brothers assisted him; so respectable and important was the office of a cook in those days. And among the Romans, the Censors,—and that was the highest office in the whole state,—clad in a purple robe, and wearing crowns, used to strike down the victims with an axe. Nor is it a random assertion of Homer, when he represents the heralds as bringing in the victims, and whatever else had any bearing on the ratification of oaths, as this was a very ancient duty of theirs, and one which was especially a part of their office—
Two heralds now, despatch'd to Troy, invite
The Phrygian monarch to the peaceful rite;
and again—
Talthybius hastens to the fleet, to bring
The lamb for Jove, th' inviolable king.[1]
And, in another passage, he says—
A splendid scene! Then Agamemnon rose;
The boar Talthybius held; the Grecian lord
Drew the broad cutlass, sheath'd beside his sword.
80. And in the first book of the History of Attica, Clidemus says, that there was a tribe of cooks, who were entitled to public honours; and that it was their business to see that the sacrifices were performed with due regularity. And it is no violation of probability in Athenion, in his Samothracians, as Juba says, when he introduces a cook arguing philosophically about the nature of things and men, and saying—
A. Dost thou not know that the cook's art contributes
More than all others to true piety?
B. Is it indeed so useful? A. Troth it is,
You ignorant barbarian: it releases
Men from a brutal and perfidious life,
And cannibal devouring of each other,
And leads us to some order; teaching us
The regular decorum of the life
Which now we practise. B. How is that? A. Just listen.
Once men indulged in wicked cannibal habits,
And numerous other vices; when a man
Of better genius arose, who first
Sacrificed victims, and did roast their flesh;
And, as the meat surpass'd the flesh of man,
They then ate men no longer, but did slay
The herds and flocks, and roasted them and ate them.
And when they once had got experience
Of this most dainty pleasure, they increased
In their devotion to the cook's employment;
- ↑ Homer, Iliad, iii, 116.
