414 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



the continent of Italy, as Pliny and other authors fay, 

 were men-eaters likewife. Of the Jews, who lived in 

 the times of Antiochus the illustrious Appion, an Egyp- 

 tian, not Greek writer, as M. de Paw fays, has written, 

 that they ufed to keep a Greek prifoner to eat him at 

 the end of one year. Livy fays of the famous Hanni- 

 bal, that he made his foldiers eat human flefh to encour- 

 age them to war. Pliny feverely cenfures the Greeks 

 for their cuftom of eating all the parts of the human bo- 

 dy, to cure themfelves of different diftempers (x). Is 

 there any wonder then that the Mexicans mould do that 

 from a motive of religion, which the Greeks obferved 

 as a rule of medicine. But we do not pretend to apo- 

 logife for them on this head. Their religion, with re- 

 fpecl: to Cannibalifm, was certainly more barbarous than 

 that of the Romans, Egyptians, or thofe other culti- 

 vated nations ; but, at the fame time, in other points, 

 it is not to be denied, that it was lefs fuperftitious, lefs 

 abfurd, and lefs indecent. 



(x) Quis invenit fingula membra humana mandere ? Qua conje<5tura in- 

 Vlu&us ? Quam poteft medicina ifta origincm habuiffe ? Quis vcneficia inno- 

 centiora fecit quam remedia ? Efto, barbari externique ritu» invenerint ; etiam 

 ire Grxci fuas fecere has artes ? &c. Plin. Hift. Nat. lib. xxviii. cap. i. 



DISSERTATION 



