De sollertia animalium

AUTOBULUS. Yet that is the very source, my dear Soclarus, from which they say insensibility spread among men and the sort of savagery that learned the taste of slaughter on its hunting trips[*](Cf. Porphyry, De Abstinentia, iii. 20.) and has grown accustomed to feel no repugnance for the wounds and gore of beasts, but. to take pleasure in their violent death. The next step is like what

happened at Athens[*](See 998 b infra and cf. Müller, Hist. Graec. Frag. i. p. 269, Ephorus, frag. 125; it is not, however, accepted as from Ephorus by Jacoby (cf. Sallust, Catiline, li. 28-31). We must remember, during the following discussion, that zoology used to be the handmaid of ethics.): the first man put to death by the Thirty was a certain informer who was said to deserve it, and so was the second and the third; but after that they went on, step by step, until they were laving hands on honest men and eventually did not spare even the best of the citizens. Just so the first man[*](Cf. 993 b infra. The Age of Cronus, when beasts were unharmed, is admirably described in Plato, Politicus, 270 c ff.) to kill a bear or a wolf won praise; and perhaps some cow or pig was condemned as suitable to slay because it had tasted the sacred meal placed before it.[*](That is, they put grain on the altar to make the animal volunteer, as it were, to die (Post); and the consent of the victim was secured by pouring water on it to make it shake its head. See Mor. 729 e and the article Opfer in RE, xviii. 612.) So from that point, as they now went on to eat the flesh of deer and hare and antelope, men were introduced to the consumption of sheep and, in some places, of dogs and horses.

The tame goose and the dove upon the hearth,

as Sophocles[*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 314, frag. 782; Pearson, vol. III, p. 68, frag. 866.) says, were dismembered and carved for food - not that hunger compelled men as it does weasels and cats, but for pleasure and as an appetizer.[*](Cf. 991 d, 993 b, 995 c infra. Or as meat to go with their bread; for fowl is not ordinarily an appetizer.) Thus the brute[*](From this point to the end of chapter 5 (963 f) the greater part of the text is excerpted by Porphyry, De Abstinentia, iii. 20-24 (pp. 211-220, ed. Nauck). This indirect transmission, with its not infrequent changes, omissions, and variations, gives valuable evidence; but obvious errors on either side have not been mentioned here.) and the natural lust to kill in man were fortified and rendered inflexible to pity, while gentleness was, for the most part, deadened. It was in this way, on the contrary, that the Pythagoreans,[*](Cf. 964 f, 993 a infra, and Mor. 86 d, 729 e. The practice is correctly stated; the alleged motive is not. The taboo on meat stemmed from belief in the transmigration of souls (Andrews).) to inculcate humanity and compassion, made a practice of kindness to animals; for habituation has a strange power to lead men onward by a gradual familiarization of the feelings.

Well, we have somehow fallen unawares into a discussion not unconnected with what we said yesterday nor yet with the argument that is presently to take place to-day. Yesterday, as you know, we proposed the thesis that all animals partake in one way or another of reason and understanding, and thereby offered our young hunters a field of competition not lacking in either instruction or pleasure: the question whether land or sea animals have superior intelligence. This argument, it seems, we shall to-day adjudicate if Aristotimus and Phaedimus stand by their challenges; for Aristotimus put himself at his comrades’ disposal to advocate the land as producer of animals with superior intelligence, while the other will be pleader for the sea.

SOCLARUS.. They’ll stand by their word, Autobulus; they’ll be here any minute now. Early this morning I observed them both preparing for the fray. But, if you like, before the contest begins, let us review the discussion of whatever topics are germane to our conversation of yesterday, but were not then discussed, either because no occasion offered, or, since we were in our cups, were treated too lightly. I thought, in fact, that I caught the reverberation of a material objection from the Stoa[*](Cf. von Arnim, S.V.F. ii, pp. 49 ff., 172 ff.; and Pohlenz, B.P.W. xxiii (1903), col. 966, on Chrysippus, frag. 182.): just as the immortal is opposed to the mortal and the imperishable to the perishable, and, of course, the incorporeal to the corporeal; just so, if there is rationality, the irrational must exist as its opposite and counterpart.

This alone, among all these pairings, must not be left incomplete and mutilated.