“Of whom Hermippus, in his second book on the legislators, writes: Of his laws, according to Xenokrates the philosopher, the three following remain in force at Eleusis--‘to gratify Heaven with the offering of fruits,’ ‘to harass or harm no [innocent] living being.’ ... As to the third, he is in doubt for what particular reason Triptolemus charged them to abstain--whether from believing it to be criminal to kill those that have an identical origin with ourselves (ὁμογενὲς), or from a consciousness that the slaughter of all the most useful animals would be the inevitable consequence of addiction to it, and wishing to render human life mild and innocent, and to preserve those species that are tame and gentle and domesticated with man.”[88] * * * * * Somewhat later than Porphyry, the name of Julian (331-363), the Roman emperor, may here be fitly introduced. During his brief reign of sixteen months he proved himself, if not always a judicious, yet a sincere and earnest reformer of abuses of various kinds, and he may claim to be one of the very few virtuous princes, pagan or christian. Unfortunately the just blame attaching to his ill-judged attempt to suppress the religion of Constantine, from whose family his relatives and himself had suffered the greatest injury and insult, has enabled the lovers of party rather than of truth successfully to conceal from view his undoubted merits. In his manner of living, with which alone we are now concerned, he seems to have almost rivalled the most ascetic of the Platonists or of the Christian anchorets. One of his most intimate friends, the celebrated orator, Libanius, who had often shared the frugal simplicity of his table, has remarked that his “light and sparing diet, which was usually of the vegetable kind, left his mind and body always free and active for the various and important business of an author, a pontiff, a magistrate, a general, and a prince.” That his _frugal_ diet had not impaired his powers, either physical or mental, may sufficiently appear from the fact that--