122 
pltnt's natueal histoet. 
[Book YIl, 
selves the most careful observers, as well as of the longest 
standing. 
CHAP. 2. THE WOI^DERFTJL POEMS OF DIEPEEENT NATIONS. 
"We have already stated, that there are certain tribes of the 
Scythians, and, indeed, many other nations, which feed upon 
human flesh.^^ This fact itself might, perhaps, appear in- 
credible, did we not recollect, that in the very centre of the 
earth, in Italy and Sicily, nations form^erly existed with these 
monstrous propensities, the Cyclopes, and the Lsestrygones, for 
example ; and that, very recently, on the other side of the Alps, 
it was the custom to offer human sacrifices, after the manner 
of those nations and the difference is but small between 
sacrificing human beings and eating them.^^ 
In the vicinity also of those who dwell in the northern re- 
28 Ajasson does not hesitate to style this remark, " ridiculum sane 
as every one knows that the Greeks were more noted for their lively ima- 
gination, than for the correctness of their observations. — B. Surely Ajas- 
son must have forgotten the existence of such men as Aristotle and Theo- 
phrastus ! 
29 Pliny has previously denominated the Scythians " Anthropophagi ;" 
and in B. iv. c. 26, and B. vi. c. 20, he employs the word as the proper 
name of one of the Scythian tribes. — B. 
30 See B. iii. c. 9. 
21 See B. xxxvi. c. 5. 
32 There can be no doubt, that cannibalism has existed at all times, 
and that it now exists in some of the Asiatic and Polynesian islands ; but 
we must differ from Pliny in his opinion respecting the near connection 
between human sacrifices and cannibalism ; the first was strictly a religious 
rite, the other was the result of very different causes ; perhaps, in some 
cases, the want of food ; but, in most instances, a much less pardonable 
motive. — B, Still, however, if nations go so far as to sacrifice human 
beings, there is an equal chance that a religious impulse may prompt them 
to taste the flesh ; and when once this has been done, there is no telling 
how soon it may be repeated, and that too for the gratification of the palate. 
According to Macrobius, human sacrifices were ofi'ered at Rome, down to 
the time of Brutus, who, on the establishment of the Republic, abolished 
them. "We read, however, in other authorities, that in 116, e.g., two Gauls, 
a male and a female, were sacrificed by the priests in one of the streets 
of Rome, shortly after which such practices were forbidden by the senate, 
except in those cases in which they had been ordered by the Sibylline 
books. Still we read, in the time of Augustus, of one hundred knights 
being sacrificed by his orders, at Perusia, and of a similar immolation in 
the time of the emperor Aurelian, a.d. 270. These, however, were all ex- 
ceptional cases, and do not imply a custom of offering human sacrifices. 
