But on fat hogs the dainty suitors feast.
And even to this day the priest of Minerva never sacrifices a lamb, and never tastes cheese. And when, on one occasion, there was a want of oxen, Philochorus says, that a law was passed that they should abstain from slaying them on account of their scarcity, wishing to get a greater number, and to increase the stock by not slaying them. But the Ionians use the word χοιρος also of the female pig, as Hipponax does, where he says—
With pure libations and the offer'd paunch
Of a wild sow (ἀγρίας χοίρου).
And Sophocles, in his Tænarus, a satyric drama, says—
Should you then guard her, like a chain'd-up sow (χοῖρον δεσμίαν)?
And Ptolemy, the king of Egypt, in the ninth book of his Commentaries, says—"When I was at Assus, the Assians brought me a pig (χοῖρον) two cubits and a half in height, and the whole of his body corresponding in length to that height; and of a colour as white as snow: and they said that King Eumenes had been very diligent in buying all such animals of them, and that he had given as much as four thousand drachmæ a piece for one." And Æschylus says—
But I will place this carefully fed pig
Within the crackling oven; and, I pray,
What nicer dish can e'er be given to man?
And in another place he says—
A. Is he a white one?
B. Aye, indeed he is
A snow-white pig (χοῖρος), and singed most carefully.
A. Now boil him, and take care he is not burnt.
And again in another place he says—