It was long before men in any country slew the ox for food; his great utility was his protection, and in some parts of the East the well-meaning priesthood at length compassed him round with the armour of superstition, which outlasted the occasion, and in India has come down in nearly all its strength to our own day. It was otherwise in Greece. There common sense quickly dissipated the illusion, which, while it was necessary, had guarded the ox, and beef became the favourite food of its hardy and active inhabitants, who likewise fed indiscriminately on sheep, goats, deer, hares, and almost every other animal, wild or tame. It has been seen that in remote ages fish did not constitute any great part of the sustenance of the Greeks. But public opinion afterwards underwent a very considerable change. From having been held in so little estimation as to be left chiefly to the use of the poor, in the historical ages it became their greatest luxury.[577] And there arose among gourmands, those ancient St. Simonians, whose god was their belly, a kind of enthusiastic rivalry as to who should be first in the morning at the fish-market, and bear away, as in triumph, the largest Copaic eels, the finest pair of soles, or the freshest _anthias_.[578] On this subject, therefore, our details must be somewhat more elaborate than on beef and mutton. And first, we shall take the reader along with us to the market, whither it will be advisable that he carry as little money as possible, since, according to the comic poets, your Athenian fishmonger, not content with being a mere rogue, dealt a little also in the assassin’s trade.[579] ----- Footnote 577: The Pythagoreans, however, must be excluded from this category since they abstained from fish because they kept perpetual silence like themselves.—Athen. vii. 80. Another and a better reason, perhaps, may be discovered in a passage of Archestratos, who, observing that the sea-dog is delicious eating, proceeds to dispose of the objection that it feeds on human flesh, by saying, that all fish do the same. Id. vii. 85. From this fact the Pythagoreans esteemed fish-eaters no better than cannibals at second-hand. Footnote 578: Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 525. Footnote 579: Amphis ap. Athen. vi. 5. ----- The first thing which a rich gourmand inquired in the morning was, which way the wind blew. If from the north, and there was anything like a sea, he remained sullenly at home, for no fishing smacks could in that case make the Peiræeus;[580] but if the wind sat in any other quarter, out he went eagerly and stealthily with a slave and basket[581] at his heels, casting about anxious looks to discover whether any other impassioned fish-eater had got the start of him on his way to the Agora, who might clear the stalls of the best anthias or thunny before he could reach the spot. ----- Footnote 580: Athen. viii. 81. Cf. Xenoph. Hellen. v. i. 23. Footnote 581: