44 plint's NATUEAL HISTOET. [Book XVIII. 



bean ;" indeed, some attempts have even been made to use it 

 for bread. Beiin meal is known as " lomentum;" and, as is 

 the case with the meal of all leguminous plants, it adds con- 

 eiderably, when mixed with flour, to the weight of the bread. 

 Beans are on sale at the present day for numerous purposes, 

 and are employed for feeding cattle, and man more particu- 

 larly. They are mixed, also, among most nations, with 

 wheat, *^ and panic more particularly, either whole or lightly 

 broken. In our ancient ceremonials, too, bean pottage^^ occu- 

 pies its place in the religious services of the gods. Beans are 

 mostly eaten together with other food, but it is generally 

 thought that they dull the senses, and cause sleepless nights 

 attended with dreams. Hence it is that the bean has been 

 condemned" by P.ythagoras ; though, according to some, the 

 reason for this denunciation was the belief which he enter- 

 tained that the souls of the dead are enclosed in the bean : it 

 is for this reason, too, that beans are used in the funereal ban- 

 quets of the Parentalia." According to Yarro, it is for a 

 similar cause that the Flamen abstains from eating beans : in 

 addition to which, on the blossom of the bean, there are cer- 

 tain letters of ill omen to be found. 



There are some peculiar religious usages connected with the 

 bean. It is the custom to bring home from the harvest a bean 

 by way of auspice, which, from that circumstance, has the 

 name of '' referiva."^^ In sales by public auction, too, it is 

 thought lucky to include a bean in the lot for sale. It is a 

 fact, too, that the bean is the only one among all the grains 

 that fills out at the increase of the moon,^ however much it 

 may have been eaten away : it can never be thoroughly boiled 

 in sea-water, or indeed any other Avater that is salt. 



"' The Faba vulgaris of the modern naturalists. It is supposed to have 

 originally come from Persia. 



^ It is said that this mixture is still employed in the Valais and in 

 Savoy. ^ ^ 



*' Fabata. 



" IJcans were used in ancient times, in place of balls or pebbles, in 

 votinjT by ballot. Hence it has been suggested that Pythagoras, in recom- 

 mending his disciples to abstain from beans, meant to advise them to have 

 nothing to do with politics. 



*3 The sacrifices offered to the Manes or spirits of deceased relations. 

 Sec Ovid's Fasti, B. ii. I. 56,5. 



" ''Brought homo." The bean was offered up, to ensure good luck. 



w Didymus, in the Geoponica, B. ii. c. 33, repeats this absurdity. 



