While thus careful of the lives and feelings of the innocent non-human races, he recognised the necessity of making war upon the ferocious _carnivora_. Yet to such a degree had he become familiar with the habits and dispositions of the lower animals that he is said, by the exclusive use of vegetable food, not only to have tamed a formidable bear, which by its devastations on their crops had become the terror of the country people, but even to have accustomed it to eat that food only for the remainder of its life. The story may be true or fictitious, but it is not incredible; for there are well-authenticated instances, even in our own times, of true _carnivora_ that have been fed, for longer or shorter periods, upon the non-flesh diet.[8] “Amongst other reasons, Pythagoras,” says Iamblichus, “enjoined abstinence from the flesh of animals because it is conducive to peace. For those who are accustomed to abominate the slaughter of other animals, as iniquitous and unnatural, will think it still more unjust and unlawful to kill a man or to engage in war.” Specially, he “exhorted those politicians who are legislators to abstain. For if they were willing to act justly in the highest degree, it was indubitably incumbent upon them not to injure any of the lower animals. Since how could they persuade others to act justly, if they themselves were proved to be indulging an insatiable avidity by devouring these animals that are allied to us. For through the communion of life and the same elements, and the sympathy thus existing, they are, as it were, conjoined to us by a fraternal alliance.”[9] Maxims how different from those in favour in the present “year of grace,” 1877! If the refined thinker of the sixth century B.C. were now living, what would be his indignation at the enormous slaughter of innocent life for the public banquets at which our statesmen and others are constantly _fêted_, and which are recorded in our journals with so much magniloquence and minuteness? His hopes for the regeneration of his fellow-men would surely be terribly shattered. We may apply the words of the great Latin satirist, Juvenal, who so frequently denounces in burning language the luxurious gluttony of his countrymen under the Empire--“What would not Pythagoras denounce, or whither would he not flee, could he see these monstrous sights--he who abstained from the flesh of all other animals as though they were human?” (_Satire_ xv.) How long the communistic society of Krotona remained undisturbed is uncertain. Inasmuch as its reputation and influence were widely spread, it may be supposed that the outbreak of the populace (the origin of which is obscure), by which the society was broken up and his disciples massacred, did not happen until many years after its establishment. At all events, it is commonly believed that Pythagoras lived to an advanced age, variously computed at eighty, ninety, or one hundred years.