Some of these birds, known as game-cocks, are reared for nothing but warfare and perpetual combats, and have even shed a lustre thereby on their native places, Rhodes and Tanagra. The next rank is considered to belong to those of Melos and Chalcis. Hence, it is with very good reason that the consular purple of Rome pays these birds such singular honors. From the feeding of these creatures the omens by fowls are derived; they regulate day by day the movements of our magistrates, and open or shut to them their own houses, as the case may be; they give an impulse to the fasces of the Roman magistracy, or withhold them; they command battles or forbid them, and furnish auspices for victories to be gained in every part of the world. It is these that hold supreme rule over those who are themselves the rulers of the earth, and whose entrails and fibres are as pleasing to the gods as the first spoils of victory. Their note, when heard at an unusual hour or in the evening, has also its peculiar presages; for, on one occasion, by crowing the whole night through for several nights, they presaged to the Bœotians that famous victory which they gained over the Lacedæmonians; such, in fact, being the interpretation that was put upon it by way of prognostic, as this bird, when conquered, is never known to crow. CHAPTER VIII. THE GOOSE. The goose also keeps a vigilant guard; a fact which is well attested by the defence of the Capitol, at a moment when, by the silence of the dogs, the commonwealth had been betrayed: for which reason the Censors always, as their first duty, attend to the farming-out of the feeding of the sacred geese. One might almost be tempted to think that these creatures have an appreciation of wisdom: for it is said, that one of them was the constant companion of the philosopher, Lacydes, and would never leave him, either in public or when at the bath, by night or by day. Our people, however, are more wise; for they esteem the goose only for the excellence of its liver. When they are crammed, this grows to a very large size, and, on being taken from the animal, is made still larger by being soaked in honeyed milk. It is matter of debate who first discovered so great a delicacy; whether it was Scipio Metellus, a man of consular dignity, or Marcus Seius, a contemporary of his, and a Roman of equestrian rank. But there is no dispute that it was Messalinus Cotta, the son of the orator Messala, who first discovered the art of roasting the webbed feet of the goose, and of cooking them in a ragout with cocks’ combs.