728 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tive mountains, and repeatedly cut his way through the ranks of his 

 would-be captors with the arm of a Hercules. 



The philosophers of antiquity prided themselves on their frugal 

 habits, which ranked next to godliness in their estimation, as expressed 

 in the famous aphorism, " God needs nothing, and he is next to Him 

 who can do with next to nothing " — whose material needs are the 

 smallest. Primitive habits are certainly favorable to independence, 

 especially in a genial climate, where a man is above the fear of 

 tyranny and all social obligations, who like Shamyl can subsist on the 

 spontaneous gifts of his mother Earth. " Do you know," Cyrus asked 

 the ambassador of a luxurious potentate, " how invincible men are who 

 can live on herbs and acorns ? " If the Saracens had persisted in the 

 simplicity of their fathers, the nineteenth century might see Moorish 

 kingdoms in southern Europe, and Arabian science and fruit-gardens 

 in the place of deserts and m.onkish besottedness. Cato needed no pro- 

 phetic inspiration to predict the downfall of a city where a small fish 

 could fetch a higher price than a fattened ox. 



Lycurgus, the Spartan, makes the diet of his countrymen the sub- 

 ject of careful legislation, but seems to have feared excesses in quality 

 rather than in quantity : as long as the black soup and other national 

 dishes remained orthodox in regard to the prescribed simple ingredients, 

 free indulgence of the most exacting appetites was not only permitted 

 but encouraged. At the philosophic reunions of the Lyceum the bill 

 of fare permitted a choice between dried figs and honey-water in addi- 

 tion to the wheat-bread, which could not be refused, and Greece was 

 the model of early Roman institutions in this as well as in other re- 

 spects. Fruit and bread-cakes, spiced with Attic salt and music, enter- 

 tained the friends of Plato at those suppers of the gods of three or 

 four hours, which Aristotle preferred to so many years on the throne 

 of Persia ; but the very next generation witnessed the drunken riots 

 of Babylon and the general introduction of Persian manners and lux- 

 uries. 



The ancients undoubtedly were our superiors in hygienic insight, 

 but among the many judicious restrictions of their dietary regimens 

 there are some that we must attribute to prejudice or leave utterly un- 

 accounted for. The Mosaic interdiction of rabbit-flesh, wild swan, and 

 finless fishes has been very learnedly explained as a necessary conse- 

 quence of general laws, which had to include those animals for the 

 sake of consistency ; but what on earth or below earth could induce 

 Pythagoras, the great philosopher, to prohibit the use of beans — nay, 

 even denounce any contact with the shell, the leaves, or the roots of 

 the poor plant as a dreadful pollution ? Such was the stigma he had 

 attached to the violation of this rule, we are told, that a body of sol- 

 diers from Magna Grsecia, who all belonged to the Pythagorean sect, 

 permitted themselves to be cut to pieces or captured rather than save 

 themselves by crossing a bean-field ! 



