BOOK VIII. Lxxvn. 209-LXXviii. 212 



given a drink of mead. Nor does any animal supply 

 a larger number of materials for an eating-house : 

 they have almost fifty flavours, whereas all other 

 meats have one each. Hence pages of sumptuary 

 laws, and the prohibition of hog's paunches, sweet- 

 breads, testicles, matrix and cheeks for banquets, 

 although nevertheless no dinner of the pantomime 

 writer PubHus after he had obtained his freedom is 

 recorded that did not include paunch — ^he actually 

 got from this the nickname of Pig's Paunch. 



LXXVIII. But also wild boar has been a popular Boafi^ meai. 

 luxury. As far back as Cato the Censor " we find his 

 speeches denouncing boar's meat bacon. Neverthe- 

 less a boar used to be cut up into three parts and the 

 middle part served at table, under the name of boar's 

 loin. Pubhus Servilius Rullus, father of the Rullus 

 who brought in the land settlement act during 

 Cicero's consulship,* first served a boar whole at his 

 banquets — so recent is the origin of what is now an 

 evervday affair ; and this occurrence has been noted 

 by historians, presumably for the improvement of 

 the manners of the present day, when it is the 

 fashion for two or three boars to be devoured at 

 one time not even as a whole dinner but as the 

 first course. 



Fulvius Lippinus was the first person of Roman Game- 

 nationahty who invented preserves for wild pigs and v^eserves. 

 the other kinds of game : he introduced keeping wild 

 animals in the district of Tarquinii ; and he did not 

 long lack imitators, Lucius Lucullus and Quintus 

 Hortensius. 



Wild pigs breed once a year. The boars are very 

 rough when mating ; at this period they fight each 

 other, hardening their flanks by rubbing against 



147 



