Ill] OF BEES AND APIARIES 325 



science, and from them we learn to work, to build, 



5 and to store up food, for those three things are their 

 concern: namely, food, house, and work; nor is 

 the wax the same thing as the food, the honey, or 

 the house. Each cell in the honey-comb has, as you 

 know, six angles, as many angles as the bee has 

 feet, and geometers prove that when regular hexa- 

 gons are used to fill a circular figure the largest 

 possible amount of its space is thus utilized. They 

 feed outside in the fields, and toil inside the hive, 

 fashioning the sweet substance that gods and men 

 alike love — for the honey-comb reaches the altar, 

 and honey is served both at the beginning of a 



6 dinner-party and for the second ^ course. They have 

 states like ours, with king and government and 

 organized society. They are attracted by nothing 

 unclean, and so none of them ever alights on a 

 space that is dirty or evil-smelling, or even scented 

 with fragrant oils, and so if any goes near them 

 ** oiled"'" they sting him instead of licking him as 

 flies do. Thus they are never seen, like flies, on 

 flesh ' or blood or fat, and so settle only on things 



^ In secundam mensam. Cf. Pliny, xix, 8 (towards the end) : 

 Candidum papaver cuius semen tostum in secunda mensa cum 

 melle apud antiques dabatur. There was honey, too, In the 

 promulsis. 



^ Unctus. Cf. Aristotle, ix, 40. The use ofunguents was very 

 common in the case of wealthy Romans. They bathed before 

 dinner, and were then anointed with sweet-smelling oils, so that 

 unctus sometimes is equivalent to our **in evening, dress." 



' Cf. Aristotle, ix, 40, of which chapter Varro makes large 

 use, as do Columella (bk. ix) and Pliny (bk. xi). 



