this operation, they fatten more quickly.[2072] M. Apicius[2073] made the discovery, that we may employ the same artificial method of increasing the size of the liver of the sow, as of that of the goose;[2074] it consists in cramming them with dried figs, and when they are fat enough, they are drenched with wine mixed with honey, and immediately killed. There is no animal that affords a greater variety to the palate of the epicure; all the others have their own peculiar flavour, but the flesh of the hog has nearly fifty different flavours. Hence it is, that there are whole pages of regulations made by the censors, forbidding the serving up at banquets of the belly, the kernels,[2075] the testicles, the womb, and the cheeks. However, notwithstanding all this, the poet Publius,[2076] the author of the Mimes, when he ceased to be a slave, is said to have given no entertainment without serving up the belly of a sow, to which he also gave the name of “sumen.” CHAP. 78.—THE WILD BOAR; WHO WAS THE FIRST TO ESTABLISH PARKS FOR WILD ANIMALS. The flesh of the wild boar is also much esteemed. Cato, the Censor, in his orations, strongly declaimed against the use of the brawn of the wild boar.[2077] The animal used to be divided into three portions, the middle part of which was laid by,[2078] and is called boar’s chine. P. Servilius Rullus was the first Roman who served up a whole boar at a banquet; the father of that Rullus, who, in the consulship of Cicero, proposed the Agrarian law. So recent is the introduction of a thing which is now in daily use. The Annalists have taken notice of such a fact as this, clearly as a hint to us to mend our manners; seeing that now-a-days two or three boars are consumed, not at one entertainment, but as forming the first course only. (52.) Fulvius Lupinus was the first Roman who formed parks[2079] for the reception of these and other wild animals: he first fed them in the territory of Tarquinii: it was not long, however, that imitators were found in L. Lucullus and Q. Hortensius.[2080] The wild sow brings forth once only in the year. The males are very fierce during the rutting time; they fight with each other, having first hardened their sides by rubbing them against the trees, and covered themselves with mud. The females, as is the case with animals of every kind, become more fierce just after they have brought forth. The wild boar is not capable of generating before the first year. The wild boar of India[2081] has two curved teeth, projecting from beneath the muzzle, a cubit in length; and the same number projecting from the forehead, like the horns of the young bull. The hair of these animals, in a wild state, is the colour of copper, the others are black. No species whatever of the swine is found in Arabia. CHAP. 79. (53.)—ANIMALS IN A HALF-WILD STATE.