THE RABBIT.
“The conies are but feeble folks, yet make they their houses in the rocks.”[XIX_101] They taught mankind, it is said, the art of fortification, mining, and covered roads.[XIX_102] These skilful engineers come originally from warm climates; from Africa, perhaps, whence they were brought to Spain.
They there became so numerous, and dug so well their holes beneath the houses of Tarragona, that that city was completely overthrown, and the greater part of the inhabitants buried beneath its ruins.[XIX_103]
Catullus calls Spain Cuniculosa Celtiberia (Celtiberian rabbit warren); and two medals, struck in the reign of Adrian, represent that peninsula under the form of a beautiful woman, clothed in a robe and mantle, with a rabbit at her feet. This animal was called in Hebrew, Saphan, of which the Phœnicians have made Spania, and the Latins Hispania.[XIX_104]
Strabo relates that the inhabitants of the Balearic Islands, despairing of being able to oppose the extraordinary propagation of rabbits, which nearly rendered their country uninhabitable, sent ambassadors to Rome to implore assistance against this new kind of enemy.[XIX_105] Augustus furnished them with troops, and the Roman arms were once more victorious.[XIX_106]
Aristotle says nothing of the rabbit, which, probably, was then little known in Greece. It afterwards became common enough, and that of Macedonia, in particular, found favour at tables renowned for delicacies.[XIX_107]
The Romans, those bold innovators in cookery, so desirous of strange and unheard of dishes, would only consent to eat rabbits on condition of their being killed before they had left off sucking, or taken alive from the slaughtered mother, to be immediately transferred to the ardent stoves of their kitchens.[XIX_108] It was certainly reserved for that people to frighten the world by all kinds of culinary anomalies.