[573]. De Legg. ii. t. vii. p. 258, sqq.
[574]. Ass’s flesh was commonly eaten by the Athenians. Poll. ix. 48, et Comment. t. vi. p. 938, seq. Their neighbours the Persians, however, enjoyed one dainty not known, I believe, to the Greeks; that is to say, a camel, which, we are told, they sometimes roasted whole. Herod. i. 123. Athen. iv. 6. In the opinion of Aristotle the flesh of this animal was singularly good: ἔχει δὲ καὶ τὰ κρέα καὶ τὸ γάλα ἥδιστα πάντων.—Hist. Anim. vi. 26. It was this passage, perhaps, that first induced Heliogabalus to try a camel’s foot, which he appears afterwards to have much affected. Lamprid. Vit. Anton. Heliogab. § 19. Hist. Aug. Script. p. 195. The same emperor also tried the taste of an ostrich, whose eggs anciently constituted an article of food among certain nations of Africa. Lucian. de Dipsad. § 7.
[575]. Plato, De Legg. vi. t. vii. p. 471.
[576]. Cicero, De Natura Deorum, ii. 64. Dion. Chrysost. i. 280, cum not. Reisk.
[577]. The Pythagoreans, however, must be excluded from this category since they abstained from fish because they kept perpetual silence like themselves.—Athen. vii. 80. Another and a better reason, perhaps, may be discovered in a passage of Archestratos, who, observing that the sea-dog is delicious eating, proceeds to dispose of the objection that it feeds on human flesh, by saying, that all fish do the same. Id. vii. 85. From this fact the Pythagoreans esteemed fish-eaters no better than cannibals at second-hand.
[578]. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 525.
[579]. Amphis ap. Athen. vi. 5.
[580]. Athen. viii. 81. Cf. Xenoph. Hellen. v. i. 23.
[581]. This basket was usually of rushes, in form like a basin, and with a handle passing over the top.—Antich. di Ercol. tav. 21. tom. i. p. 111.
[582]. Athen. vi. 4.