iij OF PIGS 169 



in the mire, which is as much rest and refreshment 

 to them, as bathing is to a human being. When the 

 sows haveall conceived, the boars are again separated 

 from the herd. A boar of eight ^ months begins to 

 procreate, and remains able to do so adequately up 

 to three years old; then he goes down-hill,^ until 

 finally he reaches the butcher, the appointed go- 

 between for pork and people. 



The pig is called in Greek Ig, formerly dugj from 

 the verb dvsL-., to sacrifice, for when men first sacri- 

 ficed animals, they began apparently with the race 

 of pigs. Traces of this remain in the sacrifice of a 

 pig at the initiation^ in the Eleusinian mysteries; 

 the killing of one at the initiation of peace when 

 a treaty * is struck; and in the fact that at the begin- 



-,ible to a copyist. Lama in modern Italian means a swamp. 

 l^ante (Inf., xx, 99) : Non molto ha corso, che irova una lama. 



* Octo mensum. Columella (vii, 9, 3) says six. Possunt 

 tamen etiam semestres implere feminam. 



* // retro. He deteriorates, as in Vergil's oft-quoted lines : 



Sic omnia fatis 

 In peius mere et retro sublapsa referri. 



Ccrfumella (vii, 9, 4) says that boars, when three or four years 

 <rfd, are castrated and then fattened, bimi aut quadrimi cos- 

 trmUur ut possint pinguescere; Aristotle (H. A., ix, 50) that 

 ovariotomy was performed on sows for the same purpose. 

 Icri/ivirat ii Kai i) Kairpiit rwv 9t]\iiCjv vutv ioart . . . TriaivKrOai raxtojC- 



* Iniiiis Cereris. did rb iv roTf: ^vtrrrip'toiQ tTiq ArjfirjTpof; Ovtadai 

 XMJpovc. Scholiast on Aristophanes' Achar., 729 (764). 



* Foedus. Cf. Vergil, viii, 641 : Stabant; et caesa iungebant 

 dera porca^ where Servius {ad loc.) says that Vergil ought 



* have written porco (as Varro here) : faUo auiem ait porca ; 

 'iam ad hoc genus sacrificii porcxxs adhibebatur. According to 



