which placed fourth when performed at the City Dionysia festival, to confirm the sexual pull of fish:

What other profession gets youthful lips burning, gets their fingers fumbling, has their lungs gasping for air, in their haste to swallow? And isn’t it only when it’s well stocked up with fish that the agora can bring about liaisons? For what mortal gets a dinner-date if all he finds for sale when he gets to the counter are fish-fingers, or corbs, or a picarel? And as for some really good-looking man, with what magic words, with what chat-up lines would you overcome his defences, if you take away the fisherman’s profession?

Dangerously addictive, politically destabilizing, irresistibly seductive: who knew seafood could be so powerful? The opsophagos was a comic figure, to be sure, but like many jokes, it was also a cipher for the anxieties of the joke-tellers.

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