however, that acorns long continued to be a common article of food in Arcadia,[522] but only those of the fagus.[523] ----- Footnote 519: See Goguet, i. 160, seq. Footnote 520: Hist. of Greece, i. 9, note. Cf. Anab. ii. 3. Footnote 521: Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 85. Footnote 522: Cf. Polluc. i. 234. Footnote 523: Paus. viii. 1. 6. Pliny observes that the fruit of the fagus is sweet “dulcissima omnium glans fagi.” Hist. Nat. xvii. 6. Cf. Lucian. Amor. § 33. Theophrast. Hist. Plant. iii. 8, 2. This Arcadian dainty is still eaten in Spain. “In some parts (of Navarre) the mountains are girt at their base by forests of chestnut trees or of the Spanish oak called _encina_, whose acorn roasted, is as palatable as the chestnut.” (A Campaign with Zumalacarregui, i. 40.) The same writer observes, that the fruit of the ever-green arbutus, in shape like a cherry, though insipid and intoxicating in its effects, is also eaten by the omniverous Spaniards, p. 51. See also Laborde’s Itinerary of Spain, iv. 80, and Capell Brooke’s Travels, ii. 72. ----- If we may credit some writers the ancient inhabitants of Hellas made use of food much more revolting than acorns, having been, in fact, cannibals who devoured each other. There, no doubt, existed among the Greeks of later times traditions of a state of society in which human flesh was eaten by certain fierce and lawless individuals, such as Polyphemos, but nothing in their literature can authorise us to infer that the practice was ever general. Superstition seems on very extraordinary occasions to have impelled them into the guilt of human sacrifice, when the officiating priests, and, perhaps, some few others, probably tasted of the entrails, and Galen had conversed with individuals who had been led by mere curiosity to sup on man’s flesh, and found its flavour to resemble that of tender beef.[524] But instances of this kind prove nothing; for how often does it not happen that mariners are even now driven by distressful circumstances to slaughter and eat their companions at sea! And yet shall we on this account pass for anthropophagi with posterity? ----- Footnote 524: See Bochart. Geog. Sac. i. 309. ----- The Greeks, however, were not content with one set of traditions, or upon the whole inclined to give currency to the most gloomy. On the contrary, their poets casting backward the light of their imagination, and kindling up the landscapes of the far past, called up the vision of the golden age, when neither the domestic hearth[525] nor the altars of the gods were stained with blood, and the fruits of the field,—milk, honey, cheese, and butter sufficed to sustain life. But we must escape from these shadowy times, and come down to the age of beef and mutton. ----- Footnote 525: Cf. Plat. De Legg. vi. t. vii. p. 471. -----