418 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



upon them, and the art of rearing and fattening them was 

 much studied, an art which the Latin writers on rural 

 economy have termed Porculatio. Under the Emperors, 

 gluttony and epicurism were carried to an excess equally 

 cruel and disgusting. Among the rich there were two very 

 famous methods of dressing this animal. The one con- 

 sisted in serving up a Hog entire, with one side roasted, and 

 the other boiled. The other mode was called the Trojan, 

 in allusion to the Trojan Horse, whose interior was filled 

 with combatants. The inside of the Hog, from which the 

 viscera had been withdrawn, was stuffed with victims of all 

 kinds, such as thrushes, larks, beccaficoes, oysters, fyc. } the 

 whole being bathed in the best wine and the most exquisite 

 gravy. So great was the expense of this dish, that it be- 

 came the subject of a sumptuary law, while the barbarous 

 modes of torturing this poor animal to death, for the pur- 

 pose of imparting a higher flavour to its flesh, passed un- 

 punished and unregarded. It is not possible to read the 

 anecdotes found in history of such infernal gluttony, with- 

 out horror ; but we shall forbear any mention of atrocities 

 which make us blush at belonging to the species capable 

 of committing them. 



In hot climates the flesh of swine is not good. M.Son- 

 nini remarks, that in Egypt, Syria, and even the southern 

 parts of Greece, this meat, though very white and delicate, 

 is so far from firm, and so surcharged with fat, that it 

 disagrees with the strongest stomachs. It is therefore con- 

 sidered unwholesome, and this will account for its pro- 

 scription by the legislators and priests of the east. Such 

 an abstinence was doubtless indispensable to health under 

 the burning suns of Egypt and Arabia. The Egyptians 

 were permitted to eat pork only once a 'year, on the feast 

 day of the Moon, and then they sacrificed a number of these 

 animals to that planet. At other times, if any one even 

 touched a Hog, he was obliged immediately to plunge into 



