The liver is on the right side: in this part is situate what has been called the “head of the entrails,” and it is subject to considerable variations. No liver[282] at all was found in a victim which was sacrificed by M. Marcellus, about the period when he was killed in battle against Hannibal; while in a victim which was slain on the following day, a double liver was found. It was wanting, also, in a victim sacrificed by C. Marius, at Utica, and in one which was offered by the Emperor Caius[283] upon the calends of January,[284] on the occasion of his entering the year of the consulship in which he was slain: the same thing happened, also, to his successor, Claudius, in the month in which he was cut off[285] by poison. When the late Emperor Augustus was sacrificing at Spoletum, upon the first day of his entering on the imperial dignity, in six different victims the liver was found rolled over within itself, from the very lowest lobe; and the answer that was given by the diviners was to the effect that, in the course of the year, he would gain a twofold sway. It is of evil omen to find an incision in the head of the entrails, except on occasions of disquietude and alarm; for then it is significant of cutting all cares, and so putting an end to them. The hares that are found in the vicinity of Briletum[286] and Tharne, and in the Chersonnesus on the Propontis, have a double liver; but, what is very singular, if they are removed to another place, they will lose one of them. CHAP. 74.—THE GALL; WHERE SITUATE, AND IN WHAT ANIMALS IT IS DOUBLE. ANIMALS WHICH HAVE NO GALL, AND OTHERS IN WHICH IT IS NOT SITUATE IN THE LIVER. In the liver is the gall, which, however, does not exist in every animal. At Chalcis, in Eubœa, none of the cattle have it, while in the cattle of the Isle of Naxos, it is of extraordinary size, and double, so that to a stranger either of these facts would appear as good as a prodigy. The horse, the mule, the ass, the stag, the roe-buck, the wild boar, the camel, and the dolphin have no gall, but some kinds of rats and mice have it. Some few men are without it, and such persons enjoy robust health and a long life. There are some authors who say that the gall exists in the horse, not in the liver, but in the paunch, and that in the stag it is situate either in the tail or the intestines; and that hence it is, that those parts are so bitter that dogs will not touch them. The gall, in fact, is nothing else but the worst parts of the blood purged off, and for this reason it is that it is so bitter: at all events, it is a well-known fact, that no animal has a liver unless it has blood as well. The liver receives the blood from the heart, to which it is united, and then disperses it in the veins. CHAP. 75.—THE PROPERTIES OF THE GALL.