344 
Pliny's natural history. 
[Book VIII- 
different houses in the city. In the wild state also, they have 
the sense to pass their urine in plashy places, that they may 
destroy all traces of them, and so lighten themselves for 
flight.^ The female is spayed, just as is done with the camel ; 
after they have fasted two days, they are suspended by the 
hind feet, and the orifice of the womb is cut ; after this ope- 
ration, they fatten more quickly.^ 
M. Apicius^ made the discovery, that we may employ the 
same artificial method of increasing the size of the liver of the 
sow, as of that of the goose f it consists in cramming them 
with dried figs, and when they are fat enough, they are drenched 
with wine mixed with honey, and immediately killed. There 
is no animal that affords a greater variety to the palate of the 
epicure ; all the others have their own peculiar flavour, but the 
flesh of the hog has nearly fifty different flavours. Hence it 
is, that there are whole pages of regulations made by the cen- 
sors, forbidding the serving up at banquets of the belly, the 
kernels,^ the testicles, the womb, and the cheeks. However, 
notwithstanding all this, the poet Publius,^^ the author of the 
Mimes, when he ceased to be a slave, is said to have given 
no entertainment without serving up the belly of a sow, to 
which he also gave the name of sumen." 
CHAP. 78. THE WILD BOAR; WHO WAS THE FIEST TO ESTABLISH 
PARKS EOR WILD ANIMALS. 
The flesh of the wild boar is also much esteemed. Cato, 
^ Pliny speaks of this more at large in B. xxviii. c. 60. — B. 
6 This operation, and the effect of it, are mentioned by Aristotle, Hist. 
Anim. B. ix. c. 79, and by Columella, B. vii. c. 9. — B. 
There were three Eomans of this name, celebrated for their skill in 
gastronomy ; of these the most illustrious lived in the reigns of Augustus 
and Tiberius. A treatise (probably spurious) is extanfe, to which his name 
is attached, entitled " De Arte Culinaria" — " On the Art of Cookery." Pliny 
refers to him again, B. xix. c. 41, and he is mentioned by many others of 
the classical writers. — B. 
8 See B. X. c. 1. A much more cruel mode of increasing the liver of 
this animal, by confining it in hot ovens, is practised at the present day, to 
satisfy the palate of the admirers of the Strashmg pates defoies gras, 
9 Pliny, in B. ix. c. 66, employs the expression " tonsillse in homine, 
in sue glandulse, " as if he considered them analogous parts, — B. See 
Piautus passim. 
Publius Syrus was a comic performer and a writer, who acquired con- 
siderable celebrity ; he lived during the reign of Augustus. — B. 
